March 4 2018 – 3rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle A – John 4:5-15, 19B-26, 39A, 40-42

        One of the experiences that inspired me to be a missionary was the time I spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, West Africa.  When I arrived on Kassa Island off the coast of the capital city, I moved into a little hut made out of mud bricks. I had to walk over a mile on a steep, narrow path in order to draw water from a well for my drinking and bathing needs. And that water was light brown in color.  The first time I went to the well, I saw this large group of about 25 women gathered there, waiting their turn to get water, chatting and socializing.   All of a sudden, several of the women started laughing and screaming and pointing to the bucket that they had just pulled out of the well. I wondered what the commotion was about.  Finally, I saw a large turtle coming up in the bucket of water, wiggling and squirming, quite a surprise to all of us.  As I got my water and started on the way back, I realized that I was the only man present, surrounded by all these women with huge containers of water that they carried on their heads.  From that first day I moved into that village in Africa and starting doing my chores, I realized that I was then living in a very different culture, with rules and traditions that were sometimes very new to me.  In fact, I was the only Christian living on this island of approximately 3,000 inhabitants, most of whom were Muslims or followers of various African tribal religions.  Out my faith and my own experiences, I served the people of that island as a Peace Corps volunteer.

         I thought about my experiences in Africa  as I read about the Samaritan woman at the well in today’s Gospel.  Jesus meets her in the midst of her reality, just as he meets us in our own reality as well.  Jesus is tired and thirsty from a long journey; he meets the Samaritan woman at the well and asks her for a drink of water.  This may not be shocking to us, but the social norms of ancient Israel saw this as a very bold act.

         The well was the source of water and the source of life for the small communities of ancient Israel.   Women gathered at the well a couple times a day to get water for their families.  The mid-day sun was very hot, so this task was performed in the early morning and evening hours as the women all came together at the well at about the same time.   Getting water at the well was not just a chore, but also a social gathering for the women, a break from their difficult lives.

         The Samaritan woman at the well was alone in the hot mid-day sun, suggesting that the other women were shunning her.  It was daring that Jesus spoke to her in public, since men in that society didn’t speak to women unknown to them in public places.  Boundaries and barriers were set up in biblical times to keep certain people apart.  Jewish law and tradition kept the Jews of Judea from having contact with Samaritans, since the Samaritans had intermarried with the local people and were seen as having corrupted their Jewish heritage. Jesus breaks through this barrier, willingly sharing a drinking vessel with the Samaritan woman, which would have been seen as unclean by the Pharisees due to the strict Jewish purity laws. 

         Sometimes life does not turn out the way we expect – we know that from our own experiences.  Sometimes we face adversity or tragedy, challenges or struggles.  Jesus senses that there were such things going on in the life of the Samaritan woman.  He reaches out to her.  She, in turn, reaches out to him.  Previously, she had been unable to turn away from the hurts and sins that had held her back in her life of faith, but now she has a conversion through her interaction with Jesus.  She becomes his disciple in the context on her lived reality.  Her conversion and testimony help convert her entire town into believers in Jesus.  What started out as Jesus reaching out to a woman in a way that was condemned by traditional Jewish law turned into a significant interpersonal interaction that brought about her own conversion and the conversion of an entire town.
        We are to seek God in all things.  We seek him in the midst of adversity and struggle, in the midst of challenges and tragedies.  In a book by a Jesuit priest from India, Paul Countinho, he asks the question:  How Big is Your God?  Is our God just a theology or a set of rules or a bunch of writings in Scripture?  Or is our God an experience and a relationship?  Does our God challenge us to live out of faith, not just study it and read about it?  The Samaritan woman used her relationship with Jesus to change the way she lived, to go out to evangelize others.  Are we willing to do the same?