John 4.5-42
How true it is of our human nature that we so often define ourselves by our failures, especially when others know that we have stumbled and treat us poorly as a result. How often we hear our inner voice telling us that we do not measure up to whatever illusion of perfection we have burdened ourselves with. We are so often our own harshest critics in ways that are not healthy at all.
The woman at the well in today’s Gospel certainly knew what it was like to be defined by others as a failure, as someone who did not measure up. She was a Samaritan, and therefore rejected by the Jews as a heretic and a member of a despised group that had intermarried with Gentiles. She had been married five times and was now with a man to whom she was not married, which may have been why she went to draw water at the unlikely time of high noon. Perhaps she went to the well in the heat of the day in order to avoid the other Samaritan women who wanted nothing to do with someone like her.
Imagine her surprise, then, when Jesus asked her for a drink of water – for a Jew would never ask a Samaritan for assistance. He then engaged her (a woman) in a conversation about spiritual matters! Jewish men simply did not strike up conversations with women in that time and place, and especially not about God, and consuming food or drink from a Samaritan was totally out of the question.
How even more shocking it is for you and me that Jesus’s conversation with her is the longest recorded between Jesus and another person in any of the four gospels.
But instead of shutting down the conversation or running away in fear, this Samaritan woman entered into a deep, meaningful encounter with Jesus, that culminated in telling the people of her village about Christ – in such a way that many of her neighbours came to believe in the Lord.
Why did this woman make such a radical change so quickly? What caused this woman to change her life. It doesn’t make sense that a Samaritan woman would be so impressed with the accusations of a Jewish man. There must be more to this. The words that you and I heard in the Gospel seem to be accusations, condemnations. Or are they?
She would not have changed her behaviour because someone would lecture her on morality or condemn her behaviour. She was already surrounded by people who would do this. I suspect that when Jesus shared with her that he knew her lifestyle, it must have shocked her, that this man could somehow see inside her, and know who she really was. She must have felt in the encounter that she was actually being encountered not as an object of scorn by Jews or by men in general, but as a person. Jesus’ tone must have conveyed His concern, his compassion, for her. And in his compassion and caring, her heart was touched. Jesus speaks to her heart and her heart turns to Him. And I suspect that the message that she heard from Jesus was
“You are a precious daughter of God. You can be better than this.”
You can be better than this.
Do you hear Jesus saying this to you? Is this something you say to yourself?? … I can be better than this.
I can be better than those in our society who seek to belittle and vilify those who are different than me.
I can be better than a society that seeks fulfillment in material possessions and condemns itself to the meaningless acquisition of stuff.
I can be better than being a person who holds on to anger and lets it change how I relate with others.
I can be better than a person who just goes to Mass on Sunday and doesn’t think about God from Monday to Saturday.
I can be better than I am when I get my priorities messed up and don’t spend the time I need to, with my family and my loved ones.
I can be better than this.
Maybe some of the reasons why I am not better is that I have not really tried hard to be better. Maybe, it’s the same with you. Perhaps that temper, that lack of patience, that bad language on the road, that you bring to the sacrament of reconciliation every time pops up again quickly because you are not convinced that you can be better than you have been.
Perhaps, if you are involved in serious sin, you don’t go to confession because you have given up the fight and feel you will not be able to avoid the sin in the future.
Or maybe, just maybe, you are selling yourself short.
Jesus transformed the woman at the well because He was concerned about her.
He wanted her to be the best person she could be.
He told her that she could do it.
And she heard His message load and clear in the depths of her heart.
She determined to change her life and then wanted to shout out to the world that she had an experience of the Messiah!!!
That is why we seek penance and reconciliation especially during Lent. It is why the church provides opportunities for reconciliation, for encounter. We know that God loves us. We know that God cares for each of us individually. We know that God sees the bumps and bruises of our lives that we impose upon ourselves and others. God doesn’t condone our sins, be they big or little. God hurts for us. God wants us to be better. And God’s Love transforms us. God makes us want to be better than we are. To be all that God created us to be.
And God’s Spirit is with us and gives us the courage to change our lives. The courage to see ourselves as beloved Daughters and Sons of God. To know that it is within God’s love that we live, and move, and have our being.
This Lent, let’s take time to encounter Jesus at the wells of our life.
Take time to hear him say to us, in the warm tender voice of Love, –
“My beloved daughter, my beloved son, you can be better than this.”