Browsing Homilies

Third Sunday of Lent (First Scrutiny, Year A)

Ex 17:3-7 | Ps 95 | Rom 5:1-2, 5-8 | Jn 4:5-42

Water is life. We have to have water in order to live. A person can live up to three weeks without food but only three days without water. Water is all around us; seventy-one percent of the earth is covered with water. However; safe, clean, running water in homes throughout the world is not readily available to all.

Millions of families live without it. The not for profit organization, Water.org, works to bring sustainable clean water projects to those in need in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. They report that worldwide one in ten people do not have access to safe, clean water. That number is equal to twice the population of the United States, approximately 700 million people! For those millions, it means spending many hours each day carrying water from sources with no assurance that it is safe for drinking, cooking and bathing. Often, the heavy physical work of carrying water for the home is done by women today.

A woman encounters Jesus at Jacob’s well while drawing water for her household. Their mutual thirst brings them together. They both need water. Jesus’ thirst is physical. After walking in the heat of the day and at a considerable distance his body is hot, tired, and thirsty. The woman, too, thirsts. She longs to have the burdensome work of hauling water completed for another day.

Most of the scandal of this weekend’s Gospel is largely lost on us and our culture today: but at the time of Jesus, given the strict rules of public decorum regarding encounters between men and women not of the same family, this chance meeting should have been over before it began. Women and men that were not related did not talk or have any association with one another in public. Add to this: that Jews and Samaritans had been the most bitter of enemies for centuries. Their hatred for one another and hostility toward the other knew few, if any, equals.

But yet, the two sit, talk, and listen to one another. Through their mutual acceptance of the other, the walls, boundaries, hostilities, and hatreds, which had long separated Samaritans and Jews, melt away and disappear. The Samaritan woman comes to understand who Jesus is. Initially, he is simply a Jew, the despised and hated “other.” As he candidly speaks of her marital history, however, she comes to believe that he is a prophet. As Jesus teaches her and reveals more of his identity the woman says, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes he will tell us everything.” Jesus replies, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

The woman then hurries away excitedly, to tell others in the town about this extraordinary man at the well. She asks, “Could he possibly be the Christ?” After listening to the woman and then listening to Jesus, the townspeople come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

The author of John’s Gospel includes this great detail: “The woman left her water jar and went into the town.” She can’t even remember why she came to the well in the first place; it no longer matters. And, she’s no longer concerned with what people think of her – it’s not enough to keep her from sharing the Good News! (Perhaps, knowing she was coming back, she knew she could retrieve the water jar later). Or, did the author intend another meaning? Could the jar left behind serve as a metaphor for the life she had been living?

Jesus met her where she was at, and after an encounter with him (by talking with him and listening to him) it changes her, and she leaves everything behind.

She was willing to take the risk, but leaving water jars behind can be a risky little game: because they are comforts to us, it’s what we know, it’s familiar, and they are defense mechanisms which help us to build up walls.

A question to pose to ourselves: What is our water jar? What do we need to leave behind? And would we, after having encountered the living God, the risen Lord, be willing to take such a risk, be changed for the better, and leave it all behind?

THE FIRST SCRUTINY

Our catechumen, Keira, now known as the elect, is one among us who has recognized this holy longing in her life – and she is a shining example to us.

The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent, the celebration of the scrutinies are to take place at Masses in which the elect are present. That word, “scrutiny,” means what we might think it means: critical observation or examination.

The scrutinies are meant to uncover, then heal all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the hearts of the elect; to bring out, then strengthen all that is upright, strong, and good.

They are celebrated in order to deliver the elect from the power of sin and Satan, to protect them against temptation. And to give them strength in Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

These rites, therefore, should complete their conversion and deepen their resolve to hold fast to Christ and to carry out their decision to love God above all.

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