3rd Sunday In Lent

1.      As a young seminarian, one of the tests to see whether we had a vocation was one called the Mission Experiment. We were sent out to the villages to work with a veteran priest. I was sent to a village which had been built on the banks of a river. But in the last 40 years, the river had changed its course leaving the village about half a mile away. So by the time I arrived at the village I was covered with dust. I said I was going to have a shower. Without running water, a shower in the village meant taking a bucket of water and a mug, splashing water on your body, soaping yourself, and then using the rest of the water to wash off the soap. I came out refreshed and very pleased with myself. I was horrified t learn that some women had walked all the way to the river to get water for my shower. I told the priest, there is no way they are going to get water for me tomorrow. I will fetch it myself.  The wise man answered, “do not bring your wise city and western ideas here. Work is distributed according to talents. This makes for the smooth running of the village.”

2.       Like the Samaritan woman in the Gospel, the women were water carriers. They filled their buckets of water and carried it each day of their lives. It is monotonous, it is boring, it is routine, but it is essential. The SAMARITAN WOMAN in our Gospel did not win the Miss Congeniality Contest. With five former husbands, she was not welcome to draw water with the rest of the women - either in the cool of the morning or late evening. She had to come in the hot midday sun, when no one would be at the well.

3.       It is in this monotony, mundane everyday chore that Jesus chooses to offer her eternal life, as Jesus does to each one of us.  Jesus meets us in our everyday situations.. in banks and in offices, in grocery stores and in parks, in our kitchens or at our computers.

          Jesus uses his own human need of quenching his thirst as a point of making contact with another human being who is thirsting for eternal life. And this human being is not even aware of her thirst.

4.       The People of Israel in our first reading also have the same human need. They are thirsty. They quarrel. They complain. They have no time for Moses who has proved to be a capable leader. They have no time for God who brought them

 away from the hard labour in Egypt

 away from the persecution and anger of Pharaoh

 away from the certain death from the Egyptian army, their horses and chariots

They quarrel and even want to back to the pigsties from which Yahweh had rescued them. They could not move beyond the physical thirst to their spiritual thirst. The SAMARITAN WOMAN did.

5.       “Give me that water,” she said eagerly when Jesus spoke of Waters of eternal life. She knew, though not fully, that it would set her free

 from having to come daily to the well

 from the criticism and scorn of the village women

 from her own poor self image ! - people had said that she was no good for so long, that she believed it.

6.       What a triumphant cry she gives as she goes back to the village, ”Come and see the man who has told me everything I have ever done. Here was someone who accepts her as a person, as some one of value, as some one real.

          Recently, a grandmother, mother and her son went into a restaurant. The mother took control immediately. She order for her mother, and then proceeded to order a hamburger for her son. Before the mother could go into detail. The waitress who was one of a kind, very gently, but firmly asked the boy - “and what would the young man want on his hamburger?”  The boy said as all little ones do, “lots of ketchup and fries.” The waitress turned to the cook and gave the order, and then in a voice for everyone to hear, she said, “and for the young man a hamburger with the works.” The boy’s eyes lit up, he pulled his mother’s arm and said, “Mommy, mommy” she thinks I am real !! - ah, what a little bit of kindness and attention can do.

Eating, drinking, going to work  - is merely existing. But to move from existing to LIVING you need a touch of human kindness and a pinch of divine love. Jesus offered that to the Samaritan Woman and he is offering that to us. God bless you all.