Lenten Reflections - Week 1, Feb 28 Sat

by Kenny Soosai

Readings: Deut 11:18-28, Heb 5:1-10, John 4:1-26

Gospel: Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, just his disciples), he left Judea and returned to Galilee.

He had to pass through Samaria. So he 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 Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking with you."

Reflection: Jesus was travelling from the South of Israel to the North. He passed through Samaria, a shortcut. Jews will usually avoided Samaria and would go the long way along the river Jordan to get to Judea. The Jews despised the Samaritans even though the two are closely related. Once Israel was one kingdom but split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms shortly after King Solomon’s death. The Northern Kingdom was called Israel and consisted of 10 tribes while the Southern Kingdom was called Judah (that is where we get the name Jews) and was made up of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin & Levi. The Northern Kingdom was eventually captured by the Assyrians and the 10 tribes of Israel were mostly exiled. In their place, the Assyrians brought in foreign people who intermarried with the locals, effectively wiping out the 10 tribes. So the Jews saw the Samaritans as half-breeds whose customs were mixed with foreign religion. As the Samaritans had their holy mountain on Mount Gerizim where they sacrificed on, the Jews also saw them as competitors to the Temple in Jerusalem.

For Jesus, a Jewish Rabbi to be asking for water from a Samaritan woman in the middle of the afternoon was breaking Jewish protocol on many levels. Women normally collected water in the cool of the morning or the evening and were usually never alone. This women, who came out alone in the afternoon suggests that she is shunned by her own community.

Jesus asks the woman for a drink, inviting her into a conversation. Along the conversation, the roles reverse and the woman asks Jesus for ‘living water’. Jesus then asks her to bring her husband to him and in the process, reveals her adultery.

The woman then recognizes that Jesus is a prophet. As Jesus reveals more spiritual truths to her, the Samaritan woman accepts that Jesus is the Messiah. With one conversation with Jesus in the afternoon and this Samaritan woman who is an adulteress has the spiritual insight to see that He is the Messiah.

Earlier in chapter 2, Jesus also has a conversation with Nicodemus who is a Pharisee and a religious scholar. Even as Jesus reveals spiritual truths to Nicodemus, this so called learned man cannot ‘see’ who is speaking to him and the Pharisees can’t even recognize Jesus as a prophet.

Here we see how the wisdom of God can sometimes escape the ‘learned’ and elevated but can be appreciated by the simple and those we deem unworthy.

A Step to Consider: Have you come to Jesus to listen to his voice this Lent? Or do you already know all there is to know about Lent? Sometimes even when we haven’t fulfilled our Lenten or even Christian obligations, Jesus is still willing and waiting to talk us. If we hear him, He is still willing to offer us ‘living water’ and perhaps even more.