Ex 17:3-7; Rom 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn 4:5-42
Where do you get that living water?
First Reading...
"In the wilderness the people thirsted for water; and
the people complained against Moses and said, 'Why did
you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children
and livestock with thirst?' So Moses cried out to the
Lord, 'What shall I do with this people? They are almost
ready to stone me.'
The Lord said to Moses, 'Go on ahead of the people, and
take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your
hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I
will be standing there in front of you on the rock of
Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it,
so that the people may drink.' Moses did so, in the
sight of the elders of Israel.
He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the
Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, 'Is
the Lord among us or not?'" [Exo. 17:3-7]
Second Reading...
"Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have
obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we
boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has
been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that
has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at
the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed,
rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though
perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to
die. But God proves his love for us in that while we
still were sinners Christ died for us." [Rom. 5:1-2,
5-8]
Gospel Reading...
"Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the
plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his
journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to
her, 'Give me a drink.' (His disciples had gone to the
city to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a
Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?' (Jews do
not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus
answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it
is that 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 have no bucket, and the
well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are
you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us the
well, and with his children and his flocks, drank from
it?' Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the
water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The
water that I will give will become in them a spring of
water gushing up to eternal life.' The woman said to
him, 'Sir, give me this water, so that I may never 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 him, 'I have no husband.'
Jesus said to her, 'You are right in saying, 'I have no
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 see that you are a
prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but
you say that the place where people must worship is in
Jerusalem.'
Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is
coming when you will worship the Father neither on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not
know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the
Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the
true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth, for the Father seeks such as these 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' (who is called the Christ). 'When he comes, he
will proclaim all things to us.' Jesus said to her, "I
am he, the one who is speaking to you.'
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that
he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, 'What do
you want?' or, 'Why are you speaking with her?' Then the
woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She
said to the people, 'Come and see a man who told me
everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,
can he?' They left the city and were on their way to
him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi,
eat something.' But he said to them, 'I have food to eat
that you do not know about.' So the disciples said to
one another, 'Surely no one has brought him something to
eat?'
Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of him
who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say,
'Four months more, then comes the harvest?' But I tell
you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe
for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages
and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower
and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying
holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to
reap that for which you did not labour. Others have
laboured, and you have entered into their labour.'
Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because
of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I have
ever done.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they
asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two
days. And many more believed because of his word. They
said to the woman, 'It is no longer because of what you
said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the
world.' [Jn. 4:5-42]
Story:
There was a holy man who was known to predict things. So
a young man approached him and said, “you holy man, tell
me where is my father now?”, the holy man after a brief
moment of silence said, “you father has gone fishing”.
The young man laughed and said, “I never believed you,
now it is really a fact that you are a liar. You predict
things for people and fool them, actually my father is
dead since three years.” The holy man replied, “yes my
son, it is true that your father is fishing right now,
he is your real father, and the one dead is not your
father. Ask your mother and she will tell you that your
real father is alive”. The boy was stunned by the reply.
Another story:
A man wished to purchase an Ass (a Donkey), and decided
to give the animal a test before buying him. He took the
Ass home and put him in the field with his other Asses.
The new Ass strayed from the others to
join the one that was the laziest and the biggest eater
of them all.
Seeing this, the man led him back to his
owner. When the owner asked how he could have tested the
Ass in such a short time, the man answered, "I didn't
even need to see how he worked. I knew he would be just
like the one he chose to be his friend."
Spiritual Rebirth: The Samaritan Woman at the Well
The
Samaritan woman at the well is no angel. Mixed up with a
wrong crowd, this poor woman from Samaria has quite a
reputation. She had been married five times and was
living in sin with a man who wasn’t her husband.
Through
her story comes the lesson that people shouldn’t live by
carnal pleasure. The story also shows that a well of
grace is ready to refresh the soul parched by sin and
suffering and that Jesus comes to save the sick and to
serve those who still need both physical and spiritual
healing — not only the converted.
Her story
is also relevant because it becomes an antecedent of
Christian practices — that one may seek God’s
forgiveness for wrongdoing.
Seeking
forgiveness is the basis for the sacrament of
Reconciliation (confession). Every faith has a teaching
and belief that God forgives sin and that repentance is
always possible. The Jewish feast of Yom Kippur and
Islam’s Ramadan are also examples of seeking forgiveness
and showing atonement for sin.
The woman
at the well had her sins “washed away” by Jesus. The
story shows that Jesus offers divine mercy in the living
water of grace, which washes away sins and cleanses
souls. The woman went to the well to get a jug of water.
Instead, she got much more, including a cleansed and
refreshed spiritual life.
Going
to the well
Because of her lowly status, the Samaritan woman goes to
the well during the hottest point of the day to avoid
the wagging tongues of her fellow townspeople. Most
other people were taking siestas at this time; nobody in
his or her right mind is out in the noonday sun. The
woman of Samaria knows this and seizes the opportunity
to get water for her home without being bothered.
