Lent when the Lectionary starts turning to the long readings from the Gospel of
John (John 4, 9, 11). The Church turns to these texts from John at this point in the
liturgical calendar, because John is, in so many ways, a mystagogical document, a gospel intended to takes us deeper into
the mysteries, that is, the sacraments.
sacraments, John remains—in many respects—a closed book. I can attest to this from personal
experience. Although I have always loved
my name-sake Gospel more than any other part of Scripture, I virtually never
preached from it in while I was a Protestant pastor. I was enthralled with the words and
fascinated with the realities behind them, but wasn’t sure what the application
was for texts like John 4 or John 6. The
problem lay in the fact that, as a Christian outside the visible Church, I was
only partially initiated into the sacraments.
Not having experienced the sacraments, I could not recognize when Jesus
was speaking of them.
days of Lent, because the Church is preparing catechumens for initiation into the
sacraments, and the texts chosen are a kind of sacramental catechesis,
especially concerning Baptism, the solemn celebration of which forms such a
central part of the Easter Liturgy.
weekend with the Readings culminating in John 4.
the famous incident in which the people of Israel almost stone Moses in their
demand for water in the desert. God
commands Moses to strike a certain rock near Horeb (a.k.a. Sinai) to supply
water for their thirst:
those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?
Was it just to have us die here of thirst
with our children and our livestock?”
So Moses cried out to the LORD,
“What shall I do with this people?
a little more and they will stone me!”
The LORD answered Moses,
“Go over there in front of the people,
along with some of the elders of Israel,
holding in your hand, as you go,
the staff with which you struck the river.
I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it
for the people to drink.”
This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel.
The place was called Massah and Meribah,
because the Israelites quarreled there
and tested the LORD, saying,
“Is the LORD in our midst or not?”
alone,” in other words, our physical needs are not the definition of our truest
nature. Extending the metaphor to
thirst, we may also say, “Man does not live by water alone.” The satisfaction of thirst is not the
ultimate answer for the human condition.
The physical thirst of the Israelites in the desert is a sign point to a
greater thirst, our thirst for God himself.
David puts it this way: “As a hart longs for
flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”
(Ps 42:1-2). The real thirst of the
Israelites, whether they knew it or not, was for God himself.
satisfy Israel’s thirst for himself shortly after this incident at Massah and
Meribah. In Exodus 24, God would
solemnize a covenant with the people of Israel, a covenant we usually identify
as the Old or Mosaic covenant. After the
covenant was formed, God invited representatives of the Israelites up to dine
with him on Mt. Sinai. “They beheld God,
and ate and drank” (Exod 24:11). As
Brant Pitre points out, the Rabbinic tradition understood this text in the
following sense: Their vision of God was food and drink to them, i.e. they drank
the very sight of God.
honeymoon with God did not last long.
Shortly after the making of the covenant in Exodus 24, the same
rebelliousness of Israel manifested in today’s First Reading reasserted itself
at the Golden Calf. Although God forgave
the people, the thirst-satisfying access to the presence of God was never again
offered in the way it was in Exodus 24.
(8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R/ If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R/ If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R/ If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
recalls Israel’s rebelliousness in the desert and urges us: “If today you hear
his voice, harden not your heart.” In other
words, the same God who led Israel through the Wilderness is still speaking to
us now, today. Do not repeat Israel’s
mistakes. Don’t fight against the God
who is the only one able to supply your true desire.
the water poured out for the Israelites in the desert is a sign of the Holy
Spirit, which is poured out for us primarily in the sacrament of Baptism.
object: the water given for the Israelites was to drink, whereas the waters of
baptism are for washing, not drinking.
But let us note that already from the Apostles, Baptism was thought of
as an act of drinking the Spirit: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one
Spirit” (1Cor. 12:13, cf. Mark 10:38-39)
the Second Reading:
and sisters:
Since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith
to this grace in which we stand,
and we boast in hope of the glory of God.
And hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
speaks of being “justified by faith.” We
know that justification is a fruit of Baptism (1 Peter 3:21). But for Baptism to be effective it must be
received in faith. Lack of faith can
impede the subjective effects of the sacrament.
Justification is by faith, though not by faith alone. St. Paul goes on to allude to baptism again:
“hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The primary act by which we receive the Holy
Spirit is baptism (Acts 2:38). The
poured waters represent and actualize the Holy Spirit being poured into our
hearts, giving us the gift of divine love, that we may love as God does, which
means: even to the point of death: “Greater love has no man than this, that he
lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Strikingly, this is exactly how the Second
Reading continues:
Christ, while we were still helpless,
died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
participation in the love that goes to death: “Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom
6:3).
story of the Woman at the Well:
came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
“How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—
Jesus answered and said to her,
“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.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her,
“Go call your husband and come back.”
The woman answered and said to him,
“I do not have a husband.”
Jesus answered her,
“You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’
For you have had five husbands,
and the one you have now is not your husband.
What you have said is true.”
The woman said to him,
“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her,
“Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him,
“I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ;
when he comes, he will tell us everything.”
Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one speaking with you.”
At that moment his disciples returned,
and were amazed that he was talking with a woman,
but still no one said, “What are you looking for?”
or “Why are you talking with her?”
