Perhaps you have heard of the book, You Just Don’t Understand Me, written by Deborah Tannen some twenty years ago. The book discusses how difficult it is at times for women and men to truly understand each other, even when they use the same words. The meaning each one is trying to convey while communicating to the other somehow gets lost.
You Just Don’t Understand Me would be a good title for a biography of Jesus. I suspect he said those words often. In today’s gospel, we find him expressing that sentiment with the Samaritan woman at the well. “You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
Unlike his disciples who had been with him for several years, the woman at the well quickly understood what Jesus was saying about living water. Becoming the first person to see him as the Messiah, she returned to her village and asked her neighbors, “Could he possibly be the Christ?” Calling anyone the Christ was not done flippantly by the Samaritans, thus others in the village came to see for themselves and like her, they began to believe in Jesus because of his word. “We have heard for ourselves, and know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
People around the world are preparing to be baptized into the Catholic faith at the Easter vigil. They come from many walks of life yet have two things in common. Like the woman at the well, they are seeking the “living water,” something not even the finest bottled water on the market can provide and they have come to realize that Jesus alone is the source of that “living water,” the well spring of eternal life.
For the next three Sundays, they will experience the scrutinies, rites designed for soul searching and repentance. These rites are meant to uncover, and then heal all that is weak or sinful in their hearts. They are intended to deliver them from the power of Satan, to protect them against temptation and give them the strength to follow Christ forever on their faith journey.
We who are already initiated into the Catholic faith should ask ourselves if we truly understand what is expected of us as we walk our faith journey this Lent and prepare to renew our baptismal promises at Easter. How readily do we understand what Jesus teaches as the way of life for us to follow and why we must if we are to bring about the kingdom of God?
The political news lately has resurfaced issues of morality and religious liberty that have once again generated differences of opinion, even amongst Catholics. Some states, including ours, have redefined marriage. In Great Britain, legislation is pending to ban the use of prayer in public settings. Of greater concern to many religious leaders in our country as a threat to religious freedom is the recent ruling by the Obama Administration that all health plans will have to fund abortion and artificial contraception even if such practices run contrary to the moral principles of their clients. Our bishops are rightly concerned for abortion is ranked by the Church as one of the gravest sins one can commit.
Many see this as a matter of women’s health. No where have I heard anyone raising the question of our society’s health, not only presently but in the long run. I wonder if any one here who supports the president on this matter has considered its dire consequences in light of what the Church has long said on the matter. In 1995, Pope John Paul II warned that democracies risk self-destruction if moral wrongs are defended and promoted as rights. Legislating morality does not make a legal yet immoral activity moral in the sight of God nor does any immoral practice protect and safeguard society.
The year before in Washington, DC, Blessed Mother Teresa said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion should be helped to love…abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
Mother Teresa underscores why we need to understand what Jesus expects of us as his followers before we disagree with what the Church is calling on us to believe. We cannot publicly advocate or engage in any immoral practice and at the same time expect to bring about the coming of God’s kingdom or claim to be worshiping God in spirit and truth.
Looking back over its history, I can think of immoral choices that the Church once condoned but later spoke out against, namely slavery and capital punishment, but I cannot think of any immoral practice that the Church has given a green light to for the simple reason that ours is a Church who believes some things, such as the truth which Jesus speaks of, are not matters of public opinion. Some things are wrong whether we like it or not.
This dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well shows that enmity can be transformed into understanding. As the waters of understanding wash away fear and ignorance, a greater appreciation of the divine truth then emerges that will allow us to see what is truly right in the sight of God.