Friends
Peace be with you.
This weekend was one of those weeks where there just seemed to be a cavalcade of work until I was able to sit down this morning and prepare a homily. And then nothing was coming to me. Up until 3:20 this afternoon, I thought I was going to have to walk to the pulpit and apologize because I didn’t have a homily. Then I thought about those television shows involving a character going to a counselor or a psychiatrist. There’s one guarantee with those episodes, the reason the person walked through the door is not the reason the person that is there. For instance, if you watched the West Wing a few years ago, you may remember the character of Josh going to see a psychiatrist because he got so angry at the president that he exploded in a fit of rage at him in the Oval Office. Throughout the rest of the show, you find out that Josh had cut his hand and claimed that it was from shutting a window too hard and breaking the glass when, in fact, it was because he had set down a glass of gin and broken it in his hand. Josh had PTSD from an assasination attempt on the president when he was almost critically wounded but, of course, that’s not the real reason Josh exploded. By the end of the show, you discover the he had been in a house fire when he was a child that had killed his sister and Josh still blamed himself for not doing anything to save his little sister. By the way, if this sounds familiar, it may be because the character of Randall is also visiting a psychiatrist on the show This Is Us after someone broke into his house and he beat the tar out of someone. I would guess that, as with Josh, we’ll find the roots are deeper to this than we expect.
So, what are the roots of the situation taking place in the gospel. In other words, what is bringing this samaritan woman out in the hottest part of the day in search of water? At the time, people, mostly women, got their water in the early morning because it was hard work carrying it back home. Plus, if you do it early, you may run into your friends and catch up on all the town gossip, sort of like their version of the water cooler. They could talk about walking into three stores and not finding any toilet paper and then asking why everyone is so worried about toilet paper. Or they may have complained about the fact that March Madness and Spring Training were both cancelled and wondered what, if any sports, they were going to be able to watch; professional bowling? Chess? Curling?
Which probably answers the question as to why she is out at this time of the day. She is self distancing, not because of a global pandemic but because she feels ashamed. She’s been married five times and the man she’s living with is not HER husband. Everyone in town knows it. They probably even talk about her in the morning when they’re getting their water. Most people probably avoid her, like we would do to a toddler who just sneezed on their hand and then immediately wants to give you a sign of peace.
You can imagine then how this moment must have felt after going out in the middle of the day and, while you’re hurriedly drawing water, along comes a foreigner whose people don’t have anything to do with you, who asks you for a drink. Samaritans and Jews don’t have anything to do with each other. Still, he asks for water. You’ve got water but you know a Jew isn’t going to drink your water because the vessels you have aren’t kosher. Suddenly he’s telling you that, if you’d asked him for water, he would have given you an endless supply of living water, better water than you’re gossipy neighbors get at this spring.
That’s where it gets a little weird because this man tells her that she needs to get her husband to haul it back to their house. In today’s world, that probably sounds very sexist but Jesus is really doing something powerful: he’s getting the woman to unveil what she is really thirsting for. She came for water but she was thirsting for forgiveness and reconciliation. “I do not have a husband” she says to Jesus. And Jesus acknowledges that and reveals himself as the Messiah and talks about a time when reconciliation will happen between her people and his.
What happens next is what I tend to find most instructive for where we are today. Remember all those people she’s been avoiding? Now, she runs to them with a mission. She has to reveal the messiah to them. Her method of evangelization is simple: tell her own story of forgiveness and then ask them if they have the same experience with Jesus. She has had a moment of referent spirituality and is inviting them to do the same. She allows Jesus to reveal himself to these people and invites them to go and see for themselves.
We are all thirsting to be forgiven by God. In reverence, let God reveal to you what you most want to have forgiven. You may not be entirely aware of what it is and it may go back many years and be something that has continuously plagued you. Bring that to the sacrament of reconciliation. Then go and tell others so they can believe for themselves and know that Jesus is the savior of the world.
