Give me something to drink--thoughts on the Jesus and the woman at the well (for the 3rd Sunday of Lent)

Thoughts on the Gospel for the 3^rd Sunday of Lent 12 March 2023

 “Give me something to drink…”

--John 4:5-42

 

This Sunday is the 3^rd Sunday of Lent and our Gospel for this weekend is the story of Jesus and the woman at the well.  The basics are this: Jesus and the disciples have crossed into Samaria (just north of Judah) and they are tired and hungry.  The disciples wander off in search of food, and Jesus waits behind near a well.  It is around mid-day and a woman comes to the well to draw some water. Jesus asks her to give him a drink.  Which leads to a discussion about the well, about water, about husbands (the woman has had 5) and about where and how to worship and even about telling the truth. Often, when people talk or write of this story, they focus on the fact that Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan, or that she is a woman, or the fact that it takes place in the heat of the day.  Much has been made of the fact that the woman is alone.  To the Jews of Jesus’ time, the Samaritans were kind of like outcasts.  They were a people of mixed-blood and mixed-up religious practices; abhorrent to the people of Judah. Does this woman come to the well in the heat of the day all alone because she is even an outcast among her own people?

 

And those are all important questions, issues, fruitful for our contemplation.  But the thing that catches my eye is the fact that Jesus asks her for a drink.  That seems to me, the corner stone that I stumble over every time I read this story. It makes me pause and ask: why?  Not why did He ask a woman, or why did He ask a Samaritan, but why did He ask someone to give Him water.  Shortly after asking, Jesus says something that must have been very mysterious to the woman. He says:

 

“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.” (cf. 4:10)

 

Much is made out of that phrase “Living Water,” --faith, new life welling up inside of us, etc. But, what seems to me so very very important and too often overlooked is the “gift.”  Jesus refers to the gift that has been offered to her.  What is that gift? Of course, Jesus Himself might be the gift; the gift of new life and salvation.  But I think it is a mistake to rush into theologizing too quickly.  I think one of the mistakes we make when we read scripture is to turn away from the mysterious, and rush toward some kind of understanding—toward sense.  But, for me at least, one of the great things about the Gospels is how weird they are.  How uncomfortable they can make me –with my life, with my assumptions, with my self-image, even with my faith, my hunger, my thirst…

 

And so I go back to the thing that strikes me as most strange—that Jesus asks for water, He is thirsty, He needs a drink, and He –the Son of God—asks for help getting it. Like a small child asking an adult for a glass of water. They need help. They can’t reach the glasses up in the cupboard, or they can’t reach the faucet to turn on the water… So, we help them. And here, Jesus may have no way to dip water from the well—no bucket or container to dip down into the well. Like a child, His human nature may need her assistance to reach the water.  But—to my ear—there is still that strangeness of referring to His request as a gift.  What does that mean? How is it a gift? 

 

And that is when I remembered a feeling that came over me –quite often—when I was volunteering as a hospital minister.  I would visit people at the hospital to check in with them, to offer a prayer, to sit and visit if they were lonely.  I would go into a hospital room and try to help them in some way, to offer them some comfort, yet so many times I would walk out of those rooms feeling as if I were the one who had been ministered to, as if I were the one who had been given a gift.   And isn’t that the way it so often goes? That when we help someone in need, when we are kind to someone, we come away feeling renewed, feeling energized, almost giddy with joy (sometimes), as if we were the one who was blessed, the one who was given a gift.

 

And so I wonder, is the gift that Jesus gives the woman His need? An opportunity to serve Him, to comfort Him? To share herself with another, to—in a way—become more fully herself; through an act of generosity she becomes more fully the gift that she (that each of us) was made to be.

And this is where I wander off into the thickets, so if I sound a little crazy (or mysterious) I ask only that you bear with me and ponder whatever comes.

 

After the woman leaves Jesus to go tell her townspeople that she may have just met the Christ, His disciples come back with food and encourage Him to eat. And His reply seems to me another clue in this beautiful mystery.  He tells them:

 

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

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

and to finish his work.” (cf. 4:31-34)

 

His food is to do the work of God, to do God’s will.  To become more like His Father—loving, merciful; His sun shining on the good and the bad, His rain falling on the wicked and the just.  When Jesus gives the Samaritan woman an opportunity to serve, an opportunity to be kind and merciful, He is giving her the chance to become more like God—to share in the Heavenly food of the Father’s love.  When He shares His need with her, He opens a door for her to step through.  He offers her an opportunity to become more completely who she was made to be: a beloved child, made in the image and likeness of God.

 

I am wondering about this gift of need.  When I need help, I do not feel like a gift. I feel like a burden.  But, when someone comes to me with their need, their burden, I often feel more alive. As if I have been given a gift; as if I have thirsty for a long time, and someone has finally given me a drink of water.  Is the thirst we all have deep inside our soul, a thirst to serve, to console, to comfort, a thirst to be made complete by the chance to share ourselves, our abilities, our treasure, our gifts, with another.   The chance to give ourselves away… to become more fully like God by laying down our own life (even if only momentarily) for the sake of another.

