Scripture Reflection, February 24: First Impressions

Scripture Readings:
Exodus 17: 3-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8
John 4: 5-42

Have you ever had the experience of becoming close to someone you never thought would be a friend when you first met them? Somewhere along the way, something clicked and a friendship developed. My mother used to tell the story of her first meeting with my father. She was on a double date at a college football game in the 1930’s. My dad had a date with her best friend. Apparently, my mother’s initial reaction to the young man who would become her husband was rather negative. She said she initially found him to be obnoxious. Well, that reaction soon passed. Before long they began to date, fell deeply in love, married and had eight children. My mother loved to tell us that story!

This Sunday’s gospel is the exquisite account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. Things do not look very promising at the beginning of this meeting. First of all, Jesus and the woman should not be talking at all. He is a faithful Jew and she is a Samaritan, someone viewed by Jews as a member of a mixed race and mixed religion who was at best marginally Jewish. There was mutual distrust and even enmity between Samaritans and Jews. Moreover, for a lone male to converse with a lone woman in public was seen as scandalous.

This woman’s initial response to Jesus’ request for water is cold and indifferent: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” But Jesus will not be put off that easily; he continues to draw her along with great ingenuity and love. Eventually it is she who is asking him for a drink, for the living water welling up to eternal life which he promises. Her initial coldness gives way to interest, to curiosity, to recognition of her own need.

Then Jesus confronts this woman with her past, a past that is apparently not very bright: five husbands and a new live-in. But as he does that, he does not abandon her in her guilt, or rub her nose in her mistakes and problems. Jesus remains present to her, continuing to engage her. At that moment she confesses that he is a “prophet.” This is an initial step, a partial glimpse into the identity of the One who is speaking with her.  As the dialogue continues and she departs to speak to her friends (curiously, leaving her water jar behind), she moves to a deeper level of relationship with Jesus. She begins to wonder: “Could he possibly be the Christ?” Not only is her relationship with Jesus deepening, she is becoming a witness to him. She offers testimony to him that is so effective that many of the Samaritans begin to believe in him “because of the word of the woman who testified.” In John’s gospel, this woman becomes the first Christian missionary.

I believe that this gospel story speaks to us in a very compelling way about our own relationship with Jesus. Jesus continues to encounter us in many mysterious ways – in the Eucharist, in personal prayer, in the faces of other people, through the significant events of our lives, etc. And he offers himself to us as our source of life and refreshment. He is the One who slakes our deepest human thirsts. Sometimes in our lives, too, our initial reaction to him can be rather cold, indifferent or defensive. We can find it difficult to trust him, to allow him to draw close to us. But Christ patiently remains there, drawing us toward him with ingenuity and love. In our encounters with the Lord we, too, sometimes become more keenly aware of the shadow side of our lives – our sins and failures. Here, too, Jesus does not abandon us in our guilt or rub our noses in our mistakes. He always leads us forward to greater freedom, to new life. And we, like the Samaritan woman and her friends, are gradually brought to a more profound and trusting recognition of the One who is savior of the world.

In our relationship with Christ you and I, too, are sent forth to give testimony to others about him and the refreshment he offers. We need to let people know about this Jesus – who he is and what he means to us. There are many ways to do that, of course, depending upon our particular vocations and the circumstances of our lives. The season of Lent reminds us in a particular way that we give testimony to Christ by becoming people of prayer and by offering generous service to others, especially those most in need in our world.

May we come to the table of the Lord this Sunday with deep faith in Christ’s presence, with reverence for his coming to meet us in this wonderful sacrament. His presence and his word of truth are a spring of living water that satisfies our deepest thirsts.

Robin Ryan, CP