Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:25] The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord.
[00:00:33] Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there.
[00:00:45] Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon.
[00:00:52] A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
[00:00:55] Jesus said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.
[00:01:14] Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
[00:01:27] The woman said to him, sir, you do not even have a bucket, and the cistern is deep. Where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our Father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?
[00:01:47] Jesus answered and said to her, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst. The water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling to eternal life.
[00:02:05] The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.
[00:02:15] Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come back.
[00:02:20] The woman answered and said to him, I do not have a husband.
[00:02:25] Jesus answered her, you are right in saying I do not have a husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.
[00:02:38] The woman said to him, sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.
[00:02:51] Jesus said to her, believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand.
[00:03:06] We worship what we understand because salvation is from the Jews.
[00:03:11] But the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
[00:03:21] And indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
[00:03:27] God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
[00:03:34] The Woman said to him, I. I know that the Messiah is coming. The one called to Christ, when he comes, he will tell us everything.
[00:03:46] Jesus said to her, I am he the one speaking with you.
[00:03:52] At that moment, his disciples returned and were amazed that he was talking with a woman. But still no one said, what are you looking for? Or why are you talking with her?
[00:04:07] The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I have done.
[00:04:17] Could he possibly be the Christ?
[00:04:20] They went out of that town and came to him.
[00:04:24] Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, rabbi, eat.
[00:04:29] But he said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know.
[00:04:35] So the disciples said to one another, could someone have brought him something to eat?
[00:04:41] Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, in four months the harvest will be here?
[00:04:53] I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.
[00:04:59] The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper can rejoice together.
[00:05:11] For here the saying is verified that one sows and the other reaps.
[00:05:17] I send you to reap what you have not worked for.
[00:05:21] Others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.
[00:05:27] Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified.
[00:05:34] He told me everything I have done.
[00:05:38] When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days.
[00:05:45] Many more began to believe in him because of his word. And they said to the woman, we no longer believe because of your Word. For we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is truly the savior of the world, the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:06:08] We just never know when Jesus Mercy will show up in the midst of our lives.
[00:06:17] For this Samaritan woman, commonly known as the woman at the well, it was one of those days.
[00:06:24] She was tied up in the busyness and drudgery of day to day life. And one of the things I dislike about the scriptures is that rarely are the women of scripture given a name. It was cultural, I'm sure, but I think she deserves a name. And since she had five husbands. For those of you who are a little older, I'm going to call her Zsa Zsa. Okay, so that will make sense to you, those that are older.
[00:06:51] But Zsa Zsa was in the midst of her day. To day struggles. And she was down there getting water for her daily needs and probably really wasn't interested in dealing with anybody, let alone a Jew and a man there who she would have had nothing to do with, because he would have had nothing to do with her under normal circumstances.
[00:07:17] But here we have Jesus reach out to her.
[00:07:22] Give me a drink.
[00:07:24] And he wasn't just looking for water. He was thirsting for her faith to come out of her.
[00:07:32] And as he reached out to her, something amazing and powerful happened.
[00:07:39] For she heard someone who knew absolutely everything about her, knew those things that, frankly, she would have been embarrassed about and ashamed of.
[00:07:55] But never once did she feel like she needed to be embarrassed or be ashamed, because clearly the way he was reaching out to her was with a look and a presence that was 100% loving.
[00:08:14] And instead of reacting in a way where she wanted to walk away and hope she never encountered him again, she opened her heart just a little bit.
[00:08:25] And the more she opened her heart, the more he was able to enter in and heal her, heal her of everything that had been hurt, everything that had been broken, everything that would ever cause her shame or embarrassment.
[00:08:44] And the encounter was so powerful that it couldn't be contained. She couldn't wait to go see the people she knew. You're not going to believe what just happened to me. And in a way, she's one of the first evangelists, because she did it perfectly. She didn't come at the other Samaritans with doctrine or dogma. She didn't come at them with rules.
[00:09:06] She came at them with an experience of mercy and love that can only enter into our lives through God.
[00:09:15] While that same experience of mercy and love is there for each one of us, Jesus Christ is the one person where we never have to hold our head in shame or embarrassment. He already knows everything about us, without a doubt.
[00:09:37] And in spite of whatever we may be holding close, hoping no one will ever find out, he knows.
[00:09:44] And he still offers us that same perfect love and mercy.
[00:09:50] And we have to open our hearts to let it in. But every time we do, every time we open up just a little bit more to allow that presence to come inside of us, it should do the very same thing it did for Zsaja. It ought to change us enough that we can't wait to share it with people that are around us.
[00:10:09] Not to share rules, not to share structure, but to share love.
