This is my homily for Sunday, 27 March 2011. I am a Catholic chaplain at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) campus and for the FDU Newman Catholic Association. We celebrate Catholic Mass - during Fall and Spring semester - every Sunday Mass (7:30 p.m.) at the Interfaith Chapel, 842 River Road, Teaneck, NJ.
Exodus 17:3-7 | Psalm 95 | Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 | John 4:5-42
[__01__] During times of very low rainfall, what River Edge or Bergen County or the State of New Jersey will impose are drought restrictions. Certain individuals may be exempt (or restriction-free), provided they have a private water supply or well.
But, for the vast majority of us, water is a common, shared natural resource, also a gift from on high. And, in times of drought, we are called to change our ways. To change our patterns … of consumption.
Our Lord alerts us to the Good News of a new water supply. Water is the metaphor, the symbol, of his mercy, his love, reminding us of his sacrifice on the cross, in which blood and water flow out for us.
That’s the Good News about the new water.
[__02__] In a drought, 2 common reactions might happen –
(a) Increase our demand get whatever we can.
(b) Increase our supply, avoid giving away any water.
Restrictions – or the move to a new water supply can be painful. Perhaps, we have to dig beneath the surface to find a spring or stream.
And, the longer this takes, the tougher it is.
[__03__] Hardship is the norm – in our first reading – for the Hebrew people who are quite parched after 17 chapters of Exodus and the desert. And, they increase their demands.
The heat does not actually make them impatient on the sand – nor do heat and stress make us impatient - however, it makes it difficult to be patient.
In the Hebrew traveler, you might see yourself; I might see myself. Waiting on a very long line, a queue, waiting for someone else to do something. Waiting for someone else to recognize what I need.
And, don’t we often find ourselves waiting for other people to do things, things perhaps that they should not need to be told – in either TALK, TEXT, or E-MAIL.
It is a trial to keep our requests civilized (restrained… patient) when something is overdue. We may increase our demands through our words, our tone of voice … or other actions. We want to fill the reservoir.
[e.g., see note on Moses, striking the rock twice, increasing his demands. ]
So, sometimes, we increase our demands in a shortage or drought.
[__04__] Another reaction and response to the drought is … saving and hiding what we have.
This would increase our supply, right. You hide what you I have. I’ll hide what I have. Keep it under a bushel basket. On the other hand, Jesus tells us elsewhere, --
“For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it.” (Matthew 16:25, Douay-Rheims)
And, in the beginning of the conversation at the well – between the Samaritan woman and our savior – there is some restriction, some hiding.
Hearing a request for a drink, the Samaritan tells Jesus, “how can you – a Jew – ask me – a Samaritan – for a drink?”
Also, she is saying – how can anyone from “regular society” ask me for anything.
The time of day and location explain – at well, at Noon ?
And, due to a series of unstable and unfulfilled relationships which lack commitment, she is an exile in our own country. She is an outcast and does not have much.
Others – who need water for work and home would have arrived much earlier and would have arrived together.
We might consider the well to be Starbucks or … a train station or bus stop, places that many people go on their way to their other activities.
So..here is she is at Noon, alone.
But, we read that she is also a woman of faith and trust.
She says, “I know that the Messiah is coming, called the Christ, when he comes he will tell us everything.” (John 4:25)
The woman of Samaria knows the law and prophets. And, she has been preparing to meet Jesus for a while. She just did not expect it to be right now.
Asking for a drink, Jesus can expect that her first response will be to hide … so as to preserve and save what she has.
In this regard, the Messiah (for whom she has been waiting) asks her to change her ways. Moreover, doesn’t Jesus also place a trust in her which others do not.
The water …you can do it.
You can come out of hiding.
We have heard reference to water and food and service before, as part of a list of generous actions –
“For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)
Jesus invites the woman – and you and me – to participate in his mission with this drink. He is asking for her to give him to drink.
But, lifting water from the well is not simply a reprieve to the impoverished and a sacrifice by the well-watered to the dry.
It is not simply a give-away.
It is also about a shared desire, a shared hope, belief.
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*****See also these references from Catholic tradition & St. Augustine:
(a) CCC Catechism 2560 - 2560 "If you knew the gift of God!"7 The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him. - (Cf. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus 64,4:PL 40,56)
(b) (Augustine, Roman Breviary 2nd reading, 3rd Sunday of Lent) - "The Samaritans were foreigners; Jews never used their utensils. The woman was carrying a pail for drawing weater. She was astonished that a Jew should ask her for a drink of water, a thing Jews would not do. but the one who was asking for a drink was thirsting for her faith..." -- or we might say, thirsting for a personal relationship with her...i.e., Christ's desire for her, for you, for me. *********
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Both Jesus and the woman arrive at the well for a drink, for the same reason.
[__05__] Asking her for water, Jesus tells her… I want what you want. I seek you and I seek you and have found you before you even found me. And, this is the Good News. While challenging us to conversion, repentance, and to a new water supply, the Lord assures us that he can overcome the drought of our pain – our sorrow – our grief – our mourning – our poverty - and he wants to give us what we really desire …for the reasons we are truly thirsty.
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