Third Sunday of Lent

Like the Samaritan woman in our Gospel, I might question Father Paul: “Why are you
asking me, a woman, to give the reflection on this Third Sunday of Lent?” We who come
here to Christ Our Hope regularly, would say his reply could be something like: “If you
knew the gift of preaching which I have, you would stay seated and the entire assembly
would be challenged to drink the Living Water and then go back into the city to spread
the Good News.” But regulars also know that we have a pastor who is willing to act and
speak in ways that are contrary to contemporary custom and practice. His actual answer
would have nothing to do with his own gift as a preacher nor with my husband (only one
– ever!), but rather his respect for the role of women in the Church.

That in itself offers some of the explanation of my presence here at the ambo. But, why
on this Sunday? Why this set of readings? Well, as we know, this Gospel is one of the
most emphatic examples of how women played in the public life of Jesus and of how
Jesus acted against what was allowed, what was acceptable! Thus a woman will give the
reflection on The Woman at the Well.

This is a Gospel which has long fascinated me. I can remember as a very young child
wondering about a woman who had already had 5 husbands and now was living with a
man who was not her husband. It was quite intriguing to me, growing up in the tiny
farming community of Riley, Kansas, where, in the early 1950’s divorce was almost
unknown and multiple marriages were not spoken of, if they were, in fact, happening. As
I got older and learned about Church teachings on marriage, I continued to be intrigued.
Without seeking the aid of Scripture scholars, I just assumed that the Samaritans in the
first century had some prescriptions like our Church law that required marriage
annulment and this woman didn’t have the money to pay the required administrative fees
(especially by the 5th time!) or decided it was foolish and she wasn’t going to bother. My
current, non-scholarly assessment is that, though there were no movies in first century
Palestine, there was surely some sort of public entertainment, and she was probably the
equivalent of a 21st century American movie star! Scholars offer only speculations.
Her marriage state is an interesting aspect but not the part of this Sunday’s readings on
which I want to focus. This is a chapter where I sense that the Gospel writer had a lot he
just needed “to get out there” and he lumped together a bunch of things that hold together
mostly because we are so accustomed to hearing them together. However they are issues
which are, in fact, disparate, largely unrelated: the woman with 5 husbands and now a
“domestic partner,” Jesus going against acceptable practice to talk to a Samaritan, Jesus
stepping over the bounds of propriety to talk to a woman in a public place, the whole
matter of water and living water then totally sated thirst; the question of proper place of
worship (as the Samaritan woman questioned: “here on this mountain or in Jerusalem”?);
the disciples who show up and question Jesus’ actions; their follow-up offer of food
which Jesus rejects because he says he has food; the strange description of fields that are
ready four months before harvest season and the role of the disciples in a harvest they
have not worked for; city-folk who came to believe because the woman told them Jesus
had told her everything she had done, but then because they had seen for themselves. It
seems much like a jumble of incidents, ideas and issues – too many for one reflection.

So, the place I want to focus is on Jesus words, “I am he,” And the statement, “The
woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, ‘Could he
possibly be the Christ?’” In John’s Gospel, the only place this story occurs, it is to a
woman who is an outsider that Jesus reveals himself as Messiah. The Gospel is very
strongly tied to the first reading from Exodus where Moses is empowered to provide
water for the parched Israelites. A few chapters before in Exodus 3, Moses had
encountered God in a burning bush, and God had called Moses to lead his people out of
slavery. But Moses knew the skeptical people would question his authority and
wondered: when I tell them the God of your ancestors has sent me to you and they ask,
“What is his name? What shall I tell them.” God responded, “I AM WHO I AM.” It is “I
Am” who sent Moses to the Israelites in slavery in Egypt. It is this “I AM” with whom
Jesus self-identified to the woman at the well. And, to give her credibility when she went
into the city, in her words, “He told me everything I have done.”

It is to a woman, a Samaritan woman, that Jesus first reveals himself as Messiah. And
later it will be to a woman, [or two, or three or several women (depending on which
Gospel you read – but always women)] that Jesus first shows himself after his
resurrection. In each revelation the women carried the Good News back to their cities.
Jesus is I AM, the incarnation of God, who brings salvation to men and women alike, to
Jew and Samaritan alike. His self-revelation to women demonstrates the inclusiveness of
salvation. St. Paul tells us that he died for the ungodly and Pope Francis has reminded us,
salvation is for all of humankind, even the atheists.

For women and for men, this is at the core of what it is to be Christian: our own
affirmation, our own “Amen,” our carrying of the message that “I Am” has come to live
among us. We have been given the Living Water in Baptism. We are nurtured by the food
which is Eucharist and we are sent to do the will of the one who sends us, to finish his
work: I Am sends us to our families, to our work places, to our communities. But, most
of all, I AM sends us to those who are on the margins – left out of the mainstream of
society because of poverty, or sexual orientation, or race or homelessness or nationality,
or immigration status, or AIDS, or imprisonment, or unemployment, or mental illness.
My family has touched into this marginalization in the person of our mixed race, young
adult son, who has diagnosed mental illness and is dependent on government
entitlements, plus the emotional, moral and physical support of his family. But, all of us
need to step further, beyond the bounds of our personal and local concerns.

We must leave our water jars, whatever seems important in the moment, and go in to the
town and say to the people, “I have met the Messiah and I am here to complete his work.”
We must ask ourselves: What can I do to relieve the suffering of others in the world?
What can I do to change the structures of society in order to improve life for those on the
margins? How can I help stop the machines of war that encircle the world? What can I do
to change the laws and policies of government to move us toward justice for all? We
must act in ways that reflect the reality that, as Paul tells us in the second reading, “the
love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit….”

“I Am” sends us and if we fully affirm that he IS the Messiah, we must, by our baptism,
spread in word and deed, that he is the savior of the world. In accepting and affirming
salvation, we eat the Bread of Life, and we are sent forth in peace to love and serve the
Lord. We who have received the Living Waters of Baptism and the Bread of Life in
Eucharist are compelled to do so!