Father Rick Bolte's Homily

A:  Third Sunday in Lent

The woman in today’s Gospel reading is an interesting woman.  Without knowing that she’s been married five times and is now living with someone else, we would know from the opening scene that she’s not your typical woman of that time.  Women normally drew water from the well in the morning and left it available for men in the afternoon.  Women and men kept a distance from each other especially in public and if they were unrelated.  For the woman to be coming to the well in the afternoon would indicate that she may have been ostracized from the other women of the village.  Jesus must have sensed her “difference” when he dared to talk to her.  A typical woman would have demurely walked away.  This woman is unafraid to engage him in conversation.

Jesus begins with respect for this woman, he even asks her for a favor bestowing on her a certain dignity because he needs something from her.  This water he has asked for is something she understands the importance of and he gradually introduces her to a deeper understanding of water as a symbol.  It becomes an offer of something she needs to ask for from him.  The key is for her to recognize her need for something so much greater but often ignored.

Being in need was not something easily accepted in this culture and I suspect even less in ours.  We are expected to be self sufficient, to be able to take care of ourselves and our families by our own effort and skill.  Being independent and unconstrained by personal indebtedness are pert of our cultural goals.  Yet the reality is that we are all needy.  We all know on a deeper level that area of ourselves we try to ignore, that place where we are aware that we are incomplete and in need of something even though we’re not sure what we need.

Likely, at some point when we’ve felt this emptiness and need, we’ve turned to God asking God to take away this uncomfortable experience.  It didn’t work.  We’re like the Hebrews in the first reading when we’re confronted with the real pain of our lives.  They begin to murmur that they were better off in Egypt when confronted by their needs in the desert.  They don’t trust God will see them through and they want to go back to what they knew – ignoring how bad it was.  When God doesn’t answer the way we want, we usually try to go on living ignoring this inner need.

In our second reading, Paul invites us to hope and trust in God.  He assures us that regardless of our sin, God’s Spirit dwells in us and we will not be disappointed.  We are never alone nor are our prayers unanswered.  But God doesn’t take away the pain but uses it.  Like the woman’s realization that she needed this “living water” which she naively imagined as a source of ever flowing natural water, God uses our sense of need, even if we don’t know exactly it is, to lead us to what we really need.

Therein is the challenge.  We have to face the pain of emptiness and need with patience.  We need to bring the pain and struggle to God without expecting a quick fix.  The way to God is the way of the cross.  Our egos will have to be sacrificed.  We can’t live pretending we are in control and have it all together.  But if we can face the pain that is real, God will lead us to our hearts true desire!