22 March, 2014

3rd Sunday Lent 2014 by Galarreta sj

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT A

THEMES AND CONTEXT

EXODUS 17:3-7

José Galarreta S.J.


This fragment is one of many in which the people of Israel, journeying through the desert find themselves without water and violently protest against Moses, all the while longing for Egypt,  the land of their slavery. Moses goes before the Lord and draws water from the rock for the people. But the deepest meaning  is found in the final phrase. Israel asks:”Is the  Lord in the midst of us or not?” This is the fundamental question of the man of Faith, of one who has put his faith in God, but is always tempted to give up half way.



THE TEXT OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS


The message of this text, complex as are all those of Paul, is clear: the hope of the children of God is founded on Jesus, on the death of Jesus, the proof that God loves us. The relation of God with human beings is love: the love shown in Jesus. The Spirit makes Jesus, the presence of the love of God, capable of going all the way, even to death. And this fact is the foundation of our faith. If the first text ended asking: Is the Lord in our midst or not? Paul finds the answer in Jesus, in the fact that we see the presence of God in our midst.




THE TEXT OF JOHN 

It is one of the most beautiful and famous texts of the Gospel of John. The marvelous staging of the scene, the development of the dialogue, the many details that place the story perfectly in its setting...Far more important to us, however, is its meaning. Jesus is the living water. They may seem to be stories, they very probably narrate details that took place, but they are above all treatises of theology.


The event most likely happened, the details capture the atmosphere perfectly in all its details. Jesus’s passing through Samaria on the way to Jerusalem is not mentioned in any other gospel, but it is not impossible: the well could be that “of Jaco”, even though it’s location of Sychar has caused discussions. The text also reflects perfectly the religious position of the Samaritans with regard to the Jews.

   On this story John builds his “Theology of Living Water”. It would seem to be an invitation to speak of baptism; the text, however, has a much wider baptismal implication. Water is taken in a more biblical meaning, as appears in the Book of Exodus, exactly as we see it in the first reading today. It doesn’t mean to submerge oneself, to wash oneself, but “to “drink”. In this sense, the text throws light on baptism, because there we begin to drink the water of Jesus.

On these three Sundays of Lent (3rd, 4th, and 5th), we are going to read three narratives of the fourth Gospel. Today we read the one of the Samaritan woman, the theme of which is “the living water”. On the Fourth Sunday it is the man born blind, whose theme is “light”. The fifth Sunday is the resurrection of Lazarus, the theme of which is “Life”. The three are perfect symbols of Jesus and through him, of God.



R E F L E C T I O N

Jesus and the Samaritan woman: a world full of surprises. Jesus is tired and thirsty, and he cannot draw water because the well is deep. Our faith is not founded on Jesus as a magician, free of getting tired and weaknesses. We will never tire of insisting too much on the fact that we believe in that man.

Jesus speaks with a woman, with a Samaritan woman, and moreover with a woman of bad repute. Even his disciples are surprised. But take into account that he is a doctor, he has come to heal, to save, he has to be where the sick are. Wonderful picture of God. Jesus is least interested in the Temple, in external acts of worship; he is interested in seeing the woman setting her life right. Jesus dreams of saving the whole world: but he needs help. This fact defines our mission: do you want to help God  to see his children live as children? Yes, that of Jesus is different.

LIVING WATER

What water is to normal life, Jesus is to human life. Jesus is Water, Jesus is the Word, Jesus is the one who gives the Spirit. Jesus is not a well where one goes occasionally to drink water. He is a fountain of the spirit: he who drinks from Jesus is a fountain. He himself feels gushing from within him/herself the water that wells out to eternal life, and does not thirst any more for any other kind of water, because Jesus quenches the thirst for all other things.

It is important we acquire the way of speaking of the Bible. We always function through concepts, and we want to comprehend reality  through them with precision and clarity. But we are speaking of God and the whole Bible and the Gospels speak of him through images. And what marvelous images they are! The major part of our organism is water. We cannot live without water. Thirst is the greatest agony. To find water in the desert is an incredible miracle. That is what God means in our lives, that is the Gospel. It would be wonderful to be able to say without being surprised, “let’s go to drink from the Gospel of Mark.”
  
All these symbols express very well the condition of being human, someone who needs food, light and water... to walk the road. It’s once more confirmation of the image of God Jesus gives us. We prefer using other terms: Eternal, Creator, Judge... But Jesus uses terms within our reach: water, light, life, bread, shepherd, door, doctor, father. All of them underline the same tendency: Jesus presents God as an ally, in the same terms as the most ancient Revelation. Man has to walk a road. God is his best help on the road. The Word of Jesus is the best light, water, bread for the road, God is the shepherd and the doctor. We are used to addressing God by saying “My God”. We even say:”Father”. It would be wonderful if it wouldn’t sound strange to call upon him saying: “Oh my Water!”


When the Samaritan woman understands that Jesus is offering her more than water from the well, she immediately changes over to raising customary religious problems that Jesus isn’t interested in: the Messiah, the temple of Jerusalem or the one on Garizim... But all that isn’t the water of Jesus. The water of Jesus is in that true worshipers adore in spirit and in truth. And this is not limited to saying that there must be true worship in the temple by a surrender of the spirit to God, but that there must be true worship that downplays the temple and changes all life into worship.


