Guiding light living water

We’re now on the  third  Sunday  of Lent,  and what do we find? A conversation between Jesus and  a woman with five husbands, a  juicy exposé  for our  scandal sheets  –  “Tsismis Tonight!” John’s Gospel  tells us  “The [disciples]  marveled that he was talking with a woman.”

But what has this got to do with  Lent? We have  much to learn from today’s liturgy: much to learn not only about  Lent, but also  about Jesus, and  about ourselves. First, what is Lent all about? For some Christians,  it means you turn sad for 40 days from  ashes on your forehead on Ash Wednesday to the  anguished cry of Christ  on the cross  on Good  Friday.

Lent is a depressing season. You  get all the joy out of your system – no movies, no sweets, no parties,  no  fun  – from  Ash  Wednesday.  Back to joy on Easter  Sunday. For  liturgy  and for living, this is  nonsense.

The  First Preface for Lent  proclaims  “this joyful season.” We  dare not divide  the paschal mystery into a season of  dying in Lent, and a season of  rising in Easter. Indeed there was a chronological sequence  to the events in Jesus’ life. But to  stress the history  is to  miss the mystery.

Jesus Christ has risen – even in Lent.  We may not pretend he has not. Lent is our  increasingly intense initiation into the whole paschal mystery  – and that is  the mystery of dying/rising:  his and ours. One mystery:  life in  and  through death.

Each  Sunday  Gospel  of this Lent plays on that theme, but with different images. First  Sunday: the desert. The  biblical desert  was both a  “terrible wilderness,” where  death  was ever a threat, and the place,  where the people of God were born. It was the  place of testing and suffering, but also  of discovery  and  covenant,  of  intimacy  and  love, and  new life.

“I will allure her,”  the Lord said of Israel, “and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea  2:16) Here a  hungry Jesus  told the tempter what makes for life: “Not bread alone… but every word that God speaks.”

Last Sunday: the Transfiguration. On the  journey of death, Jesus is revealed as the man of life.  On the  journey to death,  the disciples  glimpse his glory. But  they miss the death/life duality. [Not on this mountain,  Peter,  do not set up your condo – not till you’ve mounted the hill of Calvary.]

Next Sunday: darkness and light  – the  man born blind. Hopelessly sightless,  sight is given him. The second reading, from  Paul  to the  Ephesians, will express the miracle’s deeper meaning: “Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” The  Fifth  Sunday: Lazarus “dead four days” called from death’s cave. Here you have  dying/rising in its supreme paradox,  the promise of Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall never die.”

So too the  Sixth  Sunday, Passion/Palm  Sunday. Not  palm  or  passion, but  both. Not triumph  or  tragedy, but triumph  in  tragedy. Not dying  or  rising Christ, a  dying/rising  Christ.  Life leaps from death.

This brings us to the  Second Point – Today’s Gospel. How does the  Samaritan woman  fit into  Lent, into  dying/rising? As on the other Sundays, so here: an  image, a striking image, for  the life that comes through death. When the woman wonders aloud  how a Jew can ask a Samaritan for water, Jesus responds:  “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying  to you ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

But what is the  meaning of the image? What is this  “living water,”  water that  quenches your thirst forever, that becomes in you  “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In John’s theology two thrilling ideas come together: living water  as  symbol for God’s life-giving wisdom has rich  biblical roots.

In this context Jesus can well call his own revelation “living water,’ for in John  Jesus is divine Wisdom in the flesh  and  he replaces the law. And if you would see living water as the  Spirit Jesus gives us, recall his impassioned outburst to the people: “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this [John adds] he said about the Spirit, which  those who believed in him were to receive.”

In short,  living water  is at once the  life-giving word of Jesus and the  Spirit of truth, who interprets  the word that Jesus speaks. This is what Jesus calls  “the gift of God.”

Now this story of  living water  is a drama about  faith: John dramatizes how  an individual  and  a community come to  believe in Jesus. As always,  the Lord takes the initiative. He speaks,  and  a woman begins to sip living water – without knowing it. In the  power of the Spirit,  she is  hearing God’s word – without knowing it. Not yet does she know  who Jesus is. She knows only that  “the Messiah is coming”  – for her,  the prophet-like-Moses promised of old.

Jesus asserts flatly:  “I who speak to you am he.” He even uses of himself the venerable title of divinity:  “I am.” Still not sure  of who Jesus is, the woman rush from the well to the city, crying breathlessly to all she meets:  “Come, see a man, who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” Not certainty, but  a touch of hope.  And the drama of belief expands. Someone who knows everything this much-married woman ever did.

The citizens of Sychar hasten to the well to see this prodigy for themselves. Seeing, they ask him “to stay with them”; he stays “two days.” Many of the Samaritans have already believed in him on the woman’s witness; “many more” believed  “because of his word.

The Third Point: What does Lent’s Samaritan woman say to us? We see two responses. First, it is  not only the Samaritan woman, who should recognize Jesus and ask him for living water. Every man and woman must; you and I must. Yes, you have  already tasted it; otherwise you would not be here. You have been touched by God’s word, and  the Holy Spirit lives in you. Well then, what more? Well,  a lot more.

Most of us have  only sipped  God’s living water; few thirst for it  the way they thirst for Coke, Pepsi, or C2. For Lent, try this one-question quiz:  What are you thirsty for? If you can trust a survey in  Psychology Today  magazine, a central passion between  18 and 25  years old is  money. But if it’s not money that turns you on,  what does?

Does  our Christian sense protest when the Son of God, in history’s most amazing act of love, is nailed to a bloody cross for us, and we – we are so bored that we play  Mahjong  on Good  Friday, or spend a weekend at the beach…

Somehow the Christ, who had such an impact on the woman at the well must grab us, turn us on. It’s  not just a matter of textbook knowledge. You must know him,  not only about him  –  to be his disciple. I mean the  knowledge that is love –  the kind of love you experience  when you want to surrender all else in wild abandonment. The type of love  that links two persons  – where your  whole being, flesh and spirit,  thrills to the presence of the other.

If this has not been your drink, spend the rest of Lent asking for it. “If you knew that the gift of God … you would have asked [Jesus], and he would have given you living water.”

A Second Suggestion.  The Samaritan woman did not hide her living water in some private, do-not-touch water jar. She “left her water jar,” dashed back to the city, grabbed everyone she meets: “Come and see”  this amazing man! He could be the prophet we’ve been waiting for!

The  consequence?  The Gospel is clear: “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” She became an  apostle. She  brought the message of Jesus  to the people she knew; she  shared with them her own experience of him; she  urged them to go see for themselves. They went; they brought him back with them; they spent two days in his company; they heard the word from his very lips; and many believed – because of her.

And so for you –  apostles you must be. My dear friends, when you ask for living water,  you are taking a giant risk. It’s  not just giving up  a coke, or a movie, or ice cream for Lent; you’re  asking God to change you, to transform you in the image of His Christ.