3/8/2015 – The third Sunday of Lent – Cycle A – First Scrutiny for Catechumens – Exodus 17:3-7, John 4:5-42

This weekend, because our catechumens in the RCIA program are going through the first scrutiny, we hear the readings from Cycle A instead of Cycle B.

      We can thirst for a lot of things in life. We can thirst for meaning.  We can thirst for popularity or success in our job.  We can thirst for material things. Mary Oliver, a very beloved American poet who has been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and the National Book Award, has a poem entitled “Thirst.”  Her poem “Thirst” begins this way: “Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have.”  Oliver sees God in the nature around her.  She hears God teaching her many lessons in her life.  Through her thirst, she prays for a goodness of spirit, to learn about this goodness little by little each day.  Oliver could thirst for many things in life, but she thirsts for this goodness of spirit. 

      When we thirst for something with our souls, it is like how our body thirsts for water.   It is something we cannot live without.  On my pilgrimage in Spain, walking 7 or 8 hours a day, you can imagine how one’s body needs water and food to carry on.   There are usually stores and restaurants and water fountains along the way to fill up our water bottles, but during the winter months, a lot of the stores and restaurants are not open and a lot of the fountains were frozen or not working.  So getting enough water can be challenging.  One day, I ran out of water early and found nowhere to fill up my water bottle. Meeting some other pilgrims on the trail, I told them I was desperate for water.   Thankfully, one of them had an extra bottle of water which they gave to me.  Boy, was I relieved and very grateful. 

       In our Gospel today, Jesus stops off at a town in Samaria in the midst of his journey.  He is tired and thirsty.  He sees a woman at the well, a woman there to draw water. Jesus asks her for a drink.  Ironic, since Jesus himself is living giving water for us, and it is Jesus at this well who is asking for some water to drink.  Perhaps during our Lenten journey, we see the thirst Jesus has in today’s Gospel foreshadowing the thirst that he will have at the end of his journey to the cross.  On Good Friday, we hear the passion narrative from John’s Gospel, with Jesus crying out as he hangs on the cross, just moments before his last breath: “I thirst.” 

       Jesus saw that the Samaritan woman had a deep-seeded thirst in her life.  To quench that thirst, he offers her life giving water, way different from the common tap water and bottled water that we use to quench our physical thirst.  We have to drink water everyday to satisfy our physical thirst, but about the living giving water, Jesus explains that “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst (again).”  This water will give us everlasting life.

        Moses was leading the people in the desert to the promised land in the reading we hear from Exodus.  The people were confused and frustrated and very thirsty.  They had no water.  They thought they would die of their thirst.  Their violent confrontation with Moses has him so scared that he was afraid the people would stone him to death.  In their thirst, the Israelites wondered if God was really with them.  They wondered if he had abandoned them on their journey.  The Lord instructs Moses to strike the rock of Horeb, from which flowed water for the people to drink.  It is interesting that Horeb means “dry” or “desolate”. The people indeed felt dry and desolate on their journey.  In the midst of their fears and their thirst, God gives them a sign that he is with them, that he has not abandoned.  He not only gives them water to satisfy their physical thirst, but he sends them a sign of encouragement and hope that will satisfy the thirst in their souls.  We can have thirst in our souls on our journey, a thirst that we think can never be satisfied.  Our suffering and our fears and our longings, the emptiness we may feel in our lives – all this may seem so overwhelming that we feel as abandoned as the Israelites in the desert.  The thirst that we feel in our souls does not mean that we are outside the will of God. It does not mean that we are outside the realm of his kingdom.  We may be following God’s will in our lives, but we may still suffer, we may still feel frustration and confusion, we may still feel a deep-seeded thirst.  Yet, God will still turn our thirst and our sufferings into something much greater than what we can ever imagine.  The thirst Jesus has the courage to express is a great example for us. It accompanies us on our journey.  And our own thirst helps points us in the right direction – it points us to Jesus and to the Father.  It inspires us to continue on our journey of faith, on our journey through these days of Lent. Let us open our hearts to that thirst. 

Thirst

By Mary Oliver

Another morning and I wake with thirst

for the goodness I do not have. I walk

out to the pond and all the way God has

given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,

I was never a quick scholar but sulked

and hunched over my books past the hour

and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,

a little more time. Love for the earth

and love for you are having such a long

conversation in my heart. Who knows what

will finally happen or where I will be sent,

yet already I have given a great many things

away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,

except the prayers which, with this thirst,

I am slowly learning.