{"id":1314,"date":"2014-03-23T16:23:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T20:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1314"},"modified":"2014-03-23T16:23:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T20:23:13","slug":"homily-3rd-sunday-in-lent-year-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/homily-3rd-sunday-in-lent-year-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily – 3rd Sunday in Lent, Year A"},"content":{"rendered":"

3rd<\/sup> Sunday in Lent, Year A<\/a>
\nExodus 17:3-7
\nRomans 5:1-2, 5-8
\nJohn 4:5-42
\nMarch 23, 2014<\/p>\n

The Samaritan woman comes about noon to the well to draw water.\u00a0 In those days without indoor plumbing drawing water from the well was a daily task but it was usually a morning task before it got hot.<\/p>\n

This Samaritan woman waits till later when she thinks no one will be there but finds Jesus there.\u00a0 Jesus asks for a drink.\u00a0 She is astonished by this.\u00a0 She is a Samaritan and she recognizes him as a Jew.\u00a0 The Jews and the Samaritans did not talk to each other.\u00a0 And men would not talk to a woman alone.<\/p>\n

Jesus does.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Because he cares about the woman.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter that she is a Samaritan.\u00a0 Jesus still offers her all that he brings.<\/p>\n

As the conversation continues, Jesus and the woman are thinking from two different perspectives.\u00a0 She takes what Jesus says literally but it is not the water in the well that Jesus speaks of but the living waters<\/i> of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

As a Samaritan, she would have been a woman of faith but a faith somewhat different from the Jews (hence, the Jews and Samaritans didn\u2019t talk to each other).<\/p>\n

So she is capable of knowing more than the literal but she takes Jesus literally when he asks for a drink.\u00a0 They are sitting next to a well.\u00a0 Who would ever guess that Jesus is speaking of water other than what is in the well?<\/p>\n

As Jesus describes the living waters to her and tells her that all who drink on this water will never thirst again, she still takes him literally and asks for this water, thinking she wouldn\u2019t have to come to the well just to get a glass of water.<\/p>\n

At this point the conversation shifts.\u00a0 Jesus knows she is still thinking literally because she doesn\u2019t know who he is.\u00a0 Jesus tells her to go get her husband and this leads to Jesus speaking about the five husbands she has known.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Jesus displays knowledge that she would not expect him to know.\u00a0 Remember she is a Samaritan and a woman of faith.\u00a0 So, she recognizes Jesus\u2019 words as the words of a prophet.<\/p>\n

The woman has taken a great step in her faith but there is still more to learn.\u00a0 Jesus is not just a prophet.<\/p>\n

The woman herself speaks of the Messiah to come.\u00a0 Jesus offers the simplest of responses, \u201cI am he.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

The Samaritan woman goes off to the town and tells people what Jesus has said to her.\u00a0 She knows Jesus is an amazing person and wants to share that with others.\u00a0 She tells them what Jesus has said and says to them \u201cCould he possibly be the Christ?<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t come to full faith herself but she shares what she does know and in doing so, leads others to Jesus.<\/p>\n

Two lessons here.\u00a0 First, we come to faith in stages.\u00a0 There may be great leaps in our faith but faith is an ongoing learning process for us.\u00a0 We never know everything.\u00a0 Growing in faith requires more than just coming to Mass.\u00a0 We need to come to Mass but we also need to learn more.<\/p>\n

We sometimes think learning is just for kids.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t.\u00a0 We never know everything about our faith.\u00a0 I know I don\u2019t.\u00a0 This is why we offer Small Christian Communities.\u00a0 It\u2019s why Pat and I do talks.\u00a0 It\u2019s why we have the CD\u2019s in back of church.\u00a0 It\u2019s why our religious ed program involves not just the children but the whole family.\u00a0 We need to grow in faith.<\/p>\n

The second lesson from this passage is that we are called to share our faith.\u00a0 Sometimes we think we don\u2019t know enough about Jesus to talk to others.\u00a0 The Samaritan woman had only just begun to know Jesus when she shared what she did know with others.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called evangelization.\u00a0 Recent popes use the term New Evangelization<\/i>.\u00a0 The new evangelization is not just about evangelizing others.\u00a0 We need to evangelize ourselves to deepen our own faith.<\/p>\n

It is a never-ending process in this world.\u00a0 What do you do to learn more about our faith?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3rd Sunday in Lent, Year A Exodus 17:3-7 Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 John 4:5-42 March 23, 2014 The Samaritan woman comes about noon to the well to draw water.\u00a0 In those days without indoor plumbing drawing water from the well was a daily task but it was usually a morning task before it got hot. This …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Homily – 3rd Sunday in Lent, Year A’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-lc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1315,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}