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The Woman at the Well

Pastor’s Column

3rd Sunday of Lent-A

March 23, 2014

Jesus has arrived at a very ancient well in central Israel (John 4:5-42). He and the disciples have been traveling slowly south toward Jerusalem, away from the relative safety of the north, where they had gone to avoid Herod and the Pharisees who wanted to kill him. The path that Jesus has chosen lay through Samaritan territory.

Since he was headed toward Jerusalem, he could expect hostility in any encounter with the locals. Here we see Jesus at a very human level. It is a hot day to be traveling through a semi-desert area. Jesus, exhausted and thirsty, has sent the disciples into town for food, and, perhaps, Jesus wanted time alone to pray as well.

At last, Jesus is alone at the well! A woman is approaching; she is not expecting to see Jesus! This well, founded by Jacob over 1000 years earlier, was 80-100 feet deep and required a bucket with a long rope. Jesus had neither. Jesus looks at the woman and says “Give me a drink.” Jesus is really pushing the envelope here! A Jewish rabbi of that century would not have initiated a conversation with a strange woman alone.

Add to this the fact that Samaritans and Jews had an ongoing political and theological battle that was over 400 years old, and would not even speak to each other under these circumstances! For Jesus to use this woman’s bucket to drink water would have rendered him ritually impure; but Jesus here, as in other gospel stories, is willing to take on this woman’s impurity in order to move her toward faith. As a result of this conversation, Jesus wins her over and, after acknowledging her sins, she ends up witnessing to her whole town!

This encounter of the Woman at the Well is the story of our lives as well. At various times in our lives Jesus will arrange things so that he might be sitting at the well when we come to approach it going about our business. We will not know it is the Son of God and we will not be expecting to find Jesus there.

Jesus waits for someone to speak to him honestly about their problems and sins and issues of the day, to engage the Lord in conversation or do a good deed for him. One of these ways we find him is in confession; another is prayer, personal or public (i.e., the Mass); a third would be an encounter with a stranger or acquaintance whose words or deeds bring Christ to us; a fourth would be when we do a good deed for another and find it was really Christ.

The Woman at the Well teaches us that God makes himself available to us that we might find him, though he is in disguise. He longs to help us wrestle with our issues and to forgive our sins. Jesus is sitting by a well in your own personal world waiting for you to approach him. Where is this place and will you speak to Jesus today when you find him there?

Father Gary

Reflections from Scott Hahn

Striking the Rock: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Third Sunday of Lent

Posted by Dr. Scott Hahn on 03.20.14 |

Readings:
Exodus 17:3-7
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9
Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
John 4:5-15,19-26,39-42

The Israelites’ hearts were hardened by their hardships in the desert.

Though they saw His mighty deeds, in their thirst they grumble and put God to the test in today’s First Reading - a crisis point recalled also in today’s Psalm.

Jesus is thirsty too in today’s Gospel. He thirsts for souls (see John 19:28). He longs to give the Samaritan woman the living waters that well up to eternal life.

These waters couldn’t be drawn from the well of Jacob, father of the Israelites and the Samaritans. But Jesus was something greater than Jacob (see Luke 11:31-32).

The Samaritans were Israelites who escaped exile when Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom eight centuries before Christ (see 2 Kings 17:6,24-41). They were despised for intermarrying with non-Israelites and worshipping at Mount Gerazim, not Jerusalem.

But Jesus tells the woman that the “hour” of true worship is coming, when all will worship God in Spirit and truth.

Jesus’ “hour” is the “appointed time” that Paul speaks of in today’s Epistle. It is the hour when the Rock of our salvation was struck on the Cross. Struck by the soldier’s lance, living waters flowed out from our Rock (see John 19:34-37).

These waters are the Holy Spirit (see John 7:38-39), the gift of God (see Hebrews 6:4).

By the living waters the ancient enmities of Samaritans and Jews have been washed away, the dividing wall between Israel and the nations is broken down (see Ephesians 2:12-14,18). Since His hour, all may drink of the Spirit in Baptism (see 1 Corinthians 12:13).

In this Eucharist, the Lord now is in our midst - as He was at the Rock of Horeb and at the well of Jacob.

In the “today” of our Liturgy, He calls us to believe: “I am He,” come to pour out the love of God into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. How can we continue to worship as if we don’t understand? How can our hearts remain hardened?