[Salvation]

 

3rd Sundaya of Lent: She Is Us

 

 

(James Tissot - Woman at the Well)

 

"Sir, give me this water . . ."

The Word for Sunday: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/032314.cfm

Ex 17: 3-7
Rm 5: 1-2, 5-8
Jn 4: 5 – 42

We can live without food for a long time but the key to survival is proper hydration. Scientists tell us that water is essential to life. While the body can and does adjust without food for a long period of time and hunger pangs can pass, we know that thirst is a very powerful response, a signal from our bodies to drink up!  It doesn’t take long for any of us to recognize our thirst rather quickly on a hot day.

In this Sunday’s Gospel from John the beautiful story of the Samaritan woman at the well and her encounter with Jesus is a mirror for all of us. Jesus is thirsty, asks for a drink from the woman who is taken back by his brazen attempt to engage her in conversation.  As she states: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan for a drink?” The Samaritans were considered by the Jews to be among the outcast; sort of half-breed Jews who were an embarrassment and not truly Jewish. Shunned by the true Jews, they remained both outcasts and enemies – among the unclean.

So, why would Jesus risk his reputation and public shame by engaging both a woman and a Samaritan in such a personal conversation?  Therein lays the key to this story for our Lenten season. As he so consistently did, Jesus reveals to us that God has a special place in his heart for the marginalized and for sinners. The vast majority of Jesus' public Galilean ministry was spent with the sick, the abject poor, the distanced and rejected. It was they who heard the good news preached to them.  In Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well we see that beautifully played out.  

It was highly unusual that she should come alone to the well at noon, in the heat of the day. This was unheard of for the drawing of water was a social event for women. They would never come alone and would normally come in the morning or evening when the heat was not as intense.  So, it leaves one to question who this woman was.  The circumstances of her life, five husbands and living with a man now who is not her husband as Jesus relates to her, clearly places her among the morally suspect. Likely avoided by her own townsfolk and other women she has nothing more to lose – only to gain.

But, as our Gospel stories are meant to challenge us to see in the figures presented our own story, this one in particular calls out to us for the Samaritan woman is us! As Jesus gently invites the sinful woman to deeper faith so we are engaged in conversation as well. . She comes with her sin – as do we with our need for reconciliation this Lent. Jesus insight, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you ‘give me a drink,’ ...” “If you only knew” is an invitation to search farther. “Tell me more,” is the response of the woman.

Jesus who claims he is thirsty. St. Augustine reminds us that it is God’s thirst for us that is the essence of this story. The woman is invited to drink of Jesus’ “living water . . .welling up to eternal life.” Each answer Jesus gives her uncovers a greater understanding of God’s love for her, his invitation to present her sin for healing and once she discovers the truth of who she is speaking with, she becomes a missionary to others to share of her discovery.

That God loves sinners and invites us all to reconciliation; to see the grace of our baptism (the living waters we received) as a call to return to get things straight again with God this Lent.  This moment of the encounter between the woman at the well and Jesus is our moment of encounter with the love of God for us. How well do we appreciate this gift, however?

In our first reading, Moses has led the chosen people in to the desert, who now grumble with resentment over their parched condition: “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? . . . to die here of thirst?”  Fearful for his own safety, Moses pleads with God for some relief and despite the people’s lack of gratitude, God provides water from a rock for them to drink.  In their condition, they escape death and now experience a life giving water.  Water has become a sign of salvation from a God who thirsts for our loyalty. As he cared for his people in the desert, as he invites the woman at the well to reject her former way of life and come to “know” God’s love for her, so we are invited to hear this same invitation this Lent.

This weekend is the first of our three “Scrutinies.” As a faith community we gather with our Elect, those to be baptized at Easter who along with our Candidates have journeyed through the RCIA process for months. We pray over them, that the Spirit of God will open their hearts and satisfy their thirst for the new conversion they will now begin.

As their thirst for Christ and his Church is about to be quenched with baptismal waters, the anointing of the Spirit in Confirmation and the divine food of the Eucharist, we should likewise see in them ourselves.

Our need to renew the faith of our own baptism is as essential as a drink of cool, fresh, cold water on a hot day.

 

For when he asked the Samaritan woman

for water to drink,

he had already created the gift of faith within her

and so ardently did he thirst for her faith,

that he kindled in her the fire of divine love.

(Preface for 3^rd Sunday of Lent)

[Salvation]

Insight Scoop

Lent: a journey, an encounter, and a time of purification

Detail from "Christ and the Samaritan Woman" by Duccio (1308-11)

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, March, 23, 2014 | Third Sunday of Lent | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Ex 17:3-7
• Psa 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
• Rom 5:1-2, 5-8
• Jn 4:5-42

Lent is not merely a season, but a journey, an encounter, and a time of purification. Benedict XVI, in his 2011 Lenten Message, focused on these three aspects of Lent, stating, “As she awaits the definitive encounter with her Spouse in the eternal Easter, the Church community, assiduous in prayer and charitable works, intensifies her journey in purifying the spirit, so as to draw more abundantly from the Mystery of Redemption the new life in Christ the Lord …”

Today’s readings reveal the purpose of this journey, the meaning of this encounter, and the reason for this purification.

The Israelites, liberated from slavery in Egypt and save by the miraculous passage through the Red Sea, grumbled against Moses. Their anger toward Moses, who had been chosen by God to free them, had erupted after a short time in desert: “But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!” (Ex 16:3). They become perversely nostalgic about their former slavery, saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?” (Ex 17:3). Because they lacked faith in God, they longed for the false security of chains and subjection. Faltering in the journey toward the promised land, they tested God.

Likewise, Lent can reveal to us the fragility of our faith, the frailty of our hope, the feebleness of our love. We might be tempted to blame God for our struggles with sin; worse, we may long for the comfort of sinful habits. It may seem easier to return to the slavery we know than to journey in faith toward the kingdom of God.

But in the midst of fasting from food and other temporal things, God provides sustenance. He is the Rock from which issues the gift of living water. The Samaritan woman encountered and tasted this water, of course, when she spoke with a mysterious Jewish man at Jacob’s well. Her encounter is a turning point, but it does not come easily or without questions. The paradox in the encounter is that while the woman thinks Jesus is thirsty for ordinary water, he really thirsts to give her supernatural life. For, as St. Augustine observed, Jesus “had not asked for the kind of water that she herself had understood, but … he himself was thirsty for her trust and was desirous of giving the Holy Spirit to her in her own thirst…”

Slowly, however, she began to realize that Jesus was inviting her to begin a new life, free from sin and selfishness. Sitting alone with Christ, looking upon his face and hearing his words, she began to be transformed. The process of repentance and conversion commenced, until she was able to give testimony to her neighbors of her encounter.

Like the Samaritan woman, we need to encounter Jesus, to look upon his face, to hear his words. “In that woman, then, let us hear ourselves,” wrote Augustine, “and in her acknowledge ourselves, and in her give thanks to God for ourselves.”

This thanksgiving comes from recognizing and embracing the gift of purification and holiness. This is the supernatural gift of justification, which is the restoration of communion with God, through his grace and mercy. “Since we have been justified by faith,” wrote St. Paul to the Romans, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” This access to God is by faith, which is accompanied by the surety of hope and the outpouring of God’s live into our hearts. The three virtues of faith, hope, and love “dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object—God known by faith, God hoped in and loved for his own sake” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1840).

Lent, as the Holy Father explains, is “a journey of conversion towards Easter” that causes us to “rediscover our Baptism”, through which we were transformed into children of God by water and the Holy Spirit.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the March 27, 2011, issue of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)