Gospel John 4:5-42
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” —For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.— Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking with you.”
At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
Homily
Many years ago a friend and I went on a tour around central and eastern Trinidad. On the way we started counting churches. To our surprise we counted more than a hundred churches, of differing denominations within a fifty mile radius. We asked ourselves what such a proliferation of churches indicated and we came to the conclusion that many persons were searching for something which would bring them fulfillment.
There is in each one of us a thirst for happiness, a thirst for something that really satisfies us. Often life plays us a hand that we were not expecting. Marriage is lonely, the brothers or sisters we expected to be supportive in religious life are not, in the workplace we do not get the recognition we would like, and job satisfaction is minimal. We yearn for fulfillment, for satisfaction and so often we search for it in the wrong places.
Today the Gospel speaks to us about that situation. The story of the woman at the well is one that we know very well. Jesus tired and thirsty sits at the well and asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. As happens so often when we are unhappy the woman gives him a sharp answer, Jesus is patient with her however and begins to lead her on a journey “”If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you: ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.” Jesus recognizes the woman’s bitterness and seeks to lead her out of her bitterness to something new.
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That so often is the contributor to the problem of our unhappiness, a refusal to acknowledge the truth about ourselves, and to recognize that we contribute to our unhappiness by the decisions that we make, the decision to have inappropriate relationships, to seek vengeance for what others have done to us, to seek to have control at any cost, to sacrifice our integrity for political or monetary gain.
As Jesus forces the woman to look at herself and to acknowledge her truth, again she tries to change the subject, with a remark about the place of true worship, but Jesus takes the remark and turns it around. The issue is not about a place of worship, the issue is about how we worship and true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and truth. We cannot be true worshippers unless we come to the Father, with the whole truth of ourselves before us so that we can offer it to God for God to purify it. It is in that purification by the Father that we find true fulfillment.
And that is the journey of lent, to come to the truth of ourselves. The woman tells the people “”Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did” The passage ends by telling us that after the testimony of the woman, the people came out of the town and they started walking towards Jesus. It was because she had come to the truth of herself that she could be an influence for good in the lives of others.
This is the journey of Lent, to come to the truth of ourselves and to come to be comfortable in ourselves. People who are comfortable in themselves have no need to try to make an impression; they do not see insults or slights in everything, they are not constantly trying to force people to their will. When some one arrives at that point, they are a joy to be with and they begin to have a real influence for good on others.
As we live this Lent let us ask God to bring us to the truth of ourselves, so that we can embrace it, so that we can thank God for what is good, and try to correct what needs to be corrected. This is a long and difficult journey but if we stick with it, we reach the fulfillment which we seek. We discover within ourselves the fountain which truly satisfies.
“Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again, but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again: the water that I shall give will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life.”
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, You created us out of love in your own image but we have sullied this image by the decisions which we so often make. We then refuse to accept what we have made of ourselves. Help us to accept the truth of our lives so that bringing that truth to You, it may be purified allowing us to become people who lead others to You. We ask this through the intercession of Mary, our Mother and your son Jesus. Amen
