Third Sunday of Lent

We are privileged to eavesdrop into the longest recorded conversation Jesus ever had, with a Samaritan woman, and we do not even know her name.  It’s been said that anytime someone significant in the Scriptures remains nameless, that person acts as the universal person – standing in for each of us.  So, let’s imagine ourselves sitting there at the well, too.

We hear our readings today invite us to name and consider the many wells from which we are drinking.  The chosen people complained to Moses about not having water to drink in the desert.  The Samaritan woman carried her heavy water jar to Jacob’s well.  We also have needs deeper than the various wells from which we draw our daily sustenance.

Do we drink from the well of self-pity?  How often do we not see the larger picture, and live from our own reference point only?  Women at the Wellness Center appear prominently in my mind when I play the “woe is me” game at my desk with too many emails, letters, phone calls, dead-lines, and appointments.

Perhaps we drink from the well of self-absorption.  Jesus came to serve the beggars and the blind, the oppressed and oppressor, the marginalized and ostracized.  We are here to serve the world, not ourselves.

Or, maybe we drink from the wells of excessive self-care?  How many of us worry more about how fit we make our bodies so that we look good, rather than out of a concern for good health?  How do we listen to the deep yearning of our souls for meaning, depth, and authenticity?  Do we spend as much time creating family priorities as we do social and business ones?

The unnamed woman calls Jesus by many names – prophet, Messiah, Lord – as she recognizes and accepts the gift he offers.  In her openness to the good news she receives in this life-changing conversation, she leaves her water jar, the symbol of what she thought needed to be filled, at the well, and goes back into town. 

She now desires that others be filled to the brim with the same transforming experience she had with Jesus.  This woman stands in bold contrast to the disciples, whose names we do know, who simply return with lunch. 

Spending time at that well with Jesus, we can see his ministry as sitting with tax collectors and prostitutes, the impoverished and destitute, and those emotionally and mentally unstable.  As Pope Francis remarked at the Chrism Mass: “The ministers need to smell like the sheep.”  Jesus is the Good Shepherd who smells like his sheep, and he wants it this way.

We see Jesus reaching beyond the borders, the places we’d rather not go.  Too many of us are afraid to reach beyond our comfort zones.  Staying in our comfort zones, we engage only a small fragment of what life has to offer.  When we reach out and across borders we are able to drink from so many other wells that life has to offer.

We are more thirsty than we can possibly imagine, and Jesus desires to meet us at the wells of our lives.  God ventures into everything all around us, into our history, our woundedness, our family, and our world.  God is no stranger in any of those places.  From what wells do you and I drink?

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor