THE UNSPOKEN WORD, March 15, 2020, Third Sunday of Lent - John 4:5 to 42

     Here are some thoughts on the Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent. Please read John 4:5 to 42.  Pay close attention to two things: first, note how many differing opinions about religion and faith are expressed in the story - exclusive of what Jesus Himself says; and second, isolate and reread the words of Jesus.

     The Gospel of St. John is symbolized in Christian iconography by the eagle because he soars above the other three “Synoptic” Gospels in depth of perception and spiritual insight. For that reason, people sometimes miss the fact that the sacred writer is also a consummate storyteller. He goes his own way with the miracle stories, even when he uses a common source. There is a sweep and grandeur to the tales, reaching a climax with the raising of Lazarus. To understand today’s gospel properly, you have to see it in context. John the Baptizer had pointed out Jesus as the “Lamb of God.” Disciples of the Baptist had traipsed after Jesus, to ask “where he dwelt.” Somewhat like the 1960s hippie expression, “where are you at, man?” It implies more than what house you’re living in. The Baptist declared that Jesus must increase and he himself decrease. Jesus began to reveal His true identity at a wedding party, making an enormous amount of wine, in fulfillment of the promise of the days when the hills would run with pure choice wine. Nicodemus, a leader among the intelligentsia of Israel, snuck out at night to see Jesus, in order to preserve his status among the leadership. He is baffled by Jesus’ teaching and the conversation drifts off into a monologue by Jesus. Then comes today’s story, set in a region of Palestine where “good” Jews did not go.

     The Samaritans, like the Israelite inhabitants of Galilee and Judah, all were believers in the one true God, cherished and tried to live by the Torah, claimed Abraham as their Patriarch, revered Moses and so on. But they did not accept Jerusalem as their religious capital. Rather, they worshiped on Mt. Horeb, within their own territory, at a sanctuary older by far than the temple built by David’s son, Solomon, and restored after the Babylonian exile. Because the Jerusalem Temple was associated with David, the greatest of the Kings and God’s anointed, Jews considered their Samaritan kinsfolk “heretics” for rejecting the Temple and the priesthood descended there from the tribe of Aaron. The Samaritans likewise considered other Jews as having betrayed the ancient holy sites of the people. And there was bad blood between them. In today’s Gospel, Jesus, enroute to Jerusalem, enters the Samaritan village of Sichar. This is in itself exceptional. The direct route from places in Galilee like Nazareth and Capernaum, led directly through Samaritan territory. But pious Jews would take a three day detour around the region to avoid contamination.
 
     Jesus commits a major indiscretion by asking for a drink. Men are not allowed to speak in public to women unattached to them by family ties. Jews consider contact with any Samaritan as making them “unclean,” barred from temple worship. How much more so, then, this double violation of religious taboos!  The woman is right to throw this in Jesus’ face; but it also allows her to introduce the topic of the rift between the two groups holding to same faith in God.
 
     Jesus promises the woman “living water” if she came to understand His identity. The same adjective can mean “living” or ‘flowing,” since it was believed that the life-giving properties of water were enhanced by its movement. She taunts Jesus by pointing out that the well is deep and he can’t retrieve any of this “flowing” water. Her next gambit is to bring up the sacred origin of the well; it was dug by Jacob, descendant of the august Abraham and Isaac. Its religious provenance has a higher claim than that of Jesus. 
 
     Next, they get into a tangle over her marital issues. Jesus tells her to bring her husband and come back to the well and then He might consider giving her water that will eternally quench her thirst.  She says she has no husband. And Jesus retorts, “Right you are! Your current man is not yours by marriage and there were five men to whom you were married before this guy!” (Note: Some scholars have tried to whitewash the sinfulness of her living arrangements by proposing that she was widowed five times. Not likely.) This takes the wind out of her sails. Impressed that Jesus has seen through her presence of virtuous living, she concedes that Jesus may have prophetic chops, so He should try to resolve to her satisfaction the central issue between Jews and Samaritans: which mountain, and which temple, is the right place to worship Yahweh-God. Jesus sidesteps the challenge and talks, instead, about the nature of true worship.
 
     Thoroughly flummoxed, she goes to the root of Jewish faith: “One day a Messiah will come. He will settle everything.” Jesus utters, for the first time in John’s Gospel, the two word phrase, “I am.” It echoes the name God gave Himself in introducing Himself to Moses: “I Am who Am.” It comes down, in all of Hebrew tradition, as the unutterable name, the sacred Tetragrammaton.
 
     Now devoid of pretense, she runs off to share with the townspeople her good fortune in encountering Christ. No longer interested in a limitless source of drinking water without the toil of carting it home, she leaves her jar behind. We are left to wonder how a woman of ill repute in a small village where everyone knows everyone else’s business will ever be able to convince the righteous among the townsfolk that she has anything valid to say about religion.
 
     The disciples, out shopping - illogically for non-kosher food in this unclean village - return now. They re-introduce the theme of Jewish/Samaritan hostility by wondering whether Jesus has condescended to eat food offered from a Samaritan household, thereby making Himself “unclean.” John the Gospel writer is about to make them the foils for another pronouncement about the real purpose of His mission.
 
     Finally, the local crowd shows up, inviting Jesus to stay with them. He stays, significantly, two days. That enables the people to shift allegiance away from the woman. “We no longer believe on your word, for we have seen for ourselves that He is the Coming One.”
 
     Now, let’s string together the words of Jesus. I am thirsty. If you knew my true identity, you would ask Me and I would give you living water. Salvation is from the Jews. Nevertheless, it is time to put side sectarian quarrels. The time has come for people to worship God in Spirit and in truth. It is just such worshipers God desires. I am the promised Messiah. I Am Who I Am. I understand the depths of human frailty and perdition. I do not condemn; I seek only to establish truth. I am nourished with a food you do not understand: to do the will of Him who sent Me. Look around you; the fields are ripe for harvest. Ask God to send harvesters into the fields.
 
     In St. John’s Gospel - and only in his - does Jesus proclaim with His dying breath, “I am thirsty?” And, having been offered sour wine by Roman executioners who cannot be expected to understand the deep spiritual resonance of this utterance, Jesus finally cries out in victory, “It is finished.” The Greek word here is “telios,” meaning “accomplished,” rather than “over with.”  Having announced to the world His thirst for souls, Jesus has completed the missionary task for which He came.
 
     His statements in the story, when placed in sequence as done in the last paragraph, lay out the pattern of Divine commission to preach the Gospel, the discernment necessary to be open to conversion,  the steps in coming to faith, the revelation of Christ’s identity as the Incarnate Word and the responsibility of believers to go themselves on mission. In the opening pages of John’s Gospel, using words and thoughts of Jesus pulled together from the other Gospels and John’s own sources, the Evangelist maps out for his contemporary audience, the way forward for the Church of the Second century.
 
     We began the Lenten Sundays with the call to be the “best version of ourselves.” The next week, we were invited to “Let go and let God.” Today’s Gospel lays out for us the path of conversion and its implications for daily life: God desires relationship with us. We desire eternal life. He sees us in all our sinfulness and still welcomes us, through the water of Baptism, to a life of true devotion to God. He reveals to us His true identity and invites us to share in His mission. St. Augustine’s famous quotation summarizes this week’s message: “You have made us for Yourself, O God; and our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in you.”