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.

The real lesson of fasting: Some thoughts for the first Sunday of Lent

“He fasted for forty days and for forty nights,

and afterwards He was hungry.”

--Matthew 4: 1-11

 

As another Lent begins, it is good to revisit the idea of fasting, sacrifice and penance.  Now, before we anyone starts objecting that Lent is not just about fasting, let me just say: You're right. It is also about prayer and alms giving (charity).   But the issue that most of us have more trouble with is this idea of fasting –of giving up something: food, drink, abstaining from some pleasure. Whatever it is we might be considering giving up, in the back of our head is often the nagging question: What’s the point?  Can’t I just enjoy my chocolate and be more charitable? Give money to a homeless person and eat a Snickers? Visit my sick neighbor and then sip on a root-beer float?  Would that make me any good? Any less holy?

 

My thought is that yes, you can enjoy root beer and popcorn and chocolate and favorite TV shows and still be a good person, even a holy one.  That isn’t the point of Lent—I don’t think.  I think the real point of our Lenten abstinence is not about the giving up, but about the wanting. The appetite. I have come to think that the real lesson of Lent and fasting has less to do with the value of abstaining and more to do with the importance of redirecting or refocusing my appetite, so to speak. 

 

I don’t think we are asked to give things up because they are necessarily bad for us; for instance, someone who enjoys chocolate and pork chops is not less holy than someone who lives on locust and honey—at least not based on diet alone.  As one of our local priests likes to say: Lent is not about losing weight and fasting is not a diet plan.   

 

I have begun to think that our appetites, our hungers, our desires are much more important than we might think. As the prophet Amos reminds the wayward Israelites: “Prepare to meet your God.” (cf Amos 4:12)  But who is our God?  In the book of Amos, Israel’s god is her pocketbook, her belly, her comfort. The people even pray for the end of their Sabbath so they can go back to cheating one another, and buy and sell the poor for a few shekels or a pair of sandals!  When the prophet tells them to prepare to meet your God, to my ear it sounds more like a threat than an invitation.  And now I can’t help but ponder: who is my God?  Who am I preparing to meet?

 

And isn’t that what our whole life is about?  Preparing to meet our God.  But who are we preparing to meet?  If I am all filled up with Cheetos and pickles and mayonnaise sandwiches,  I’m not going to be hungry for the kale and spinach salad my wife made for dinner.  And if all I ever eat is junk food and peanut butter crackers, how will I ever learn that I might actually like kale and spinach and cauliflower and even –dare I say… Brussel sprouts!

 

Well—the same goes for our soul.  If we fill it with momentary pleasures and self-interest and self-satisfaction, never allowing ourselves to become hungry for something more, something beyond our own whims and wants—something eternal—then who are we preparing ourselves to meet? Who is our god?

 

Fasting asks us to spend some time with that want, with the feeling of hungering for something that we cannot have, desiring something more.  It makes an opening in our soul, and gives us a chance to discover that no matter how many potato chips we eat or episodes of Midsomer Murders we binge, we will never be truly satisfied.  We will always want something more.  And that wanting of that something more—I think that is the real lesson of the Lenten fast. To –as Jesus did—separate ourselves from the ordinary and from the false security of a full belly and a distracted brain, and to spend some time wanting something more.   When we die and a voice whispers to us, Prepare to meet your God… who will you want to meet?

 

 One more note: In the Gospel for today with its story of the temptations in the desert, there is a very important lesson for all who fast. Anyone who has ever tried to fast from a habit or some pleasure (or some favorite food) knows that it doesn’t take 40 days and 40 nights for the temptations to begin.  The temptation to stop fasting, to just go ahead and do or eat that thing we are fasting from—just this one time.  The temptation to rationalize—just this once! And, the promise that if you give in this time, everything will be fixed. You’ll never be hungry again. But how does Jesus react to all these temptations? By turning to God. Reminding us: Human beings live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He redirects His appetite, focuses His desire on the eternal and lasting good of God, the Father. His Father. 

 

Lent isn’t a time to deny the goodness of bread, but instead a time to remind ourselves: there is something so much better waiting for us. All we have to do is learn to want it.