Fr. Joel Macul, OSB gave the homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent this morning.
Exodus 17:3–7
Romans 5:1–2, 5–8
John 4:5–42
On this third Sunday of Lent we are dealing with some common themes in our lives: tiredness and complaining or murmuring. On another level it is the theme of being thirsty. If we listen closely to the story of the community in the desert, we hear that they are giving leadership a hard time. They are thirsty and feel they are going to die. Yes, they left Egypt, they got out of slavery but what is happening to them now is worse than the past. Caught in their present needs, the community has forgotten the real meaning of freedom from slavery. It almost sounds as if life in Egypt was better….. In the story, the people grumble, complain to Moses and to God. Take care of us! Give us water! In the story, we hear how God provided water from the impossible. He provided it from the rock, something hard. The Lord God met the demands of the community. But at the same time we get a picture of a community that seems to lack trust in the Lord. Thrown into that is a sense of entitlement, and of wanting something here and now.
What is the source of grumbling? Somehow it is found in a lack of confidence, lack of trust. It is found when we lose sight of our purpose, our being or our goal. When we forget what we are doing here or where our life’s journey is leading us, we tend to look at situations in a negative way. The community of Israel had been crying out for liberation and freedom from oppression. God heard the plea and answered. He sets them free. Now he was to lead them across a desert to the Promised Land, a new home for their being community. Somehow the people were only interested in the moment: Get us out of Egypt. They did not know that freedom had implications. Getting out was only the beginning. Their life was to be a journey through the harshness of an arid wilderness. They would have to continue to trust in the God who loved them enough to set them free. They would have to trust him for the necessities of life, like water.
The community is very practical. What they are complaining about is real enough. No water and we are dead. But you can hear an overtone of demand, of regret and lack of trust. The journey of life demands water. But water is not something you and I can make. It is something offered to us. When we discover it, we have the responsibility to care for it, to keep it clean and keep it around. What is most needed for life, and there is no life without water, always remains a gift. Its presence in a physical or spiritual way demands a response of gratitude.
In the Gospel story we find Jesus tired and thirsty in the middle of the day. He comes to a well, a cistern expecting to find water. Jesus, too, needed water. He was tired from the journey. But what does he find? Instead of finding a welcoming host, he finds a woman who seems to question everything. I’d say he finds a thirsty woman: Her living condition demands she keeps coming out to the well for water; her marital condition indicates that her relationships are not normal or acceptable; she is a Samaritan woman–not one of us. Following cultural tradition, she should not be talking to a male Jew. So we find racism, tribalism and sexism all in one. We find that religious questions have created tensions between her community and the Jews. I’d say Jesus finds a thirsty woman. Surely she is not a complainer, but she is locked into a system that keeps her longing for something of freedom, for something that can truly satisfy her longing: for the necessities of life: water; her sexual desires; a healthy relationship; a longing for God who exists in spirit and truth.
The woman is really a reflection of our own needs as we journey through life. Many of us can feel tired. We keep coming for water but never seem to get enough. We look for relationships, but how often they are turned into a format for domination and control. And how often we Christians fight among ourselves about what is the true and authentic way to worship our one Father. We long and thirst for so much. We complain when we do not find it. Or we lose courage; we lose the way or find something else to drink. We give ourselves to relationships but without commitment or bonds of love.
This is the Sunday to listen to the longings of our heart. They are many, they are great. They are also real and practical. But today is also the Sunday of the good news that Jesus is the one whom God has sent to meet us in our tiredness, in our moment of thirst. He is the one the woman found at the well. Maybe he is the one sitting there each time we need water of some kind. Maybe he is there thirsting for us, longing to offer us the life that flows from within. We look to fill up our needs by pouring in something from the outside. But Jesus is there to say, I will fill your life from the inside out. A relationship with me will quench the frustration of all others. It will make the journey of life truly a life-giving one.
This Sunday invites us to be honest about our longings. The community of Israel was very honest about what it wanted. The Samaritan woman was also honest with Jesus about her needs. We may be tired, discouraged; we many have lost something of the meaning and purpose of our life. But this is the Sunday that we look up and see Jesus. He is sitting there and offering something sweet and wonderful. Will we be as courageous as the woman of Samaria? She kept talking to Jesus until she realized that he was the one she had been thirsting, longing for. Let us be in conversation with Jesus long enough for us to know that he is the water of life, he is the Messiah, he is the Prophet; he is the Savior of the world.
~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB