HOMILY FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR A. (5)

HOMILY FOR THE 3RD SUNDAY OF LENT YEAR A.

THEME: FAITH IS PROGRESSIVE

BY: Fr. Arthur Ntembula

(Exodus 17:3-7, Romans 5:1-2.5-8, John 4:5-42)
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Our encounters with Christ in different experiences of life are meant to help us undergo a progression of faith. It is called spiritual growth. Those who meet Christ are never the same. Their life is transformed, and they take it upon themselves to go and share what they have seen, heard and learnt with others. Our prayer in this particular liturgy is to ask Christ to increase our faith, to transform our lives and to give us the zeal to go to others and share with them the new life we have gained from him.

Samaritans and Jews were not the best of friends. They differed on the fact that Samaritans didn’t favour rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem after it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Samaritans also rejected the prophetic books and only accepted the Torah (5 books of the Law). For these reasons and many others, Jesus, being a Jew, is not even supposed to be having a conversation with the Samaritan woman. Even worse, a married woman was not supposed to be talking with other men in public without her husband’s consent. So, when Jesus initiates the conversation, asking her for water, he crosses ‘sacred’ boundaries. This explains why the disciples are shocked when they come back to find him talking to this woman at the well. In their minds and of course, culturally, this is not supposed to be happening.

The Samaritan woman reminds Jesus that he knows the relationship that exists between the two tribes, and so he cannot ask for water from her. But Jesus overturns the conversation by challenging her to have asked for living water from him herself. The woman responds by telling him that he doesn’t even have a vessel with which to draw water. Jesus, at this point, realizes that she doesn’t know who it is that is talking to her. So, he tries to explain what he means by “living water” that whoever drinks this water shall have eternal life. He decides to catechise the woman. Even with this catechesis, her attitude still demonstrates to Jesus that she does not know him. Now his task is to help her move from thinking in a physical way to having a spiritual disposition for her faith to mature.

To help her understand the kind of person he is, Jesus begins to talk about her private life. She is impressed by this. How does he know about her life? He must be the messiah or a prophet. The way he articulates issues of eternal life helps the woman to begin to move from the physical to the spiritual. “Are you the prophet?” “Are you the Messiah?” So, she asks. You may want to know that Samaritans were expecting a messiah but different from the one Jews were expecting. They were looking forward to a messiah who would explain the truth and help them understand eternal life, not a political messiah as in the case of the Jews. And Jesus identifies himself with the messiah Samaritans expected when he says, “I am he.” Immediately, the woman leaves the jar because she does not need the physical water of the well anymore. She has discovered the true water that doesn’t need a jar. Her faith has matured. If you follow her conversation with him, she has moved from understanding Jesus as “sir” to “prophet” and finally, to “messiah.” And since she has had this encounter with Jesus, and her faith has grown, she has to go home and share her experience with the others so that they too may come to see the Messiah and believe.

The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman teaches us that we too encounter Jesus in different ways of our life. And if we allow ourselves to have a conversation with him and pay attention to his counsel, our lives will be transformed and we too shall be able to help others to undergo the same transformation. We need to allow ourselves to be the channel through which others can encounter the Lord, and have the progression of faith.

Faithlessness can be very detrimental to the Christian life. Because of this, the Israelites rose against God by complaining about water in the desert. When God gives them water, he reminds them that nothing has the power to separate them from his love. On our journey of faith, we are always with God, regardless of our sinfulness, and his presence is our strength, it is the grace that gives us the courage to face life and authority over sin.

St. Paul helps us understand the “living water” in terms of the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts. This Spirit helps us seek to understand God even more and strengthens us especially when our desert journey gets tough. We are never alone; God moves with us and what he desires is that our faith in him will progressively grow from strength to strength like the Samaritan woman at the well. We need to allow our faith to be increased because when faith is static or worse still, begins to retrogress, even the smallest problem we may encounter is enough to knock us down.

ENJOY YOUR LITURGY
Fr. Arthur Ntembula

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