3d Sunday of Lent
March 15, 2020
John 4: 5-42
Early Saturday afternoon (great timing!), the archdiocese of New
York announced the cancelation of all Masses until further notice as a
precaution against the corona virus, which has had a great impact in the N.Y.
metro area, including New Rochelle particularly. Well, the homily, intended for 2 Masses this
weekend, was already done. So here it
is.
“If you knew the gift of God …, you would have
asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4: 10).
“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”
was the plight of the Ancient Mariner in Coleridge’s famous poem. Not our problem, as we hear in today’s
Scriptures. Rather, our problem is the
source of the water and its meaning.
Thru Moses, the Lord provides an abundance of
water in the desert for the thirsty Israelites and their flocks, when they’ve
grown testy--testing the Lord and his faithfulness to them even as they
demonstrate their lack of faith in him, “tempting him and testing him altho
they had seen his works” (cf. Ps 95:9).
St. Paul reminds us that “the love of God has been
poured out into our hearts thru the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom
5:5). In John 8, Jesus teaches us that living water
is a sign of the Holy Spirit; he says, “Whoever believes in me …,
‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him,’” to which the gospel writer
adds, “He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe
in him were to receive” (John 8:38-39).
So, that water pouring out upon us is a symbol behind Paul’s words: “the love of God has been poured into our
hearts thru the Holy Spirit.”
Most obviously, water is the central image in
Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus calls what he offers her “living
water,” i.e., water that contains life—something more than the ordinary water we all need in order to live (and should be drinking more of in these days
when disease lurks around us!). St. John
uses here one of his customary word plays that lead to misunderstanding. For “living water” could also mean simply
“flowing water,” like a rushing stream—cool, refreshing, inviting,
delightful. And so the woman takes it as
she continues her dialog with Jesus:
“Sir, give me this spring of water welling up to eternal life, so that I
may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water” (4:14-15).
Jesus’ thirst, however, isn’t only for the literal
water in the well—a natural enuf need for a Palestinian traveler in the noonday
heat. He thirsts with the same thirst
that he demonstrates when he exclaims on the cross, “I thirst” (John
19:28). It’s not for water but for her
soul.
This thirst is what leads Jesus to break 2 taboos
when he speaks with this woman. 1st,
that he speaks to her at all; in traditional Middle Eastern society, men don’t
speak to women in public, especially women to whom they aren’t related. That’s still true, as you know if you’re
paying attention to happenings, e.g., in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. 2d, this particular woman is a Samaritan, as
St. John notes (4:9). As we know from other
gospels, as well, Jews and Samaritans weren’t on speaking terms with each
other, to put it mildly. Yet Jesus not
only addresses this woman, but he takes the initiative—he’s the 1st to speak.
Further, as we soon learn, this woman is a social
outcast even in her own town. She’s a
sinner. She’s run thru 5 husbands and is
now living with a 6th fellow. That’s why
she has to come to the well to draw water at noon, in the heat, rather than
early in the morning with the rest of the village women—a time for sharing
female company and chattering about their husbands, their children, and
everything going on around them.
But Jesus thirsts for her soul. He reaches her gradually thru his patient
dialog with her, leading her slowly to recognition of his identity. (We might note that this patience, this
taking people where they start from and leading them gradually, is what Pope
Francis keeps asking the Church to do, rather than whacking them immediately
over the head with canon law or even divine law.) She sees him not just as a passer-by, but as
a man of distinction, addressing him as
“Sir” (κυριε in John’s Greek text); then not just as a man of
distinction, but a prophet; not just a prophet, but the Messiah.
Convinced, she becomes an apostle, perhaps with more
enthusiasm than the 12 have. She leads
the town to Jesus and to faith in him.
This anonymous woman’s story is part of the
process of preparation every year for all those who will be baptized or
received into the full communion of Christ’s Church at the Easter vigil. The rest of us read it, usually, only during
the A cycle of readings, the one we’re using this year. But the story of the woman at Jacob’s well is
meant for us too, that we might hear the teaching of Jesus and be
converted. He thirsts for our souls
too. He has the living water of the Holy
Spirit to offer to us too. We, too, are
outcasts, the children of the couple who were cast out of Paradise. If we haven’t run thru 5 spouses, we have
wreaked our share of havoc with the 7 capital sins.
When Jesus cried out on the cross, “I thirst,” the
soldiers guarding him responded with “a sponge soaked in wine” that they put up
to his mouth (John 19:29)—a sop of compassion, true, but a compassion lacking faith, not the same
response that Jesus received finally from the woman at the well. She was led, slowly, to admit her moral
failure and take that as a basis for believing in Jesus as the Christ,
the one who leads people to “worship the Father in Spirit and truth” (4:23),
and then acting on her belief. Two quite different ways of responding to
Jesus’ thirst.
During Lent all of us outcasts are invited to
respond to Jesus’ thirst for our souls:
to respond by confessing our sinfulness (literally, in the sacrament of
Reconciliation) and by believing in Jesus as the Messiah, as our Savior, and
then acting on our belief. Jesus gives
us in the gospel a strong pointer to what that means when he tells the
disciples, “I have food to eat of which you do not know. My food is to do the
will of the one who sent me and to finish his work” (4:32,34). To act on our belief in Jesus as our Savior,
we must do his Father’s will, by worshiping God with pure, spiritual hearts and
by loving our neighbor. We might show
that love concretely in this time when there’s so much anxiety and fear about
public health by being patient and understanding with our family members and
neighbors and by extending care to those who may need it, rather than treating
everyone like a leper—all of us taking appropriate cautions, of course, as
health care officials advise us. Unlike
Jesus, we can’t “finish” the Father’s work, but we can cooperate with him on
the project.
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