Homily for the Week of March 23, 2014

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, 2014

Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42 or 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

         The meeting of Jesus and the woman at Jacob’s well is one  of the more frequently related events in the life of Jesus. Jesus and his disciples lived in Galilee. When they went to Jerusalem they had to go through Samaria where the Samaritans lived. The Samaritans and the other Jewish people did  not get along. .The trip by donkey from Galilee to Judea took about three days.  Samaria would be about the size of Clinton and Essex Counties combined.

         It was about noon and probably getting warm.  Homes did not have running water. Once or twice a day, usually women, would come to draw water from a local well. The Gospel opens with a tired and thirsty Jesus asking a woman of Samaria for a drink of water at Jacob's well. This surprised the woman for several reasons. In the first place, it was unlikely that a man would ask a woman for anything and even more unbelievable that Jesus, a Jew, would ask something of a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jewish people.

         The Samaritan woman came to the well, perhaps for a second time that day, to draw water. Most women would come to the well early in the morning, not at the hottest part of the day. The timing of her visit is a clear sign that she is an outcast within the Samaritan community because of her “many husbands." Jesus could have easily slipped away when she came. The woman herself alludes to this fact: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”  But Jesus did not walk away. Rather he asked for a drink.

         She and Jesus got into a conversation. This conversation between Jesus and  the Samaritan woman is among the most lengthy and most theological found in all the Bible. The most startling aspect of the conversation is that it happens at all. Jesus, an observant Jew of that time, was expected to avoid conversation with women in public.  Rabbis did not even talk to their own wives in public, 

         Water is a major theme of their conversation. Jesus asked her for a drink and then offered her living  water. Jesus also asks to share her drinking vessel, an action that makes him unclean according to Jewish law.  Jesus explained to her that her thirst would return if she drank water from the well; but if she drank the living water Jesus offered her, she would never thirst again. At first she longed for the convenience of not having to draw water from the well every day. After Jesus told her many things about herself, she came to believe that he was the Son of God and called others to him.

         Step by step Jesus and the woman reveal themselves more deeply to each other. At first she calls him “sir,” then she thinks of him as a spiritual teacher, and then she believes he is Jesus. They speak of some of their deepest thirsts: for worship, salvation and the search for truth. They listen intently and allow their perceptions of the other to shift. The focus of the dialogue is not on her marital history. Jesus does not tell her to go and sin no more.  She finally arrives at the conclusion that Jesus is the Messiah, which she shares with her townspeople in question form, so that they too can enter into the process of discovery that will culminate in faith.

         This encounter illustrates a process by which two persons who are very different can be transformed into friendship. They had to let go of their ingrained stereotypes of the other, and they had to stop avoiding each other. They had to be willing to stay in the conversation for a good deal of time and not give up when they stumbled over their differences. They had to be willing to take time with each other.

          After the conversation, the Samaritan woman becomes a disciple. Even though she is an outcast and not a Jew, she returns to her town to lead others to Jesus and to wonder whether she has found the Messiah. The Samaritan townspeople return with her to meet Jesus for themselves, and many are said to come to believe in him.

         The significance of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman has many levels. The first is personal: The woman is herself converted to believe and accept Jesus as Messiah because he speaks with her even though he knows her to be a sinner. The second is social: Having come to know Jesus as the Messiah, the Samaritan woman becomes his teacher to her own people.

         Everything in todays Gospel story started with a conversation between Jesus and the woman. And this is the point that must impress the most. We’ll never get to know Jess if we don’t take time to talk with him. He does not show up in radiant light or thunder and lightning. He comes in ordinary ways, in the guise of a friend or even in a person we may not care for, in the words of a book, especially the book we call the Bible. He shows up in a gathering of believers and in such simple things as water and wine. The important thing is to take the time to listen, to re respond, to  have a conversation. It is important to do more than just tell Jesus what we want him to do for us. We never get to know anyone in our life without spending time with that person. If Jesus is important to us, we need to set time aside to spend with him also. The living water of the Spirit's truth will continually stretch us. The Gospel will never leave us comfortable, but it will always satisfy.