Father Bob's Reflections

The Third Sunday of Lent (March 19, 2017)

We’re in an important series of Sunday scriptures used to help catechumens (those preparing to meet the Lord in baptism).  In using this series of three stories (1st) The Woman at the Well, (2nd) The Man Born Blind (next Sunday) and (3rd)  The Raising of Lazarus, the Church all through its history has asked John the Evangelist to interpret  for us how he sees Jesus and his significance for us.

This Sunday’s gospel has Jesus and his buddies passing through Samaritan territory.

Here are a few notes from Scripture scholar William Barclay once again.Jesus was on his way to Galilee in the north of Palestine from Judaea in the south.  But he had to pass through Samaria, unless he took the long way across the Jordan River Jacob’s well stands at the fork of the road in Samaria, one branch going northeast, the other going west. This place has many memories for Jews as Jacob bought this ground and bequeathed it to Joseph  who had his bones brought back here for burial. The well itself is more than 100 feet deep. You also need to know the Jews and Samaritans had a feud that had lasted for centuries.  

William Barclay tells us that this story shows us so much about the character of Jesus.

~ It shows us his real humanity. He was weary from the journey and he sat by the side of the well exhausted.  

~ I shows us the warmth of his sympathy.  From an ordinary religious leader, from one of the orthodox church leaders of the day the Samaritan woman would have fled in embarrassment. She at last had met someone who was not a critic but a friend; it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to talk with him.  

~ It shows that Jesus is the breaker down of barriers. The quarrel between the Jews and the Samaritans was an old, old story, going back to 720 B.C. when the Assyrians that invaded the northern kingdom and captured it. The Samaritans lost their racial purity and therefore lost their right to be called Jews.  

~ And there is still another way Jesus was taking down barriers.  The Samaritan was a woman. The strict Rabbis forbade Rabbis to greet a woman in public, not even their own wife or daughter. And not only that, she was also a woman of notorious character. No decent man, let alone a Rabbi, would have been seen in her company, or even exchanging a word with her, and yet Jesus entered into conversation with her.

And now here’s my telling of the story .  .  .  .

 Jesus and his buddies came to the well and his buddies went off to the nearby town of Sychar. The hour’s about noon and Jesus is weary, hot, dusty, sweaty (I presume) and thirsty.

He sits down by Jacob’s well but has no bucket; the cool stuff is right down there but he can’t access it.  

Along comes a woman with a bucket and he’s about to break all kinds of taboos:  One, Jews don’t associate with Samaritans as I said. Two, men don’t speak to women in public. She is shocked by his shattering both of these impenetrable barriers and is quite flustered. And three, she’s not exactly a woman of high moral standing.

He soon puts her at ease by asking her for a drink; as the great Teacher he is, he reverses the symbol and says he will give her “living waters so she will never be thirsty again.”

She’s intrigued and begins to relax into his accepting, easy manner. (We forget that He was probably a handsome 31-year-old.) In fact, she quickly feels such total acceptance that she trusts him to touch her ~ on the inside.

The conversation cuts to the quick very quickly. Jesus says she has had “five husbands and the one she’s living with now is not her husband.”

Jesus has a true pastoral manner that, very sadly, so many of my friends who have left the church did not receive from a priest or their family or a community when they needed it the most.

One of the new “Mysteries of Light” of the Rosary  has us meditate on “the proclamation of the kingdom.” At some point, I realized that I must learn how to proclaim (share ) the Good News not over the heads of masses of people but to share it as Jesus did here in a stranger’s town ~ one person at a time.

I ache inside when I realize so many have turned a deaf ear to the church because we priests and bishops often do not match our words with the lives we lead or because we use harsh and condemning words that push people away and singe their souls instead of drawing them close. Pope Francis is showing us that too.

Through my own life experience I have learned to do as Jesus did with the woman at the well. He befriended her first.  He treated her as a person. He spoke kindly. He did not condemn her but in revealing his own vulnerability (his own thirst,) he brought her up to his own level.

In my videographer’s eye I can  see the two of them sitting close to each other on the wall of the well, gently conversing as Jesus listens to the story of her brokenness. I’ve learned that — the only legitimate way, in my eyes — is to preach the gospel — in mutual regard and respect and in mutual vulnerability.

If we keep yelling at people in harsh words we will be just tuned out.  St. Francis of Assisi is known to have said, “Preach the gospel; when necessary, use words.”

We have a beautiful truth to share — the sacredness of all life and the sacredness, the holiness of the ground beneath our feet — but we can only get that message across when we be with people’s where they hurt and need, without judging; to cry with them and hug them instead of yelling at them or talking over them. Jesus would never do that!  The only people he yelled at where the people who justified themselves and condemned others.

I repent of the times that I have been harsh with others.  And those times have been many. And I pray that, day by day by day, Jesus, the gentle One, would help me to be more and more gentle and nurturing and respectful to those I meet whose lifestyles and values are different from mine.  For I know that if I want to have any influence on them, I need to let them get close to me and let them know that, despite everything, they have a place in my heart.

I look at Pope Francis and am in awe of this holy man at eighty years old with his youthful vigor and eternal smile and his mercy upon mercy upon mercy. Oh! How I wish I could serve again like that. I pray that in some small way that it would be so.

The story of the woman at the well ends by telling us that this wonderful human being in Whom-God-shown-through (Gospel of the Transfiguration — Second Sunday of Lent) broke down the wall of prejudice and hostility between Jews and Samaritans so dramatically that the whole town welcomed him; and he and his buddies stayed for two days.  

And there you have it, dear friends. This is the Jesus I know and love.  And want to be like.

Lord Jesus,

I give thanks that I have had mentors who drew me close

in whose loving embrace I received non-judgmental loving

and through whose example I myself desire to love without judgment.

In my own thirst to receive the faith of those I meet and care for

may I always bring them to You, the spring of living water

so that the water you give them “will become IN THEM

a spring of living water welling up to eternal life.”

So be it! AMEN!  

Here’s Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Waters Click here.

Years ago when I first heard this song, I thought Jesus was / is the bridge!

And here are all of the Mass readings that accompany this story, that is with catechumens or candidates for the sacraments of Initiation present,  Click here.

If you go to a Mass that uses the regular readings for which is the Feast of St Joseph. Click here.

With love,

Bob Traupman

contemplative writer

William Barclay: the Gospel of John – Volume 1 Revised Edition pp. 146 – 151.  / The Daily Study Bible Series                                                                   The Westminster Press – Philadelphia 1975