3rd Sunday of Lent—Fr. Leo Schneider
(Cycle A)
The woman at the well is brutally honest. I love that! She questions how Jesus is going to get water since he doesn’t have a bucket. Jesus doesn’t flinch. He is not offended, because she doesn’t understand what he means by life giving water. She thinks water, he is thinking the gift of eternal life in the Spirit.
Then it gets better. Jesus knows his audience and is brutally honest when he asks her to get her husband. Jesus knows the answer. But again, the woman isn’t put off. She can see he is a prophet and gets down to real spiritual issues. She asks, “Where are they to worship God.”
When the disciples come, she slips away and is in such a hurry she leaves her water jar at the well. Then she, a sinner, who had to get water at noon in the heat of the day so she wouldn’t get ridiculed, shares her experience of God and “saves” if you will, her judges, by bringing them to Jesus. In the end, they too, come to believe as they experience this Jesus.
So, the sinner becomes a disciple and Jesus uses a difficult and awkward moment as an avenue of transformation. They all drank of the life giving water and will never die.
What I like about this story, is that Jesus will invite all people to share his divine life in the Trinity. Saint and sinner, Jesus only desires to draw us closer to Him that we might grow in his love. So let us receive this water in the Eucharist and let it well up in us that we may love God with our whole being, mind, body, and soul. Amen!