Show Notes
Jesus knows us and loves us. Jesus loves us despite our deepest secrets and the burdens we carry. We know this because of the conversation with the woman at the well.
Gospel: Jn 4:5-42
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: 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] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the holy gospel according.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: To John glory to you, O Lord.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: 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.
Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
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.
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.
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?
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 up to eternal life.
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.
Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come back.
The woman answered him, I do not have a husband.
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.
The woman said to him, sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you people say that the place to worship is Jerusalem.
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.
We worship what we understand because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth.
And indeed the father seeks such people to worship him.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.
The woman said to him. I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ.
When he comes, he will tell us everything.
Jesus said to her, I am he.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: The one speaking with you?
[00:04:12] Speaker B: 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?
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.
Could he possibly be the Christ?
They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, rabbi, eat.
But he said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know.
So the disciples said to one another, could someone have brought him something to eat?
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?
I tell you, look up and see the field ripe for the harvest.
The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life.
So that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the saying is verified. That one sows and another reaps.
I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.
Others have done the work. And you are sharing in the fruits of their work.
Many of the Samaritans of that town. Began to believe in him. Because of the word of the woman who testified. He told me everything I have done.
When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days.
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.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: I've come to believe that we all have a private self.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: And that private self knows our deepest, darkest secrets. Those things that we are ashamed of and embarrassed about.
Those things that we would be mortified if other people knew.
Because we are convinced that if anybody knew what we were really like or what we really did, then no one would love us. And perhaps no one would even want to be associated with us.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: And I want you to think about something that you carry.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: That you are deeply ashamed of and deeply embarrassed.
Now imagine if I knew and I just shared it with everybody here.
You would probably be crawling out under the pews to get out of here.
And we'd never see you again.
Yet the woman at the well, this samaritan woman who clearly had some things she struggled with in her life.
Jesus knew everything about her, and she didn't stand before him in shame.
She didn't run away.
She stayed there and listened and engaged him.
The reason being he looked at her.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: With full knowledge of everything about her.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: And simply looked at her and loved her.
And she didn't need to feel embarrassed.
She didn't need to feel ashamed, and she didn't need to run away.
Well, that secret person that we hold on to, guess what? Jesus knows 100% of that as well.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: And in the same way he looked.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: At the samaritan woman and loved her, he looks at each one of us and loves us in spite of whatever we hold on to that we wish had never happened or we wish we could get rid of or we wish we could stop struggling with.
He looks at us and he loves us.
And what that can do for us and what it does for us is it frees us from those things.
They can't hurt us. They can't isolate us. They can't put us on the outside of anything as long as Jesus knows them and understands them and continues to love us.
And the thing that we get asked, because that is our reality, is that we need to strive to have that same understanding for each other, to recognize that those people that we are close.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: To, those people that we sit with.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: Here in church, those people that we encounter in our day to day life, have things that they are carrying, and we need to look at them with that same love, not with judgment, but with love.
This story of the samaritan woman at the well is the ultimate reminder for each one of us that God already knows our worst and loves us anyway and expects us to do the same for each other.
Close.
