March 4, 2018: Third Sunday of Lent

Celebrating the First Scrutiny
Readings: John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

Jesus 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.
“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 Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I have done.”

Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him. When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

Reflection:

I love this dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Jesus is speaking on a whole different level than the very practical one the woman is on. She reminds Jesus that he doesn’t have a bucket. She wants the water Jesus promised so she doesn’t have to keep coming to the well. Yet the woman seemed to “get it,” and became an evangelizer spreading the news about Jesus, the Messiah.

Action:

Sit at the well with Jesus and have your own conversation with him about what you may be thirsting for and ask him to help you know “the gift of God” in your midst. Listen to what Jesus is saying to you.