 

The next time you need help, don’t hesitate to ask—to become the gift, the Living Water that someone else has been thirsting for –perhaps all their life.

Third Sunday of Lent: Why is God doing this to us?

“In those days, in their thirst for water,

the people grumbled against Moses saying:

Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?

Was it just to have us die here of thirst…?

So Moses cried out to the Lord: What shall

I do with this people? A little more and they

will stone me…”  --Exodus 17:3-7

“Why did you ever make us leave Egypt…Was it just to have us die here of thirst?”  Sound familiar? Whenever I feel overwhelmed and helpless, exhausted and afraid, desperate, my prayer turns into something a lot like that of the Israelites in the desert.  Why did you do this, God? Why are you making my life so hard? I thought we were friends! What did I do to deserve this?  For me, this usually involves something to do with owning three cats.  So, when I was headed to the HEB Wednesday night to get paper towels (because one of the cats keeps peeing on counters and carpets and linoleum… as well as mail, magazines and tote bags!!!) I was cursing my pets, my prayer life, and wondering what I had done to offend God.

But… walking into the store, I learned firsthand the reality of desperation.  The pandemic known as the Coronavirus finally hit home.  The shelves of the store were almost completely empty. Unless you liked Peanut Butter Captain Crunch you were out of luck as far as cereal goes.  The only rice left was sushi.  Not a single bottle of laundry detergent to be had. Luckily, they still had plenty of paper towels. A big display right next to the front doors.  I wandered around looking for those few other items that I had been asked to pick up, and everywhere I looked were other people wandering with their carts, some of them overflowing with water and canned goods, and frozen pizzas, but most of them half empty like their eyes… Everywhere I looked there was that strange gaze: stunned, afraid, desperate. What’s happening? Why? Who can we blame?

We don’t like feeling vulnerable, none of us do. We don’t like feeling unsafe.  Humans like things to be predictable; it makes us feel safe.  We like to know what comes next, so we don’t have to worry about it.  And yet, if we stay safe, if we hide from danger, avoid being vulnerable, if we remain locked in our secure little risk-free (and germ-free) boxes, if we stay in Egypt… what happens? Our horizons shrink, our view of life becomes smaller and smaller until it gets almost microscopic.  Instead of worrying about our neighbor or about our friends (or even our family) we begin to see only ourselves, our fears, our discomforts, everything is measured by what it will mean to us, what affect it will have on “Me.”

But as I was standing in stunned disbelief looking at the desolate pasta aisle, I had an experience that I think speaks to this question of “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?”   Standing there, staring at the barren shelves, gazing in disbelief at the remaining three jars of lo-fat Alfredo, and the one remaining box pasta, some kind of whole-wheat “healthy” rotini—I think I felt like the Israelites. How had this happened? Why would God do this? How come He wasn’t protecting me?  It was a pretty sad moment, but then a woman approached with her full cart and paused. For a moment, I thought she was about to speak to me—she was standing so close. But instead, she reached past me and put a box of spaghetti back on the shelf. Nothing special. Just plain old regular spaghetti. And then she walked away.  I picked up the box and called out, “Thank you.” She turned and smiled and said something like, “I didn’t really need it,” and disappeared.

And so, I come back to the question: Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die in the desert?  What if the answer was yes? What if God said, That is precisely what I am doing?  Only… you won’t die.

Last week at Mass we heard the reading about Abram’s call (Genesis 12:1-4). Abram is living a comfortable life in Haran, when God comes to him and says: Pack up. I want you leave this place and go somewhere far away from your father’s house, your family, your comfort zone, your security. Don’t ask questions. I will show you where to go. It is a foreign land where you will live among strangers and probably feel very vulnerable.  But, that is how I am going to make you into a great nation, that is how I am going to make of you a blessing to all who bless you.

What if the key to becoming who we were meant to be, who we were made to be, a blessing to the world, is to be vulnerable?  What if the real key to becoming fully alive, to becoming a blessing is first to step out of our comfort zone, out of our security blankets and take a risk, take a chance, become vulnerable. Begin to feel thirsty.

I was feeling a wave of panic come over me as I stood there in that crazy madhouse of a grocery store staring at empty shelves and zombie apocalypse shoppers and suddenly a person stopped and put back something she didn’t need.  I wonder if it was because she saw a person in need. Because she saw someone who looked vulnerable, someone thirsting.  I wonder.  And I wonder, who was really blessed in that moment.  I received what? Perhaps a small act of charity from a stranger. A simple box of spaghetti.  But, thinking about that smile as she turned the corner, I wonder what she received? Perhaps something much better… The blessing that comes from helping someone in need.

The other part of this passage that interests me is that little detail of Moses going to God, practically in despair.

What shall I do with this people? A little longer and they will stone me!

Clearly, he too feels vulnerable, helpless, desperate. And yet, in his helplessness he turns to God and through God’s grace blesses the people who do not die of thirst, but receive water from the rock and –in the end—they too become a blessing, become a light for the world; a chosen people, set aside—vulnerable, conquered, exiled, yes!  But in exile, in captivity, in loss they are the bearers of God’s word, they are the chosen people, God’s beloved! 

