3rd Sun. of Lent: Thirsting for Love & Acceptance

From the Catholic Liturgy for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 19, 2017 - John 4:5-42. The Samaritan Woman at the Well. John takes us to the land of Samaria, a land despised by the Jews as morally unclean and spiritually unworthy of God’s presence. And he introduces us to a Samaritan Woman, who because of her lifestyle, is considered even by her townsfolk to be unclean and unworthy.  So, we have in this woman an Outcast who is shunned by the people who are Outcasts. You cannot get much lower than that in the mind of 1st century Jews who are the original hearers of this story.

And we see in this story that the woman is coming to a well at noontime. This would strike the hearers of the story as extremely odd because they all knew that the women go to wells early in the morning or late in the evening so that they can escape the intense heat of the sun.  There is only one reason why the Woman would go to the well at noon: to avoid her neighbors. She did not want to encounter yet again their condemning stares nor the screaming silence of their shunning. Again, we encounter the Outcast rejected by Outcasts.

To round out the picture of this Woman John tells us that she was living with a man who was 5th in a string of lovers who had replaced her original husband. John lets us in on this aspect of her life so that we can understand that she is someone who desperately needs to be in a relationship, someone who is desirous of being loved, wanted, accepted. Someone whose need for this belonging is so great she is willing to compromise herself in a lifestyle and behavior that actually works against her desire to be loved and accepted by others.

And in all this John is saying to us: this woman in YOU.  This woman is each of you who encounter this story. For we all Outcasts in one way or another in our own minds. We all try to numb or fill up the deep need within us with people or places or things that will make us feel loved and accepted. But these things, are like ordinary water that we drink and still become thirsty again.  These distractions quench our desire for a temporary time, but cannot truly satisfy our thirst.

As the story moves on, John tells us that like the Woman, we are about to meet the One who can satisfy our deepest longing and desire for this acceptance and love. When we seek to satisfy our thirst with ordinary water, it requires a lot of hard work on our part and we are never fully successful. But in Jesus we will find the one who provides fresh living water that bubbles up and never runs dry. And we do not have to do hard labor to attain this water as the woman would have to do with her jar on a rope lowering it into a well!

Finally, notice that John makes a point of telling us that once the Woman spent time with and listened to Jesus, she runs away and forgets all about her water jar. In other words, she received even more than what she came to the well to get, and no longer needs to satisfy her human thirst for love with ordinary water, that is, with the usual ways in which we try to do so. All we have to do is listen to Jesus, spend time with him, believe in him and this Living Water, which is a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s love and grace, will be ours!