With all the rain lately, we take water for granted. With the turn of the tap, we have clean safe water for drinking, washing, and bathing. Many people in third world countries are not so fortunate. Like the Samaritan woman, they still go to the well with buckets and jugs to carry water back home and so would we if we didn’t have running water.
In May of 1976 when Guam was hit by a powerful typhoon, we were left without power and no power meant no water. The day after the storm, my roommate and I drove to a nearby hotel with a brand new plastic garbage can to obtain drinking water. Imagine the look on the cop’s face when we drove by very slowly with the container full of water carefully balanced on the hood of our car. Who could blame the Israelites for grumbling about the lack of water in the midst of the Sinai desert? After all, without water, no one can survive very long. In the gospel, we even find Jesus asking the Samaritan woman for a drink. This scene is more incredible than we may realize.
First of all, Jews did not customarily travel through Samaria. Secondly, for a Jew to talk to a Samaritan, let alone a woman, was even more unthinkable. The intolerance between Jews and Samaritans was much like what we witness today in the holy land between Jews and Muslims.
This gospel is a lengthy one, metaphorically reminding us that it takes a long time, sometimes even a lifetime, to fully understand who Jesus really is and allow him to change us.
In the upcoming preface for today, we are told that Jesus had already created the gift of faith in the Samaritan woman, so ardently did he thirst for her faith that he kindled in her the fire of divine love. He thirsts for our faith as well.
What catches my attention is not the long conversation that Jesus had with the Samaritan woman but that the people of the town even listened to her, whom they had judged as a social outcast for her moral misconduct, when she ran back to excitedly tell them what Jesus had told her. They believed her enough to come and see for themselves this man who dared to quench her thirst for God. They begged Jesus to stay and teach them. They even called him the savior of the world, which, by the way, is the only time in the gospels where we find Jesus as a man being called that.
Their lives were impacted because both Jesus and the woman dared to be unconventional. Jesus, speaking to the woman in the non-judgmental manner he did, and by sharing the good news with the folks in town, she in turn prompted them to come and see Jesus for themselves. She emerges as an unlikely witness who brings a whole town to Jesus.
Many Catholics think faith is something you either have or don’t have. It is like owning a car; as long as you don’t get rid of it, it’s yours. Yet as any owner knows, if the car is to be of any use, it must be maintained. When the car is maintained well, it runs smoothly, but miss a couple of oil changes or routine check ups, the driver is asking for trouble.
Likewise, faith can be well maintained, constantly growing and maturing through life or it can slowly fade away. Data show that a fair number of once active Catholics have fallen away from regularly attending Mass and practicing their faith. They leave for any number of reasons, feeling that they would not be missed. Some are hurting, many remain angry with some issue, and others simply drift away. Most still consider themselves Catholic even if they don’t ever attend Mass. Many who come back to the faith do so because a friend or relative invited them to return.
Whatever the reason for their departure, they are people who once shared our faith and whose presence is missed, yet have you done anything to bring them back home?
Perhaps you are wondering, “Who me?” and I would say, “Why not you?” We know inactive members of the parish who might find their way back to Church again but they are waiting for a friend like you to invite them to come home. Considering what Jesus did in the gospel, ignoring the social taboos of his day and giving this woman living water; nothing is impossible when God wants to quench someone’s spiritual thirst. Many fellow Catholics do share their faith. That is why countless catechumen, including two in our parish, are now looking forward to being fully initiated into our faith at Easter.
What the Samaritan woman did for the folks in her town is a hard and challenging lesson for many Catholics to accept. In our individualistic times, we tend to think of religion as a private matter. “You believe as you like and allow me to do the same.” Yet that isn’t being a Christian. The Christian looks at someone who is spiritually thirsting, and having known salvation in Christ, wants to share that joy and satisfaction with others. If you have no desire to share the good news, you should honestly ask yourself, “Do I really believe that my faith is the greatest gift I have been given?”
While walking on the beach one day, a man noticed a child throwing starfish back into the sea. He asked her why she was doing that since there were so many starfish littering the beach. “How can your efforts make any difference?” he asked. As the child threw the starfish in her hand, she replied, “It made a difference to that one.” In the same way, what you say to a Catholic who no longer worships here could make a difference in quenching that person’s spiritual thirst and his or her future destiny.