Father Robert (Bob)'s homily for this Third Sunday of Lent; In the Broadway musical "Les Misérables," Fantine sings a sad song... it is a lament for her lost youth, her lost beauty, and her lost innocence.
"I dreamed a dream in time gone by... Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." What causes such despair? Have you ever felt that? Would the lyrics of that song describe you? I think they would describe the woman in our Gospel today.
I think she could easily sing that song. Our Gospel today is full of strange and wonderful things. First of all, Jesus acts very strangely. Look where he is going, to Sychar, a Samaritan town. It's like a modern-day rabbi going to Gaza (Palestine).
The Samaritans and the Jews kept apart from each other. Jesus stops at a well and sends his disciples away. It seems he is setting everything up. A woman comes alone to draw water, a woman whose name we do not know. Seeing her come alone at noon to the well, we learn everything we need to know about her.
First, she is alone and it is noon. Women always went to the well in a group. It was not common for a woman to be alone. Secondly, they always went early in the morning, or in the evening, never at noon; the sun was too hot. So we can say this woman is an outcast.
The respectable women of the town would not want to be seen with her. Jesus asks the woman for a drink, which is a breach of the law. It was not acceptable for a man to speak alone to a woman. He also became ritually unclean by drinking from her cup.
The woman herself asks how a Jew can ask for water from a Samaritan. Jesus replies:
"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
The story of the living water is a drama about faith. We see how an individual and a community come to believe in Christ. As always, the Lord takes the initiative. He speaks and a woman begins to drink the living water. Unknowingly, the pieces of her life begin to fit together. She only knows that the Messiah is coming and Jesus tells her, "I who speak to you am he." It is I who speak to you, it is he; he even uses the divine title... I AM. Still not knowing who Jesus is, the woman rushes from the well to the town, shouting breathlessly to everyone she meets to come and see a man who told her all that.
"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" No certainty, but a glimmer of hope—could this be the Christ? And the drama of belief gains momentum; someone who knows everything this much-married woman ever did—they have to see him.
They rush to see the Wonder for themselves. Once they have seen him, they ask him to stay for two days. Many Samaritans have already believed in him on the testimony of the woman. Many others believe because of his word. They say:
"We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world."
What does this beautiful story tell us? Does it occur to you that it is not only the Samaritans who must recognize Jesus and ask him for living water? Every man and woman must do so, you and I. Oh yes, you have already tasted it. Otherwise, you would not be here.
You have been touched by the word of God and the Holy Spirit lives in you. So many things clamor for our attention. Sports, health, work—all good in themselves. But so often, Christ takes a back seat. We only think of him on Sunday or in times of crisis.
Somehow, the Christ who captivated the woman at the well must seize us, excite us. It is not a matter of academic knowledge. You must know him, but know him truly as you know your closest friend. The Samaritan woman did not hide her living water. Like a bottle of Perrier in the refrigerator. She left her water jar and went back to the town.
She grabbed everyone and said:
"Come and see."
Could this amazing man be the one we have been waiting for? She became an apostle; she brought Jesus' message to the people. She knew she was sharing with them her own experience of Him. She encouraged them to go and see for themselves. They went, they brought him back with them, they spent two days in his company.
They heard the word from his lips and many believed because of it. This fallen woman became an apostle because she spent time with the Lord. And all the pieces of her life came together. I suspect what drove the Samaritans to rush to the well was not simply the woman's confession—"He told me everything I ever did"—but the fact that she had changed, that something had happened to her.
It is the fact that she had changed, that something had happened to her. This woman with five husbands had all the excitement. All the radiance of someone who has fallen in love for the first time. My friends, when you ask for living water, you take a great risk. You are asking God to change you, to transform you into the image of his Son, Christ.
To reorient you tomorrow onto paths you cannot chart, nor even control. The risk is great, because it means we begin to change. But we might feel overwhelmed.
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In one of Graham Greene's novels, there is a dialogue between an American professor and a Trappist monk. The professor asks the monk:
"Father, why did you become a Trappist? Life is so hard, there are so many easier ways to follow the Lord."
The monk replies:
"I think you know, Professor, that when one has to jump, it is so much safer to do so. It is so much safer to jump into deep water, so much safer to jump into deep water."
Homily for this Sunday by Father Robert Warren, Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, Garrison, NY