By Sr. Tracy Kemme
The Gospel for this
Sunday gives us a wonderful image for our Lenten journeys: living water.
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 his 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." (John 4:5-15)
We prayed with this portion of the upcoming reading
yesterday as a parish staff
in a simple Lectio Divina
style.
I have to admit, the first time we
read the passage, the phrase that jumped out at me was, “Jesus, tired from his
journey…” The words brought me relief:
“Oh, Jesus, you felt tired, too.” March
madness seems to have hit not only NCAA basketball but my calendar, too. There is an overload of activity – Lenten
commitments at the parish; activism, education, and accompaniment in the
current immigration climate; continuing to settle into our new home and
dedicating energy to build a new intentional community. I’ve been feeling my resources wane and
allowing myself to be irritable and negative.
I feel guilty confessing my exhaustion.
I know it’s a privilege to do meaningful work, and those who are the
victims of oppression and injustice don’t have the option to give up because
they’re tired. Still, in my humanness, I
sighed, “Jesus, I’m tired from the journey, too.”
The second time we read the passage,
I imagined myself in the scene. I became
the Samaritan woman, my skin tingling under the high-noon sun and sweat dribbling
down the side of my face. I came to the
well, wearily lugging my bucket as I had done so many other times, fetching the
liquid of life from the only source in the village. There sat a man with the kindest face I’d
ever seen.
When Jesus spoke to me, everything around me
seemed to stop. I felt overcome by peace
and drawn to the compassion in his eyes.
For a moment, anxiety and fatigue subsided. The focus moved from my weakness to his
strength. I sensed that he had something
real and sustaining to offer me, something as real as a quenching swig of water
on a sweltering day. As Jesus described
living water, I felt the urgent thirst that the woman in the story gives voice
to, “Sir, give me this water.”
The third time we heard the words of
the Gospel, I listened for the message Jesus might be trying to speak to my
heart this day. I heard one phrase so
clearly, “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."
It was not said in a disparaging way to make me feel
little, but rather, it was a loving invitation to my jittery heart: “Tracy,
remember who I am. Look into my eyes,
and see all of the gifts that I want to give to you. I mean it.
Do you believe me?” I realized
that I did believe it somewhere deep down, but I had forgotten how to trust it. I figured that with so much need in the
world, I shouldn’t dare bother Jesus with something so petty. Then, tenderly, he assured me, “Ask me for
what you need.”
Something in my heart shifted, and
even though my eyes were closed, the whole room felt lighter, glowing with
golden warmth. In my own preoccupations,
I had latched on to a burdensome illusion that I had to do all of this on my
own. Here, Jesus brought me back to
truth: I am your source, a well inside of you that
will not dry up. Come to me, and rely on
me. As my spiritual director reminds
me often, “If Jesus calls you to something, he gives you what you need to
respond to that call.”
More powerful than a dismal reminder
of our own weakness, Lent is an opportunity to remember, again, who Jesus
is. Yes, it is important to look
sincerely inside ourselves throughout to season to see where we are missing the
mark and how we can grow. But we must do
it in the context of knowing the “gift of God.”
As the Gospel so beautifully reminds us this Sunday, we don’t go the
journey of transformation alone. Lent is
a call to believe, again, that Jesus is our source, an eternal spring welling
up inside of us. He wants us to return
to him with our whole heart and ask him for our deepest longings. He wants to nourish us, sustain us, refresh
us, cleanse us, and fill us with hope.
Our Living Water is inexhaustible; there’s enough to
go around for every person, for every day of life.
Faces worn and weary
