Sunday Meditation: The Well of Eternal Life

The readings during Lent are powerful.  For the Third Sunday in Year A, we have what I think is the most probing passage in the New Testament, Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in the Gospel of John.  The two homilies below will pull apart the meaning, but I want to draw attention to the central metaphor that doesn’t always get named, the well.  The well is at the center of the story.  It’s physically between Jesus and the woman, and it is deep.  It’s Jacob’s well, so it’s tied to the deepness of history, a shared history between Jesus the Jew and the Samaritan woman.  And yet their histories have diverged and severed.  The well is also physically deep symbolizing the deepness of the woman’s personal history and, to be sure, the deepness of her heart and perhaps the deepness of Jesus’s heart.  It will be Jesus’s heart that will burst forth water at the crucifixion.  For the woman, the deepness of the well displays the deepness of her empty life in need of water.  In Jesus, the deepness of the well shows the fullness of the well of His eternal life that He offers. 

 

Here is today’s Gospel reading.

 

Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,

near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Jacob’s well was there.

Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.

It was about noon.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her,

“Give me a drink.”

His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him,

“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—

Jesus answered and said to her,

“If you knew the gift of God

and who 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 do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;

where then can you get this living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob,

who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself

with his children and his flocks?”

Jesus answered and said to her,

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;

but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;

the water I shall give will become in him

a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him,

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not 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 and said to him,

“I do not have a husband.”

Jesus answered her,

“You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a 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 can see that you are a prophet.

Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;

but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus said to her,

“Believe me, woman, the hour is coming

when you will worship the Father

neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You people worship what you do not understand;

we worship what we understand,

because salvation is from the Jews.

But the hour is coming, and is now here,

when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people 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, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

Jesus said to her,

“I am he, the one speaking with you.”

 

At that moment his disciples returned,

and were amazed that he was talking with a woman,

but still no one said, “What are you looking for?”

or “Why are you talking with her?”

The woman left her water jar

and went into the town and said to the people,

“Come see a man who told me everything I have done.

Could he possibly be the Christ?”

They went out of the town and came to him.

Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.”

But he said to them,

“I have food to eat of which you do not know.”

So the disciples said to one another,

“Could someone have brought him something to eat?”

Jesus said to them,

“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me

and to finish his work.

Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’?

I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.

The reaper is already receiving payment

and gathering crops for eternal life,

so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.

For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for;

others have done the work,

and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”

 

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified,

“He told me everything I have done.”

When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.

Many more began to believe in him because of his word,

and they said to the woman,

“We no longer believe because of your word;

for we have heard for ourselves,

and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

~Jn:4:5-42

 

Archbishop Edward Weisenburger once again offers a insightful explanation of the Gospel passage.

 

Archbishop Weisenburger:

“The passage opens by Jesus saying that He has to head to Samaria, a non-Jewish territory where Jews weren't even welcome. And what's ironic is that in the geography of his journey, He did not have to go to Samaria. It was actually rather out of the way.  Rather, what we see here is it's a statement of God's will that the message of the Gospel move outside and beyond the Jewish world and be presented to the rest of humanity.  It seems the Gospel really is for those on the margins, not just for those who are like us, who were comfortable within our company…And there's another great matter of significance here that was constantly pressed by Pope Francis of happy memory, as well as stressed today by Pope Leo. And it's simply that we Catholics can never be faithful to the Gospel when we become clannish, remain focused inward on ourselves, or just want to enjoy our company with one another.  No, we too, if we are to be faithful, must go out to the Samaria's of our own world today.”

 

I found the Archbishop’s observation of the progression of ways the woman addresses Jesus fascinating: “The first time she speaks to Him, she says, "You? A Jew?" Then she softens a little and refers to Him next as "Sir." Then, eventually, she acknowledges Him as a "Prophet." And finally, she asks the question, "Could He be the Messiah?" In response to her question, Jesus will respond, "I am."

 

 

For the pastoral homily, Fr. Joseph Mary of the Capuchin Franciscans explains the deepness of the woman’s hurt inside her heart and the deepness of the heart of Jesus.

 

Fr. Joseph Mary:

“Jesus sees to the heart of the problem; this woman is dying of thirst dying from the weight of her sin. It's not bodily thirst but the thirst to be seen, to be understood.  She's dying for the truth, dying for mercy dying for her hope and for meaning in her life, dying to be loved, and Jesus sees this and Jesus loves her and He wants to give her such water that she will never thirst again.  He wants to fulfill the deepest longings of this woman's heart.  And what's her reaction?  She drops her bucket, she runs back into her town, the fear the shame are gone and she begins to tell everyone about this amazing man this Jesus Christ.”

 

“Jesus comes to you in your life, He comes to you where you're alone at that shameful well of your heart, and Jesus says to you, as he says to the woman, I know you.  I know you.  I know you've had five husbands, I know the pain you're living with now, the man you're living with now is not your husband.  I know every sin you've ever committed, all the guilt you feel, the fear, the shame, I know how alone you feel.  I know your heart is thirsting for something more, thirsting for mercy, thirsting for love.  And I am love.”

Wow.  Just wow!

 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”  Jesus said to her,

“I am he, the one speaking with you.”

 

 

How perfect is this beautiful hymn by John Michael Talbot, “I Know A Well.”

 

Every beginning and every end,

Flow from this well.

I know nothing else,

So full of beauty in the heavens or the earth.

For all beauty and all life,

Drink from the water of her light.

I know this well will run eternal,

Ever deep and ever wide.