Eucharistic Gospel Reading for the 3rd Sunday of Lent: Year A
“They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” (John 4:42)
This story in the Gospel of John about Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well is a curious one. It appears that they were the only two there. How did we get the dialogue that took place between them? Did Jesus, or the woman herself, take the time to share the step-by-step exchange between them to his returning disciples? I guess perhaps she did, given that she also explains it to her own people.
She comes to the well in the heat of the day, noon. She hates her life and responds to Jesus’ ability to have her to never be thirsty again with her words, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” This tells us about her life as one abandoned by her community, one who probably has a history of being with many men, perhaps considered by the local women a husband thief. She is shunned by her neighbors. So, she makes her necessary trek to the well when she thinks no one is at the well, in the heat of the day. She can’t face them. This is where she meets God Incarnate. This is where we all meet him, in the heat of our troubles.
Our Lord Jesus asks her for water. The Creator of water, asks this of this also God-made woman, for what is already his. I am pondering that this was not a chance meeting. I am pondering that our Lord Jesus intentionally arranged this meeting, not just for her, but through her for the benefit of the community in which she lived, the same community that rejected her. After her encounter she goes and faces down her community and proclaims, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” To that I answer, “Yes, my dear, He Is!”
Jesus tells her, “God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). After her encounter with our Lord Jesus, she goes and changes the lives of her village. They come and see just as Peter and John did when Mary Magdalene told of the Risen Lord. And to this they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” How sad, if it had not been for her, they would never have met their Creator, Redeemer and Savior. I am always amazed at the number of unnamed persons in the Bible who made a significant difference in the lives of the people of their community, and in our shared Biblical history. The unnamed woman at the well is like many of us today. People may not know our names, but we are still being sent out to tell the life-changing, and life-saving story of our Lord Jesus, and how he has told us as well, “everything we have ever done.” We don’t have her name but she is Moses to the Israelites; she is Jonah to Nineveh; she is you to your community. Proclaim to those who shun you that your Lord Jesus has visited you, and made you well, at the well.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: Third Sunday in Lent (BCP p.218)
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
onewhoponders 