Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent Year A
Readings: Exodus 17:3–7; Psalm 94(95):1–2, 6-9; Romans 5:1–2, 5–8; John 4:5–42
12 March 2023
In today’s Gospel, we hear the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. They meet not just at any well; this is Jacob’s well. This is where Isaac and Rebekah met; this is where Jacob and Rachel were matched up. It’s hot. It’s the middle of the day. The woman has come to draw water from the well. She is alone. Why? No doubt, the drawing of water was women’s work in those days. And it was not easy. The women would usually come early in the morning or at dusk to avoid the heat, and to catch up on the news of the village. This woman is the ultimate outsider. She is not only a Samaritan meeting a Jew. She is a woman five times married who is too embarrassed or shamed to keep company with the other women at a more sensible time of day for drawing the water. An outsider who holds her own.
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When Jesus asks for a drink, you can sense the initial hesitance, the tension, the encounter and then the engagement between the two. “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus engages with her. He does not take offence. He does not judge her. He gives as good as he gets. He offers her living water. Despite their differences, these two are pleased to meet at the well. Their natural banter provides hope and new life. They break through the stereotypes. The woman is no longer an outsider. Jesus reaches out in a way that shocks and even scandalises his disciples who returned from collecting supplies “and were amazed that he was talking with a woman”.
On Monday, we mark the 10th anniversary of the election of Pope Francis – a pope who has enjoyed many encounters like that of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Francis has brought new life and new hope to many outsiders at the well in the midday sun. And he has often caused angst to some of the Vatican heavyweights around him.
Let’s recall the night of his election as pope when he greeted the people in the piazza with the homely, familiar greeting ‘Buono Sera’: “Brothers and sisters, good evening. You know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world to get him. But here we are. I thank you for this welcome by the diocesan community of Rome to its bishop. Thank you.”
He then asked the people to pray for him. We all prayed in silence. And only then did he offer his blessing to the world, telling everyone to return home to have a good night’s sleep: “Now, I will give you and the whole world a blessing, to all men and women of good will. Tomorrow I want to go to pray to the Madonna so that she protects all of Rome. Good night and have a good rest.” He was warm, familiar, and so down to earth. He showed good humour. And he was not afraid to express simple piety.
Francis’s inclusive, welcoming, and slightly cheeky approach was shown to the world when he addressed the United States Congress in September 2015. He commenced: “I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’. I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility”. He went in their door but only in order to bring them straight out his. He allowed his listeners to be lulled into the proud contentment of national identity before then turning the tables and establishing their shared geographic identity, underpinning their shared responsibility for the stranger and the one in need south of the Mexican border.
Though Francis has not written with the same clarity as his predecessors Benedict and John Paul, he has had a more conversational way of calling his listeners and interlocutors to account: to an account of conscience – just like Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman.
Francis has seen this past ten years that the Church, like life, is more complex than a series of choices between binary options – right and wrong, left and right, conservative and progressive, orthodox and pastoral, black and white, perfect and imperfect, clerical and lay. He has embodied and exemplified the balancing and reconciling of conflicts, knowing that most of us act most of the time with a diversity of motivations, seeking the greater good in the midst of the mess and complexity of life, seeing that many situations are grey rather than simply black or white. The woman at the well at midday is not to be judged, scorned or avoided.
During the papacies of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI, it was fashionable to parody some of us as ‘cafeteria Catholics’ – those choosing only those teachings or practices which resonated with their desires or preferences. Those proffering the adverse judgments were usually satisfied of their orthodoxy and orthopraxis because they followed the liturgical rubrics attentively and affirmed papal teaching on the ‘neuralgic issues’: contraception, homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, and the indissolubility of marriage. They also affirmed the papal decrees stating that ordination must forever be reserved to men, even claiming that such utterances were infallible. Francis has made it clear that most, if not all, of us can now be parodied as ‘cafeteria Catholics’, and that’s because we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy. Each of us is like the Samaritan woman at the well in the midday sun.
Today, we give thanks for Francis’ decade of service and we give thanks for those like the five times married Samaritan woman at the well who invite engagement and response on the margins where living water is to be found.
R: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert.
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Fr Frank Brennan SJ is the Rector of Newman College, Melbourne, and the former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). He was appointed a peritus at the Fifth Plenary Council of the Australian Catholic Church.
