Third Sunday of Lent
Wow is there a lot to unpack in today’s Mass readings! As is usual in Scripture, there are a plethora of meanings running on different levels throughout these texts. On the surface, in today’s Gospel Jesus appears to be reaching out to save this Samaritan woman, and indeed He was. But is that? No, not at all. The verse that proceeds today’s gospel passage tells us: “[Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.” Let’s take a look at why.
Jesus was returning to Galilee from Judea because the Pharisees had heard He was baptizing more disciples than even John (although it was not Jesus Himself doing the baptisms). You get a sense that the Pharisees must have had a problem with this since it caused Jesus to leave Judea. The Pharisees, arguably the most observant Jews of that time, were rejecting this baptism.
Physically, Samaria was situated between Gailiee and Judea, but no self respecting Jew would ever use that shortcut. Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans and so would take a route across the Jordan that circumvented the area. So the necessity to pass through Samaria was not a physical one, but a spiritual one. The Jews in Judea were rejecting Him, and so He would turn to the Samaritans.
The Samaritans were not purely Gentile. They were a people formed by the mixing of the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel with five nations when Assyria conquered Israel in 721 BC. The Samaritans didn’t worship in Jerusalem because the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam, an Ephraimite, was afraid that if they did they would return to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. So he made 2 golden calves (sound familiar?) to worship in Bethel and in Dan, and he created priests who were not Levites to offer sacrifices to these calves (1 Kings 11-12). Not good!
The Jews in Judea, in the persons of the Pharisees, were rejecting Jesus, and so He moved on to the Samaritans, to heal and reunite the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of God’s chosen people as was prophesied of the Messiah in Isaiah (11:11-14). This is why He “had to” pass through Samaria.
The conversation Jesus has with this Samaritan woman is actually two conversations running on two different levels. On the bottom, Jesus is truly talking to a Samaritan woman who has had 5 husbands and the one she had then was not her husband. In fact, tradition tells us that this woman is St. Photini, her name given at her baptism meaning “enlightened one.” She was a real person who was really saved through this real conversation. But on another level Jesus was talking with and about Samaria, Samaria who had played the harlot (Hos 2:7) and joined herself to the five gods of the nations she intermarried with. The language in verse 22, “you people worship what you do not know,” this “understand” or “know” is marital language as when a man “knows” his wife. Jesus was not merely trying to save this woman, but to restore the broken relationship between God and the 10 lost tribes as was predicted would happen with the coming of the Messiah by the prophets. This reunification had to take place after the Jews rejected Jesus and before He extended salvation to the Gentiles through His apostles, until all people were brought together into the one Kingdom of God, the true King of Israel (1 Samuel 8:7).
How would this reunification take place? Through the gift of God, the living water that becomes a spring and wells up to eternal life. Just as the living (“running”) water flowed from the Rock (which is Christ, 1 Cor 10:4) that Moses struck at Horeb (Exodus 17:6) to sustain the people in their wanderings in the desert, so also would this gift of God sustain His people in their desert, and sustain them “unto eternal life” (John 4:14).
What is this gift of God, this living water? In today’s second reading from the book of Romans, St. Paul tells us that the gift of God is “the love of God…poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rm 5:5). This gift is God giving Himself to man, God who is life and light and love. Through the living waters of our Baptism, living now not in the sense of running water but in the sense of life-giving water, the gift of God Himself is poured into our hearts. This gift sustains us through the desert of this earthly life as we walk with Him toward eternal life.
Christians, this gift was given to you in your baptism. It is the “grace in which we stand” (Rm 5:2) so long as we do not separate ourselves from it through mortal sin. The season of Lent is a time in which the desert experience of our life is intensified, is lived more intentionally. As we mentioned on the First Sunday of Lent, Lent is a time when we put ourselves in a position to be tested in order to strengthen our faith and our love for God. During this time of increased temptation (as we forgo good things such as meat on Fridays), lean into Jesus. His grace is sufficient. Recognize that you cannot take one step closer to God on your own, it is only through your participation by grace in the divine nature that you can be victorious.
Have you thrown away that gift through serious sin? God is always holding out His mercy to you through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus didn’t want only to be reunited with the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel; just as He also wanted to be reunited with St. Photini so also He wants to be reunited with you.
Repent and believe in the Gospel.