Jews
didn’t normally travel on a Samaritan road, but Jesus
chose to walk this way anyway. He comes upon the well,
where he meets the Samaritan woman and asks her for a
drink of water. The woman, who understands her low
social status in the eyes of a Jew, is astonished that
this pious Jew requests water from her.
Experiencing renewed spirit
Jesus uses the
water
as a metaphor
to teach
this woman. He speaks about the living water, which
gives eternal life, divine grace, or God’s life within
the soul. The woman craves this type of water, because
she wants to have eternal life. But first Jesus has a
lengthy but candid dialogue with her. He makes her
understand that she needs to confess her sins and change
her life before she can obtain this life-giving water —
grace. Jesus shows her that he already knows she is
living with a man who is not her husband.
Jesus said
to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The
woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to
her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for
you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is
not your husband. What you have said is true!”
• John
4:16–18
The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming”
(who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim
all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one
who is speaking to you.”
• John
4:25–26
The Samaritan woman’s spirit is enlightened,
accelerated, and illuminated by Jesus. She now realizes
what it means to take freely of the water of life, which
is the spiritual refreshment that comes into her soul
after her encounter and confession with Jesus. Not only
was she impressed that Jesus knew all her sins, but she
was also given the opportunity to have those sins
forgiven. She believes he is truly the Messiah, the
Anointed One. She repents of her past misdeeds and goes
back to tell her family, friends, and neighbors how she
met Jesus and how he revealed his knowledge of her sins
and his offer of live-giving water, which brings eternal
life. She went on to lead many conversions in this area
through her zeal and love for God (John 4:39–42).
The Samaritan woman doesn’t appear again
in scripture, but for centuries afterward, numerous
spiritual writers, theologians, and scholars retold and
pondered her encounter with Jesus. Augustine (AD
354–430), for instance, uses the example of the woman at
the well to describe the
spiritual thirst the human heart
has for goodness and truth and that thirst is never
quenched until people are in the presence of God forever
(after they die and leave this earth).
The truth is that if an insider wants to
find Jesus, we will find him with the outsiders, the
uniformed, and the unfaithful people of the world. We
will find him drinking with a woman who has had five
husbands and lives with a possible sixth. We will find
him down the street at the block party in the low-income
housing development. We will find him at the bedside of
a person dying of AIDS. We will find him in the soup
kitchen, the clothing closet, and the homeless shelter.
We will find him comforting a homosexual who has just
broken up with his partner of twelve years. We find him
in the dark allies, the dark bars, and dark places that
we don’t want to go. We will find him at a bar at 3:30
a.m., throwing a birthday party of a prostitute.
Recent expositions have argued strongly
that John wants us to see the woman only in a good
light, sometimes I suspect because that is more
comfortable than to dissent from John’s picture. It is
hard to read the reference to husbands (who may all have
died) and to her unmarried partner without at least
catching some whiff of cultural disapproval, which some
have suggested explains why she came to fetch water not
in the cool of the day when most would come. I suspect
she had three things counting against her:
being a Samaritan, a woman and a
‘sinner’.
Any one of those counts would be enough
for some to shun her. Jesus does not. That may have been
the force of the original account that lies behind the
dramatic presentation we now find. It would have been
its own three-point sermon against racial, gender and
moral discrimination. But as we have seen, John wants to
give us more. While affirming and preserving the message
of inclusion implied in Jesus’ actions, John also wants
us to celebrate Jesus as the giver of the water of life,
the new holy space, which transcends all prior religious
claims and aspirations, including legitimate ones. Does
John show the woman making that transition?
To some extent that is left to our
imagination, but she certainly goes further than
Nicodemus. She hesitatingly contemplates: perhaps this
is the Messiah (4:29). The grounds she offers do not
exhibit much depth of understanding: he told me
everything I ever did (4:29). But she is heading in the
right direction. Her achievement is to bring others to
hear Jesus. It is a positive response on her part with a
positive outcome. The people come and acclaim Jesus the
saviour of the world (4:42). It may remind us of one of
those sermons which we felt was not quite on target, but
then we heard later that it led to positive change in
someone. God uses even our less than adequate responses.
The people make it for themselves and are not dependent
solely on the woman’s testimony (4:42). Her act
empowered them.
4:31-38 provides an interlude that shows
the disciples also beginning at the level where
Nicodemus and the woman began, in focusing only on the
literal (4:33). 4:27 had highlighted the latent sexism
of the disciples (4:27). They are not doing well, but
then Jesus goes on to shift the focus from the literal,
‘food’, to food as a metaphor for our task and mission
and to involve them in the task. In the process Jesus
makes a point about solidarity between workers in
mission. Some sow; others reap. It is as though a
commentary is being provided on the woman and the people
of her village. Each action counts, including hers. We
don’t have to do everything or be everything. We do not
need to control everything. We are not called to be the
saviour of the world. We will not always be adequate. It
is a good theme for reflection when contemplating clergy
burnout. Even Jesus could not do everything - and could
not be everywhere: when he was in Capernaum, he was not
in Bethsaida, even though people in Bethsaida needed him
too, but that was OK. We all live with limitations and
it is OK to be human.
