A Homily - Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

First Reading - Exodus 17:3-7 ©

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 94(95):1-2, 6-9 ©

Second Reading – Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 ©

Gospel Acclamation – John 4:42, 15

The Gospel According to John – 4:5 - 42 ©

(NJB)

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

Listen!

God, the creator of the universe, God is not a miracle worker, and God does not intervene in human affairs.

God did not cause water to flow from the rock in Horeb. God did not lead the people through the desert.

God had nothing to do with any of the events described in the reading for today, the faith of the Church cannot be built on lies, and the truth is this; none of these things ever even happened.

We may take the narrative metaphorically; if we do then the meaning is this: Trust God.

Trust in the divine, God may not free you from your immediate struggle, but God will heal us all in the end.

Be mindful!

God will make us well, it is God who creates in us the possibility of wellbeing.

God is our wellbeing, but know this: God is not a king.

The whole of creation belongs to God, all that is good and all that we fear, everything comes from God, and everything we experience will redound to the good.

Listen!

It is good to show our respect for the creator and to sing songs in praise of God, therefore remember, God, the creator of the universe, God is our loving parent and has prepared each of us for God’s blessing.

Consider the teaching of the apostle.

When we say that we are judged as righteous, and that we are at peace with God by faith; we mean to say that our trust in God’s promise of peace, and God’s promise regarding the restoration of the entire world, it is our faith in these things that allows us to lead lives that are righteous, just, merciful and humble.

If we boast that our faith, this trust in God’s plan for the entire human race allows us to see the coming of God, it is only because we know that God dwells within us already, and in the  relationships we have with each other, when we look into each other’s hearts, then we are able to see the beauty of the divine. It is present in us, and fully manifest when we are loving and caring toward each other.

Know this!

Contrary to what the apostle taught, Jesus was not a sacrificial victim. His blood did not have magic powers. God, the creator of the universe does not love holocausts and burnt offerings.

God loves mercy and God love justice.

Jesus acted mercifully and with full regard for his followers when he allowed himself to be taken to the cross, many would have died if he had not. He gave his life to save them, to save them in their own time and place, he did not give his life as a cosmic sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Consider the gospel for today.

This is not a story about who Jesus is. Though most readers and interpreters of the sacred text treat it as such.

This is not a story about the Messiah or the Christ or living water, and it is not a story about baptism, or the mercy of Jesus.

In sitting down with the woman by the well Jesus was not doing anything extraordinary. He was simply following the way and teaching it through his actions.

This is a story about discipleship, and the first Apostle of the Christian Church; she was a woman, a woman without a husband, she was an outsider and a Samaritan.

It is clear from the text that this Samaritan woman was a person of influence in her community, we know this because after she met Jesus she went to speak with the people of her town, and on the strength of her testimony we are told that the entire community converted to the faith.

They became the very first church, an entire community of believers, formed by the witness of this woman, who shared with them the compassion of Jesus, and brought them into the way.

Jesus says to the disciples who came late in the day after this encounter, that the harvest is already coming in, he was speaking of the work that began with this woman, she began the harvest on her own.

This is why Jesus told the disciples that they would take credit for the work that others had done, because even though this story endured, the woman by the well was never given the credit she deserved, one or another of the disciples took credit for the founding of that community in the end.

Be mindful of this, follow Jesus in the way, not the prideful nature of the disciples.

The Gospel of the day is a remarkable story of egalitarianism, and the way of true Christians, a way that does not define the authority of its members by gender or class, or station. It recognizes the authority of those who have it, having been given it by their acknowledgment of the truth and the spirit that is within them.

First Reading - Exodus 17:3-7 ©

Strike the Rock, and Water Will Flow from It

Tormented by thirst, the people complained against Moses. ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt?’ they said. ‘Was it so that I should die of thirst, my children too, and my cattle?’

Moses appealed to the Lord. ‘How am I to deal with this people?” he said. ‘A little more and they will stone me!’ the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take with you some of the elders of Israel and move on to the forefront of the people; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river, and go. I shall be standing before you there on the rock, at Horeb. You must strike the rock, and water will flow from it for the people to drink.’ This is what Moses did, in the sight of the elders of Israel. The place was named Massah and Meribah because of the grumbling of the sons of Israel and because they put the Lord to the test by saying, ‘Is the Lord with us, or not?’

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 94(95):1-2, 6-9 ©

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come, ring out our joy to the Lord;

  hail the rock who saves us.

Let us come before him, giving thanks,

  with songs let us hail the Lord.

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Come in; let us bow and bend low;

  let us kneel before the God who made us:

for he is our God and we

  the people who belong to his pasture,

  the flock that is led by his hand.

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

O that today you would listen to his voice!

  ‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,

  as on that day at Massah in the desert

when your fathers put me to the test;

  when they tried me, though they saw my work.’

O that today you would listen to his voice! ‘Harden not your hearts.’

Second Reading – Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 ©

The Love of God Has Been Poured Into Our Hearts

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory. And this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man – though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die – but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

Gospel Acclamation – John 4:42, 15

Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!

Lord, you are really the saviour of the world:

give me the living water, so that I may never get thirsty.

Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word of God!

The Gospel According to John – 4:5 - 42 ©

A Spring of Water Welling Up to Eternal Life

Jesus came to the Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well is there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat straight down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman 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, ‘What? You are a Jew and you ask me, a Samaritan, for a drink?’ – Jews, in fact, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus replied:

‘If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you:

Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.’

‘You have no bucket, sir,’ she answered ‘and the well is deep:

how could you get this living water? Are you a greater man than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his cattle?’

Jesus replied:

‘Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again; but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again:

the water that I shall give

will turn into a spring inside him,

welling up to eternal life.’

‘Sir,’ said the woman ‘give me some of that water, so that I may never get thirsty and never have to come here again to draw water.’

‘Go and call your husband’ said Jesus to her

‘and come back here.’

The woman answered, ‘I have no husband.’

He said to her, ‘You are right to say, “I have no husband”; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.’

‘I see you are a prophet, sir’ said the woman. ‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, while you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’ Jesus said:

‘Believe me, woman,

the hour is coming

when you will worship the Father

neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You worship what you do not know;

we worship what we do know:

for salvation comes from the Jews.

But the hour will come

– in fact it is here already –

when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth:

that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants.

God is spirit, and those who worship

must worship in spirit and truth.’

The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah – that is, Christ – is coming; and when he comes he will tell us everything.’

‘I who am speaking to you,’ said Jesus ‘I am he.’

At this point his disciples returned, and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though none of them asked, ‘What do you want from her?’ or, ‘Why are you talking to her?’

The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tell the people. ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did; I wonder if he is the Christ?’ This brought people out of the town and they started walking towards him.

Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, do have something to eat; but he said, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples asked one another, ‘Has someone been bringing him food?’

But Jesus said:

‘My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.

Have you not got a saying:

Four months and then the harvest?

Well, I tell you:

Look around you, look at the fields;

already they are white, ready for harvest!

Already the reaper is being paid his wages,

already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life, and thus sower and reaper rejoice together.

For here the proverb holds good:

one sows, another reaps; I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for.

Others worked for it; and you have come into the rewards of their trouble.’

Many Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of the woman’s testimony when she said, ‘He told me all I have ever done’, so, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days, and when he spoke to them many more came to believe; and they said to the woman, ‘Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the saviour of the world.’

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)