Think about that during this time of fear and anxiety and empty grocery shelves. This “pandemic.” How God’s love and calling is so often revealed in suffering and a sense of helplessness.  Think about how God may be calling us through this hardship. Through your sacrifice and discomfort and even your fear and loss, how is God calling us to witness His love? It may be something as simple as letting someone else know you are afraid, so that they can be blessed by offering comfort and aid. Or perhaps you will be the one who puts a box of spaghetti back on the shelf so that it will be there for someone else.

Remember, we are here because God has put us here, in this time, this place, this life. We were made for this.  And we are never alone. On His way to Calvary, Jesus walks this path with us.  We are loved.  So, do not be afraid, be vulnerable.

The Crown of Christ the King

“Come you who are blessed by my Father…

For I was hungry and you gave me food…”

--Matthew 25:31-46

“I was hungry…” This reading from Matthew has always spoken to me –as (I am certain) it does to so many.  It leaves me pondering the many times I have met and turned away from Christ.  He was standing right before me and I turned away or I drove right past him standing at a corner or I rolled up my window as he approached to ask for change.

How often have I turned from Christ and hardly given it a thought?

When we look at that man standing on the corner holding his sign or holding out his hand many times we don’t see Christ; we see a wreck of a person or we see a possible threat, or we see someone we suspect is trying to take advantage of us (a scam?), but rarely –I imagine-- do any of us look at that person and immediately see Jesus.  And yet, that seems to be what He is saying here.  Jesus doesn’t say to us: When you do this, it’s like you were doing it for Me. Consider it a form of spiritual simile, if you will. The poor are symbolically my presence and therefore if you do something for them, then metaphorically you are doing something for Me –at least on a spiritual plain.  Jesus seems to be saying that when we care for the poor, the hungry, the prisoner, the sick, the stranger we are in fact caring for, visiting, feeding, helping him.  It seems to me, that He is being pretty clear about this. That when we care for those in need, we are caring for Jesus. And yet, knowing that –in my heart of hearts—how many times has God come to me, literally walked up to my car window and presented Himself to me, prepared to touch my life with His presence –His grace—and I turned away because I was too busy or too scared. Because he looked too grimy or too tattered or too smelly or too desperate.  And, of course, there were times when I thought the guy standing there with his hand out wasn’t tattered looking enough; he was probably just some guy pretending to be poor.  Some cheat who will just take my money and waste it on beer or drugs!

               

But, what if I rethought that; what if I just retyped it:  what if I simply changed “he” to “He?”  Would that capital H make any difference in how I treated him/Him: the poor woman or man, the sick, the half-naked hungry stranger?  I think it would.  If I started looking at that destitute person at the stoplight not as some “thing” to be avoided, but as “someone” to be welcomed (a King, perhaps), I think it would make all the difference in the world.

What if I really heard these words and believed them?  What if –instead of letting this oh so familiar reading wash over me and fill me with a sentimental feeling, what if really listened and let it change my life.  Hearing these words, really hearing them, what if I went forth filled with a desire and a commitment to meet Christ in the poor and the sick and the prisoners?  What if I went out filled with a desire to reflect God’s generosity back to Him by giving freely to the poor, the sick, the naked, the stranger. What if I opened my heart to the blessing of God’s special presence in His poor? What if every time I went out, I was prepared to meet Him face to face in His people?

Instead, too often, on hearing it I am momentarily filled with a sentimental love of the poor that fades almost as I get up from the pew (or close my Bible), and dissipates too quickly into worries about myself, my family and my “poverty.”  And then, instead of looking for Christ, I avert my eyes, roll up my windows and keep my wallet safely in my pocket when He approaches.  Too often, instead of looking for God in the poor and the hungry, I find I am looking only at myself, and seeing there (in my reflection) my real god. 

All of this reminds me of Dostoevsky’s Fr. Zosima (from The Brothers Karamazov). Zosima is an elder in a monastery who presents Dostoevsky’s simple and faith-filled response to Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor allegory.  In a relatively early scene in the novel a “woman of little faith” comes before Zosima asking for help. She claims she just wants to know for certain that there is a God, and that the soul is immortal.  Zosima tells her that there is no proof for the existence of God, but one can be “…convinced of it… by the experience of active love.  Strive [he says] to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. Insofar as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul.  If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt.  This has been tried.  This is certain.”

That doubtless certainty is perhaps what Christ means when He calls speaks of those "blessed by My Father..." They are blessed with a faith that sees Jesus in the poor and doesn't look away.  

If I want to know for certain that God exists, if I want to know without doubt, if I want that blessing, then I must love my neighbor (and that includes my wife and kids and mother-in-law) actively and indefatigably.  I must treat them,the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner (and the mother-in-law) with love and compassion. Then, and only then, I will know without doubt that there is a God. Because then (and there) I will meet Him face to face.  

“When did we see you hungry or a stranger or sick and feed
you or welcome you or visit and care for you?”

This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King.  How is it we recognize a king? Most of the time, we recognize a king by his crown.  Ask yourself, where do you find your king? Where do you see His crown?