Homily for Third Sunday of Lent
Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Rom 5: 12-19; Mt 4:1-11
We see them every year on the Third Sunday of Lent (Cycle A). Here is Jesus again, sitting on the well, tired and thirsty from walking. Here comes the Samaritan Woman again. We know these two. What more can we notice about these two as we look upon this scene?
Jesus, who is light and life, sits by Jacob’s Well at noon, in full sunlight – symbolic for sure. His thirst, leads him to cross cultural and religious boundaries to address the woman who is out of place and out of time. She should be there, either in the morning or at night with other women, not at midday, and certainly she should not be talking to a man alone—and to a Jew. But Jesus must sense that she is thirsty, too. Her need meets his power to save.
Notice, too, that both are at rest. She is seated, resting. Her activity has ceased. She is disposed to converse, and to listen. While talking with him, her faith and desire are quickened: “Sir, give me this living water.” She is a model for us. Many say, ‘I don’t have to tell God. He knows what I need.’ Nonsense! Look at her. Sitting with Jesus, conversing with him, she becomes more aware of her need. She expresses them. He gives her respect and attention that she doesn’t seem to have from the other six men in her life or from other women. She is alone, probably outcast. She receives understanding. It’s living water. She drinks and revives. It is all in the relationship, in the relating. She relates to him and he to her. It is mutual. She asks for what she wants and she receives it. She receives Christ’s Mercy. She lives again, re-vives. Then she becomes an evangelist. She runs to tell others.
Is this possible for us? She embodies the Lenten dynamic for us. We turn back to God. We become aware of how weary and needy, how worried, how anxious over family, friends, health, studies, money, mortgages, investments, over Syria, Iraq, ISIS, the Presidential candidates, the homeless, the drug epidemic, the Zika virus? Aren’t you tired? Of course you are! And well you should be!!
We are aware we are not God. We are flooded with the grace of God’s own life, beginning in the well of baptism that our catechumens are preparing to receive. We grow in sanctity through the sacraments, encounters with Christ. We drink of the water. And we revive!
Let’s do as the woman does: sit, listen, ask and receive mercy and then go help Christ revive others. Isn’t that why we come here?