We are in Year A of the liturgical cycle and so we will get an opportunity to hear the great narratives from John’s gospel for these three Sundays in Lent (3rd, 4th and 5th). Today we meet the woman at the well, next week the man born blind and then we will be there for the raising of Lazarus.
We begin today with water. On a physical level it is essential for life. Our lives began in the womb surrounded by water and we need water to survive throughout our lives. Water also brought us to life with God in our baptism. Hence, as we shall see today, water is one of the symbols of the Holy Spirit–the living water that wells up within us to give us eternal life.
In today’s Exodus reading let’s not be too harsh on the Israelites who are grumbling for water in the desert. Their’s had been a harsh slavery in Egypt and from the beginning they realized the desert escape and long journey afterwards was not going to be a walk in the park. When we moderns thirst we can go to a fountain and quench it. That’s not true for many people in the world today–especially in Africa, where the Sahara is expanding each year. Our thirst is, at most, and inconvenience, but in the desert it can be life threatening.
The Exodus scene is fraught with tension as the grumbling Israelites complain to Moses and a besieged Moses laments to God: “What shall I do with these people? A little more and they will stone me!” Then, as proof that God has not forgotten the struggling nomads, God orders Moses to strike the rock–and water flows.
God does that for people; helps us during the hard times and in the hard places. In the most unlikely ways and through the most unlikely people, our thirst is quenched. A woman who had been through a rough time told me that she had attended Mass for weeks without any consolation or relief. She sat in church numb, week after week. She had noticed a poor “bag lady” who sat in a pew near her each week, surrounded by her possessions stashed in overflowing paper bags.
One day the woman came up to her and said, “Dear, I’ve watched you here at church week after week. You look so sad and so I’ve been praying for you.” The two struck up a conversation and went out for coffee. Later, the woman said, “Here was this woman with practically nothing, yet she was such a grace of comfort and encouragement to me!” From the most unlikely places God can refresh us with water in our deserts.
The Jews have a legend that says the rock Moses struck, which yielded water, traveled with them through the desert and provided water for their needs. True story? No, not likely. True story? Yes — for those whose thirst has been quenched from the most unlikely sources during a hard time in their lives. They have had personal experience that the rock followed them in their desert and quenched their thirst.
Who is the thirsty one in John’s narrative? Why the woman of course; but she is not the only one. She has come to the well in the heat of the day–perhaps not the best time to gather water. But the first to express thirst is Jesus and he asks the Samaritan woman for a drink. By his simple request Jesus is pushing the religious and cultural boundaries of his day. Jews were not allowed to speak to Samaritans, nor use the same vessels they did. Jewish men and women did not speak to each other in public–much less that a Jewish man would speak to a Samaritan woman!
But Jesus bridges the chasm and violates the taboos as he opens with his request for water from the woman. She seems to forget her position as well, as she challenges Jesus for breaking the custom, “How can you ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” As is typical in John’s gospel there are layers of meaning beneath the surface of the narrative. This is especially true in his dialogues. The woman’s thirst, judging from her disconnected life, is deeper than just her need for physical water. Jesus notes the thirst that he alone can satisfy; for he is the source of the water that will not disappoint or run out.
John tells us that Jesus was tired by his trip and sat at the well. Jesus’ thirst reveals the deeper thirst God has for us. (“I thirst,” he will say from the cross.) God thirsts for us and has come out looking for us. Hence, Jesus goes to wherever thirsty people can be found and offers a water that will not run dry, but will bubble up for us when life stresses and makes us parched. As desert people travel they go from one oasis to another, one watering hole to the next. Jesus isn’t offering an occasional supply of water, but a “spring of water welling up to eternal life,” which will be with us each step of our journey.
The water Jesus speaks of is the Holy Spirit, our constant companion: our source of joy and awareness during periods of well-being and our consolation and refreshment during the stress-filled times. Like water, the Holy Spirit is present at the very beginning of our new life in baptism, as well as a source of renewal throughout our lives.
What happens to the woman as a result of her encounter with Jesus and his gift of living waters? First of all she leaves her old way of life behind, symbolized by the bucket she leaves at the well. (These verses are omitted from today’s Lectionary selection.) Then, with the gift of new life she has received, she becomes the first missionary and rushes off to tell her townspeople what she has found — or about the One who found her!
The Samaritan woman is just the first in a long line of witnesses to the new life we have in Jesus. We are her descendants, for God has thirsted for us and found us, offering us life-giving waters. We have drunk of these waters starting at our baptism. But we have been made thirsty again by our struggles to live the Christian life in less-than welcoming settings. We also come back to be cleansed by the living waters because of our missteps, when we have wandered from our full-time commitment to Christ. We have been renewed once again as the “spring of water [wells] up to eternal life” through the Word and Sacrament we celebrate together today.
The Samaritan woman is a model for us. What she has received and discovered in Christ she can’t wait to rush off to tell her townspeople. She knows who they are; she also knows they are thirsty and looking for water too. Ours is a missionary faith. We cannot keep to ourselves what we have discovered in Jesus.
Like the woman, we also know the thirsts of people close to us, those whose thirsts only Jesus can quench. They probably have worded their thirsts to us: “I am lonely.” “My wife died last month.” “Religion has dried up for me.” “I know I must have some purpose in life, but I don’t know what it is.” Etc. When they tell us these things they are talking to the right person, for we too have been thirsty. But we knew where to go — we went to the well and found Jesus already there and we drank deeply of the living waters he gave us.
What is the Holy Spirit like? The Scriptures are rich with many images for the Spirit. Today’s narrative describes the Spirit as a continuously flowing and gushing well. It’s not a waterfall; it’s a well, a source of life that comes from down deep in a person.
Water serves as an appropriate symbol for the Holy Spirit today, in light of the witnessing role of the woman. Don’t you prefer moving water — oceans, rivers, even the subtle moving waters of a pond or lake? If we have heard today’s message from the Word and allowed it to make a home in us, we will be like flowing water and move out to find those who are thirsty. Like the woman, we won’t need to take a special class to learn how to do it–though some of us involved in more official church ministry may. Rather, our relationship to others will be our guide to sharing the living water that has bubbled up in our lives. Our witnessing isn’t restricted to the confines of our church meetings. As in today’s gospel, place is not the issue — a person who has heard the Word and responded in worship, is a “proper place” for someone who is thirsting to meet Jesus.