The Gospel of the Samaritan Woman contains many insights which enrich our Lenten journey.
There are a couple important details right at the beginning of the story: “Jesus came to a town of Samaria…Jacob's well was there.” Jesus enters this place, where no pious Jew would go. Samaria was filled with half-breeds—Jews who had intermarried with the Assyrians invaders of centuries past. The Samaritans were no longer considered Jewish, and so they and their land were considered unclean and would be avoided by the pious Jew.
First, insight: Jesus doesn’t go around the unclean land or the unclean person. Jesus loves the unclean, the marginalized, the outsider. In the Second Reading, we are reminded by St. Paul that Jesus loves the sinner so much, he lays down his life for them.
The encounter between Jesus and the woman doesn’t just take place in a random location in Samaria, rather, we hear it takes place on a well. Last week, Jesus was on top of a mountain, the place where heaven meets earth, divinity meets humanity.
What’s symbolic about a well? If you’ve ever been to a wedding reception, sometimes the repository for the wedding gifts and wedding cards is in the shape of a well. In Scripture, many brides and grooms meet at wells. Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah, all meet at wells.
Jesus, has but one bride, the Church. So the sinful, unclean Samaritan woman is a symbol of us all, invited to be wedded to Christ through his death and resurrection.
We know where this encounter takes place, but when does this encounter take place? St. John tells us: it was around noon. It’s the part of the day when the sun is at its most brilliant and most illuminating…in the course of this story Jesus is certainly going to shed light upon something truly important: his identity and the promises available for those who believe in Him.
So this woman of Samaria comes to draw water, and Jesus said to her “give me a drink”. This is a very strange request. In the society of his time, men and women, especially strangers, would not speak to each other publicly; It would be highly unusually and unconventional for a Jewish man to be so frank and direct with a Samaritan woman.
Notice that Jesus invites her to give Him a drink. St. Augustine said magnificently, this is God thirsting for our faith. Yes, indeed. This is God thirsting for our generosity. God thirsts for our generosity because generosity makes us joyful and God made us to be joyful. Sin and selfishness are always a failure to be generous with God and neighbor and result in joylessness.
The woman responds to Jesus’ invitation, not at all aware of the spiritual significance of the encounter: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?"” To which Jesus responds, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink, ' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
Jesus IS the gift of God—the Son is given to us by the Father that we may have eternal life. Jesus is saying, if you knew who I was, you’d ask me to give you what no one else on earth can provide: living water. Living water, what a powerful image for desert people—liveliness, hope, vitality, grace. Jesus is saying, I can give you what you most long for, that which humanity lost through sin, reconciliation with God that will bring you eternal life.
The woman shows she still doesn’t quite understand: “You don’t even have a bucket, how can you give living water?” She’s still thinking simply about physical water. So, Jesus takes her where she is, but then leads her deeper. Everyone who drinks from the earthly well will be thirsty again.
The earthly wells are all those earthly places we go to quench our thirst for the divine, but do not satisfy. All the addictions that leave us longing, all the worldly pursuits we chase after because we think they will make us happy. We’re wired for God, we are built for God, but we seek our happiness in all the wrong places, in created things like money, fame, and pleasure. We drink from those wells, and we are still thirsty. As good as these things are, none of them are God, so nothing can satisfy our desire for the infinite.
The woman so focused on the earthly well is all of us who fail to come to Jesus to be satisfied. What is your well? What is the behavior you go back to over and over looking for happiness where true happiness cannot be found? That’s an important Lenten exercise. What is your well? Hear the voice of Jesus this Lent inviting you to be generous with God, that God teach you a new way of drinking living water.
Jesus wants to give us living water that will bring us wholeness, joy, peace, and eternal life. But we must choose between him and the well.
Jesus then poses another interesting request: “go invite your husband and come back.” And the woman answers, “I don’t have a husband”. And Jesus says, “you are right, you don’t have a husband, you’ve had five husbands, and the man you are living with isn’t your husband.”
Why has this woman come at the worst part of day, the hottest part of day to draw water, and why is she alone? The custom at the time was for women to venture together to the village well, it was a time of comradery, and they’d go to the well either in the morning or evening, not at the hottest part of the day because it’s hard work drawing water.
So this woman has gone to the well, alone and at the hottest part of the day because she is probably a woman of ill-repute, someone who is morally suspect even to her neighbors, she’s had five husbands, she may have stolen seduced men away from their lawful wives.
Jesus invites even her, even us, to drink. We are all sinners. Maybe not exactly like the Samaritan woman, but we have all engaged in false relationships, gone back to worldly wells, isolated ourselves from others through poor choices? And what do we hear from Jesus? The invitation to life. The invitation to drink deeply, to have a deep intimate relationship to Christ through prayer isn’t just for the saints, it is for all of us.
The invitation to life involves change, it involves breaking habits, healing relationships, turning away from attitudes and behaviors which are contrary to our faith, putting an end to selfishness. Jesus invites the Samaritan woman to look humbly and honestly at her sins, and to let go of them, that she may know eternal life, and Jesus makes the same invitation to us.
May our Lenten observances help us to hear Jesus calling us to drink deeply of the living water which only comes through Him, through prayer, through repentance of sins, through reception of the sacrament, through generosity with God and selfless charity towards our neighbors, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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