The woman left her water jar
and went into the town and said to the people,
“Come see a man who told me everything I have done.
Could he possibly be the Christ?”
They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.”
But he said to them,
“I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
So the disciples said to one another,
“Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me
and to finish his work.
Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’?
I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.
The reaper is already receiving payment
and gathering crops for eternal life,
so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for;
others have done the work,
and you are sharing the fruits of their work.”
Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him
because of the word of the woman who testified,
“He told me everything I have done.”
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
and they said to the woman,
“We no longer believe because of your word;
for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
difficult to explore them all.
this woman at a well. This happens three
times in the Old Testament: it is how the Patriarchs met their wives. Think of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis
24—although this betrothal was by a proxy); Jacob and Rachel (Gen 29); and
Moses and Zipporah (Exodus 2).
Conditioned by the Old Testament narratives, we actually expect a woman
to show up as soon as Jesus sits down by the well, and so she does!
drink. Take note: the request for a
drink was the sign that Abraham’s servant used to determine if Rebekah was the
divinely-intended bride for Isaac (Gen 24:14).
Interestingly, the only other place in the Gospel of John where Jesus
will request a drink is at the cross.
Spiritual writers say, “He thirsts for our love.” I believe that’s more than a pious
axiom. In both cases in the Gospel of
John where Jesus asks for a drink, it is really an invitation to communion with
himself. It is a request for us to show
him an act of charity, an act of love, and in that way enter into the
relationship of love he intends for us.
In John 4, Jesus appears as a stranger, an unknown traveler parched from
the rigors of the journey. In John 19,
he appears as a condemned criminal about to die. Can we recognize Christ in the strangers, the
thirsty, the poor, the condemned, those on the “margins” of our lives? “I was
hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger
and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited
me, I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matt 25:35-36).
and begin to discuss wells of water. At one point Jesus says, “The water I
shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal
life.” This is a subtle allusion to Song
of Songs 4:15, where the Bridegroom calls his Bride a spring of living
water. When we receive the Water of
Jesus (the Holy Spirit through Baptism), we enter into a nuptial relationship
with him.
is explicitly broached as Jesus asks the woman to call her husband and
return. “I have no husband,” she replies,
and Jesus responds: “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For
you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”
history, which is no doubt why she is coming to the well at noon, to avoid the
other women in the town who came at the usual times of dawn and dusk.
the history of her people. She is a
woman of Samaria, after all. The
Samaritans were mixed descendants of the poor people of Northern Israel (left
behind by the Assyrians in 722BC) and five foreign nations brought in by their
conquerors, with whom the Israelites intermarried and also worshipped their
gods! (see 2 Kings 17, esp. vv. 24-34.
Keep in mind that the author of 2 Kings downplays the role of the
Israelites left in the land, whose presence we know about from other sources).
late 500s BC, the northern Samaritans bit by bit gave up the worship of other
deities and returned to worshiping YHWH God of Israel, but they did not do it
according to the covenant with David, whereby Jerusalem was the place of
worship (Ps 132:13). They built their
own temple in Gerizim (mentioned in John 4), and tried to be in relationship
with God without following the proper form of the covenant. What do we call it today when a couple lives
together, but are not in a covenant relationship? See the connection with John 4:18?
people. The people of northern Israel,
her ancestors, left their husband-God all the way back in 1 Kings 12 (see also
Hosea 1-3, all oracles directed to Northern Israel!). Now YHWH, the Bridegroom of Israel has returned
to woo the people of Samaria, as he said he would long ago:
her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. 15 And there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in
the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of
Egypt. 16 “And in that day, says the
LORD, you will call me, ‘My husband,’ (lit. “my man”) and no longer will you
call me, ‘My Ba’al’ (i.e. “my master,” sometimes used for “husband” in a formal
sense). 17 For I will remove the names
of the Ba’als (here, the pagan deities) from her mouth, and they shall be
mentioned by name no more. 18 And I will
make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of
the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the
sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will betroth you to me forever; I
will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and
in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in
faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.
themselves come to believe that he is the Messiah: “We know that this is truly
the savior of the world.”
the living water of God:
Holy Spirit. As Jesus will say later, on
the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, when water was being poured out on
the altar at the Temple:
let him drink. As the Scripture has
said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38)
nostalgia for our own Baptism, it is a good thing. We do not need rebaptism, however, to awaken
the Spirit and graces that were given to many of us so long ago. If sin has dried up the living waters, it is
a good week to schedule an appointment for Confession, that other Sacrament
that Fathers and Doctors regarded as a kind of renewal of Baptism.
interplay of the themes of water, Baptism, communion, and love. Jesus asks us for a drink, a tangible sign of
love from us. If we give it, we enter
into communion with him, a relationship of love that is solemnized by receiving
the “drink” of Baptism, which in turn fills our hearts with his love, the love
of the Holy Spirit. Filled with this love,
we are motivated to give a “cup of cold water” to the poor, the thirsty, the
outcast, in whom we see Jesus. Interior
spiritual communion, the Sacraments, and concrete acts of charity and mercy are
all intertwined.
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