HOMILY FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR A. (4)

HOMILY FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR A.

THEME: HOW TO BREAK RELATIONSHIP BARRIERS

BY: Fr Andrew Ekpenyong.

1. Joke. A volunteer for a neighborhood association went around her neighborhood, door to door, asking for small donations towards a proposed local swimming pool. In one house, a not-so-generous man gave her a glass of water as his donation for the swimming pool! Well, for a thirsty person, like our Lord in today’s Gospel reading (Jn 4:5-42), that would have been a huge act of generosity. Context matters.

2. Four Barriers. Our Lord broke many barriers, to bring living water, salvation, to the woman and people of Sychar in Samaria. It was a profoundly beautiful encounter. Let me mention only four of these barriers so that we may learn to break similar barriers, relate better with people, and share with them the joy of salvation. These four barriers are connected by two main features: human prejudice and bias.
i) Geographic Barrier. Our Lord went into Sychar (formerly known as Shechem in Old Testament times), a town of Samaria. Pious Jews at the time of our Lord, usually travelled around Samaria to avoid being defiled by contact with Samaritans whom they regarded as “heretics”, part Jew, part Gentile, worshipping at Mt Gerizim instead of the Temple in Jerusalem. Sisters and brothers, “common sense” leads us into avoiding certain parts of cities, certain parts of town, etc. Yes, crime rate is higher in cities, but death rate is higher in rural areas of this country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But our Lord breaks barriers and gets to unlikely places and people, to offer salvation to everyone.

ii) Religious Barrier. Our Lord asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink. The woman’s question reveals her shock over the barriers our Lord overcame to ask her for a favor: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”. And Scripture adds: “For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.” Jewish-Samaritan hostility was already 500 years old by this time. Some Jews, led by one of the Maccabees, John Hyrcanus, out of fanatical zeal that we now see in religious terrorists, destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mt Gerizim around 128 BC. The Samaritans later retaliated a few years before the birth of our Lord, by entering the Temple in Jerusalem and scattering bones of the dead inside, to defile it, on the eve of the Passover, so as to prevent Jews from keeping the feast. Our Lord set aside all the bitterness of past and recent history, all the inherited prejudices, and requested a drink from this Samaritan woman.
iii) Gender Barrier. Bible commentators point out that by speaking to a woman in an area devoid of witnesses, Jesus was breaking a serious social taboo common in middle eastern cultures, then. No wonder Scripture recounts: “…his disciples returned and were amazed that he was talking with a woman…” (Jn 4:27). Yes, they were “astonished”, (Greek, ἐθαύμαζον, ethaumazon), such that they wouldn’t even speak about it. They were dumbfounded. Our Lord placed the salvation of others above His reputation.
iv) Moral Barrier. Knowing that this woman has had 5 husbands and the current man was not her husband, our Lord would have seen her as a liability in terms of public relations. Nevertheless, Jesus revealed to her that He is the Messiah, the Christ, whom she, along with many Jews, Samaritans and even Gentiles, were expecting. Reaching out to her, in spite of her broken moral life, is also the message of today’s 2nd reading (Rom 5:1-2, 5-8): “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

3. Salvation. With these barriers broken, this woman entered into a personal relationship with Jesus, as her Lord and Savior. And she did what we should all do, she left her water jar at the well, to avoid hindrances, hurried to the town and invited people to meet Jesus. She became an instant disciple. More barriers were broken as the Samaritans of that town also became believers and even welcomed Jesus to stay with them 2 days. Such is the joy of salvation, the joy of sharing, the joy of freedom from barriers including barriers of personal and social sins. As we draw closer to our Lord this Lent, may we also find grace to break barriers, reach out and share with others materially and spiritually so as to spread the joy of salvation. Amen.

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