Third Sunday Of Lent 2010

The Woman at the Well
Homily by Monsignor James P. Moroney
Rector

Who is this woman, alone at the well when Jesus approaches? Notice the first thing we hear about her, that she’s alone and its noontime. Now I don’t know about you, but the last time I would choose to go to draw water from the well would be noontime. It’s hot, and its Palestine!

No wonder she’s alone, no one in their right mind would choose to go draw water in the noonday sun. They’re all home sitting under the grape vines having lunch.

So why does she go at noontime? Precisely because she knows she’ll be alone. She’s “the unclean Samaritan woman” whom no self-respecting Jew would ever be alone with. She’s been married married five times, and she’s shacked up with a sixth.

So she’s a sinner, and alone.

And she’s poor. She has no servant to draw water for her. Indeed, no son or daughter. And “the good for nothing significant other number six” she’s living with sends her out in the noontime sun to get him some water.

She’s alone. She’s a sinner. And she’s poor.

Which is just why Jesus seeks her out.

Alone

You know what it feels like to be alone. Just go out and look at the school yard sometime and watch for the kid who’s standing all by himself watching the other kids play. Do you remember what it was like to be the only one they didn’t choose? Is there any greater feeling of desolation?

I had an illustrious football career when I was in school. I was in fourth grade. And I was thrilled when they chose me to play.....I was delighted when they threw the ball to me and beyond ecstasy when I caught it and ran, my head down, with every ounce of energy in my eight year old body racing toward that goal. With unimaginable joy I passed between those goal posts and looked back and realized that I had run the wrong way.

And at that moment, at the end of my illustrious if short-lived athletic career, I felt unimaginably alone, abandoned, and desolate.

The way a man feels when he drives home with a pink slip in his pocket. The way a child feels when her mother’s too busy to listen to her story. The way a wife feels as she walks down the steps of the court house after the divorce. The way the girl and the boy feel when they find out they’re pregnant. The way the old man feels when he finds out it's cancer. The way the old woman feels the first day in the nursing home. The way they feel when they bury their father.

Alone, and desolate, like the woman at the well.

But then the Good Shepherd comes looking for his sheep. He always comes looking. He seeks us out, calling us by name, hoping that we will know his voice as well as he knows our hearts. He looks in all the dangerous places, all the out of the way places, all of the places where the monsters and the dangers lurk.

I cherish an old print which hangs in my room and which I gaze at whenever I feel alone. It shows a little lamb which has fallen off a cliff and is all wrapped up in a heavily brambled bush. The lamb is petrified and barely able to keep from tumbling into the rocky cavern below. Not too far away the vultures circle, ready to feast on the carcass that is soon to be delivered into their talons.

But then there is the shepherd, whose face is colored with hues of compassion and concern. He braces himself with a rough stick in his left hand, while he reaches down with his right, just about to grasp the lamb by the scruff of its neck. And you know what he’ll do then. He’s put the lamb on his shoulders and bring it home to pastures where there is only safety and beauty and love.

But the lamb can’t see that. He’s looking desperately at the vultures and the craggy rocks below. But never fear: the shepherd will be undeterred. For no sheep, no matter how much he trembles, is ever abandoned by the shepherd who loves his own and leads them home.

She’s alone. At the well. But not for long.

And then there’s her sin. It’s a pretty bad sin. It’s a sin that has come to possess her life. A habitual sin...over and over...from broken relationship to broken relationship. Like Henry VIII and Elizabeth Taylor wrapped into one, her life is a seemingly endless stream of hurt, and pain and broken promises.

Like all sin, her sin is rooted in the lie, and Jesus knows that he is the only cure to her disease. Only he who is the Truth can wipe away the lie.

So he helps her tell the truth about herself.

"Go, call your husband, and come back."

"I have no husband."

"You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

The encounter with Jesus (the way, the truth and the life) is the only antidote to sin. For to look in his eyes as he hangs upon that cross, to hear his word as it is proclaimed from that pulpit and receive his absolution in that confessional is the only way to break the cycles of self-destructive sin, to kill the lie.

So many times we live the lie. So many times we are caught up that sin which just won’t go away. We’re like Saint Paul: “I know I shouldn’t do it, but I do it again!” How can we get past it? How can I get the courage to confess it? How can I finally tell the truth?

Come to the truth. Come to Jesus.

Like her who came to the well with her sin. But not for long.

And finally, her poverty.

She is poor. She has nothing to give. But what does Jesus do? He asks her for a cup of water? She’s got practically nothing! And he asks her to give of the little she has left.

Listen to the Preface for today’s Mass:

Jesus, who, when he asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink,
had already created the gift of faith within her;
so eagerly did he thirst for her faith,
that he kindled within her the fire of God's love.

It’s like the poor woman to whom God sent Elijah. Whatcha doin, he asks her. I am going to take my last cup of flour and my last drop of oil and I am going to bake the last loaf of my life. For once my son and I eat it we will have nothing else and we will die.

So what does Elijah do? Do you remember? He asks her to split the bread with him. Take what little you have and give it away. And then you will live.

And she did. And the cupboard was miraculously filled with flour and the oil bottle just would’t go dry. Give me a cup of water, and you will have all that you need.

SO, WHEN YOU ARE ALONE AND UNCLEAN….let the seeker of lost sheep come looking for you

AND WHEN YOU ARE STUCK IN SIN….let him give you the grace to speak the unspeakable sin and set you free from your pitiable estate!

WHEN YOU ARE POOR AND HAVE NOTHING….give away the little you have, and he will fill you with all you really need.

Like the poor sinful woman all alone.

To whom Jesus came.