This “novelty of Jesus” had already been sown in the Old Testament, and Jesus himself quotes the saying of the prophet Hosea “I want mercy and not sacrifices.” But it is in Jesus that it appears most powerfully and in its most radical meaning. God is not in the temple, like a lord living in a palace. He is everywhere and above all in all his children, all human beings’; that’s where we must serve God. Temples and religious places have been for religions places to enclose gods, besides whom there are no others. Hence, for traditional religious concepts there is a difference between the sacred and the profane. With Jesus, this difference disappears, because there in nothing profane. Further still, if life is not sacred, the temple is profane, because it is useless.


A final reflection uniting the two themes we have proposed. The world needs water, it is thirsty. It is thirsty for physical water, for physical bread, for physical housing, and it is thirsty for Living Water, to know God, to know who he is, which is his home. This is the sacred space for those who follow Jesus, this is their worship, this is the Word of which they are the bearers. Too often have we thought that to take the Word to the nations is to preach religion to them. This is all a caricature, a belittling of the The Word. The Word is not our words: The Word is Jesus, a different way of living, a new way of relating to others, a new relationship to God. All this is explained in words, but is only transmitted through deeds. It’s the reason why water appears again in the last “parable”, the final judgment. In it what has value is separated from what is worthless not by what has been preached, nor by juridical belonging to the Church, but by the best of all the phrases that anyone can understand:

“Because I was thirsty and you gave me to drink.”

The fact is that Jesus changes everything: our relationship with God, the Living Water: our relationship with the others, with those with whom we have to share our Water, the very concept of religion, which is the water that makes the life of human beings fertile.

“IS THE LORD IN OUR MIDST OR IS HE NOT?”

This doubt of the people of Israel is perhaps also ours. Where is your God? In a world filled with so much misery and so much evil, where is God? One needs a very strong faith to continue to speak of a God father of all, to continue to assert that he exists, that he knows what’s happening, that he loves us... Why does he continue to allow so much evil his children endure? Jesus has not explained to us the reason for this. Jesus has told us what the Father wants to do, and that he needs us to do it. Jesus has not spoken of the Creator, neither has he explained why the Father allows each one of our hairs to fall, and also allows so much evil. But certainly Jesus has told us that in this desert, the Water, the light, the salt, the bread ... is the Word of God. This is our faith. And it is not easy to communicate it. But it is a mission we have been entrusted with. To offer water in the desert. To be water in the desert. This would take us back to “you are the salt...” 

Christ is the proof of all this. Our faith in the divinity of Jesus is going to be put to the test on seeing his humanity. To see him suffer and die is a scandal. Can such a thing happen to God? “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” The same thing happens to us on seeing the cross of so many crucified people on earth. It’s the strongest challenge to our faith. If, after the cross, we continue to believe in God, it’s because we know that precisely on that account he did not come down from the cross...Our faith is in a crucified Jesus, that is: we believe in the love of God, in spite of evil in the world, in spite of the desert, because we have seen Jesus give his life for us, for sinful men, simply because we need to believe in love, in spite of the fact that we see evil, hatred. Perhaps for that reason we do not have the Risen Christ as a symbol, but of Jesus crucified. Remember the perfect saying of John 3,16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” endorsed by Paul in his letter to the Romans 8,32  “God, who did not even keep back his only Son, but offered him for us all!”

I KNOW WHOM I HAVE TRUSTED

The Israelites kept asking in the desert: “Is the Lord in our midst? Is  he or is he not?” It’s the fundamental question of faith? Can I trust? Is all this true? We read the story of the Samaritan woman and from our hearts the fountain of faith in Jesus flows. I can certainly trust this One. There is no Teacher like this, no Word like this, , no Religion like this. If this is who God is, this is Water for my life, this is what I can trust, put my faith in. 

FOR OUR PRAYER

1. A simple way of praying is to re-read the passage from John. Everyone of his words can lift our spirit. Repeat the reading, very slowly, stop at words, savor them, allow them to penetrate your spirit.


Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It’s a whole new world. Jesus is tired and thirsty, and he cannot draw water. This is the man we believe in. Jesus speaks to heretics, with a woman of doubtful morals, Jesus saves all he comes into touch with. Jesus does not speak of external worship nor of petty differences between forms of worship.

And how wonderfully well  Jesus handles the conversation! From the thirst of the body to the need for God, from the pseudo-religious talk on useless topics, to the most serious point of his message, the  urgent need for conversion.


2. The disciples surprise Jesus dreaming of the salvation of the world.
Jesus is dreaming of quenching the thirst of the whole world; the whole world is thirsty, the harvest is ready, and there is need of laborers for so much work. Jesus has no thirst for any of the things for which we thirst so much. Whoever drinks of the water Jesus gives no longer wants any other; whoever finds the treasure of the Kingdom no longer wants any other wealth.


Let us contemplate this scene. We are seated next to Him, and we regard the world, so full of men, women, and children, being born, needing things, suffering, dying, needing Water from God without knowing it. Dream with Jesus of the salvation of the world, in the happiness of all people. Listen to Jesus who says: Look at the fields glistening golden with the harvest. The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.

You lack one thing: come, follow me. Come with me, I will make you fishers of men.

As the Father sent me, so I send you


3. And so, we too are surprised : we speak to God to have him solve our problems and we find ourselves faced with an unexpected answer: Do you want to help me save?

4. Prayer of petition for our desert. Ask God for water for our lives. Ask the Father confidently, beginning with all our needs, knowing that He hears me, knowing that he will give it to me, making an act of faith in that he knows all that I need and that he gives me even more. And I think him.

MY WORDS FOR YOU


Psalm 42-43

An exiled priest longs for his priestly duty in the temple, yearns for the House of the Lord:

As a deer longs for running streams, so my soul yearns for You, my God.

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