Introduction: Crossing Boundaries  
  
On this Sunday and the next two – we break from reading the Gospel of Matthew to read from John’s Gospel. The Gospel of John is the only Gospel not assigned to a particular liturgical year. Instead, readings from John are interspersed throughout our three-year liturgical cycle. During the last three Sundays of Lent, John’s Gospel highlights the power, dignity, and divinity of Jesus – as he faces  Holy Week’s events of human suffering and death.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, the amazing and counter-cultural dialogue between Jesus and a woman from Samaria is among the lengthiest and most theological found in Scripture. (John is known for his “high Christology” with deep theological roots.)

The most startling aspect of the conversation is that it happens at all! By entering a Samaritan village and speaking with this woman, Jesus has crossed ethnic, religious, and gender boundaries.  Throughout their discussion, Jesus breaks down religious, cultural, and gender boundaries in numerous ways. Shocking to both his disciples – and to the Early Church – and even to us today.

Who do you exclude from your circle of concern?

Shocking - for Samaritans were seen as ethnically impure, having intermarried with colonizers after the Assyrian invasion in 722 B.C. They were religiously suspect, worshipping in a different manner and having their own version of the Torah – as well as their own Temple. And it would have been considered scandalous for Jesus to speak directly to a woman, especially alone. And Jesus boldly was speaking with this woman! (What would people think of this Messiah?)

Identify a time when you were bold in your action.  

The story centers at Jacob’s Well, close to the city of Samaria. It is here that an exhausted and thirsty Jesus meets the Samaritan woman (with no name), who is drawing water in the noontime heat. She apparently does not come in the morning to avoid the gossip and piercing glances of others – since she is considered an “outcast” herself in town due to her “many husbands.” No wonder she came to the well alone each day at “high noon.”

When she sees that Jesus does not have a bucket to draw water, she is perplexed. Jesus responds in those beautiful words: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water that I shall give will never thirst.” This spring of water will well up to eternal life. She responds: “Give me this water so that I may not be thirsty . . .” 

At that point, Jesus tells her that he is the Messiah. “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” How extraordinary! It is a religious outsider, a social outcast, a multiple adulterer who is the first in John’s Gospel to hear this revelation! 

Have you ever been totally amazed by the Gospel?

The story concludes with the returning disciples - shocked by what they see. And, more importantly, the “outsider” Samaritans inviting Jesus to stay a few days.   Does Jesus need to be invited to stay?

I would invite you to read and ponder the words from the Gospel of John 4:5-42.

What word or words caught your attention?
What in this passage comforted/challenged you?

Further Questions and Reflections:

The conversion of the Samaritan woman and towns people is a foretaste of the kind of open community that will be created among those who believe.

In which ways are our parish an “open community?”

Ponder: Lord, I am going about my business like the Samaritan woman, and I am taken aback when you meet me unexpectedly at the “well” of my life. You interrupt my business, my getting and spending, and the routines of my day. I imagine you probing my desires, showing you know the waywardness of my heart. What will I say to you at that moment?

How and when do you invite Jesus into your day?

                                               

Deacon David

Deacon David Suley
St. Andrew Apostle Catholic Church
Silver Spring, Maryland

Published with Permission

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