We are now on our third Sunday in Lent. Understand that we
are on a journey. The Season symbolizes our journey in life – not just
individually, but as a Church, as God’s people. He deals with us as a
Body; He also deals with us personally. He also is concerned with us as a
Church.
Today’s
gospel talks about Jesus at the well meeting a Samaritan woman. I would
like us to understand something from Exodus 17:1, “Then all the congregation
of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of sin according
to the command of the Lord.” But let us see first the gospel which is
talking about the Samaritan. The Samaritans were a second-class Jewish
people. Spiritually, they were not in the fullness of being in the chosen
race of God. Israel looked down at them as like halfway between a Gentile
and a Jew. The Jews had no dealing with them as the gospel says. God’s
love transcends anything and everything, even religious discrimination.
Jesus died for the Jew, the Greek, the Christian, the Gentile, the Buddhist,
the Moslem – every single man on earth in the past and in the future.
Jesus
talks to this Samaritan woman. It is bad enough that He would talk to a
Samaritan man; worst, a Samaritan woman. Jesus was speaking to her
against what they have been used to culturally. He asked for water and
said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who is asking for water
from you, you would have asked from Him living water and He would have given it
to you. That living water will satisfy you forever. Only that can satisfy the
thirst of your soul. You drink this water from Jacob’s well, you will
thirst again after a couple of hours. The living water that I shall give
you, if you ask for it, will satisfy the thirst of your very soul.”
We
don’t understand the gift of God; many times, even Jesus who speaks and who can
give to us that living water. The value of the gift of God is beyond our
short-sighted goals and needs. We are content with, like the Samaritan
woman, not to draw water. We have indoor plumbing today, but are we
satisfied with that? The woman said, “I would have been satisfied
if I had indoor plumbing and I don’t have to come here every day to draw water
and carry this heavy clay pot. What does it give me?”
Our
shortsighted needs fall short of what God wants to give to us. We are
content or we say that we will be content with certain things. We measure
satisfaction or happiness by temporal things. As Filipinos, we think we
will be content with a pointed nose, not a flat nose, so we go to a surgical
clinic and have our nose done. After that, will we be satisfied?
Some would go a second time, a third time, until there is nothing to work
with. We think we can be satisfied. Like water, we are satisfied
for a moment; after a few hours, we will be thirsty again. Some
Filipinos would like whiter skin, and they think that is the answer to all the
world’s problems. To a child, “If only I could get that toy, I will be
happy.” The child would play for it for five minutes and after that it will be
left on the floor. If it is a toy car, it is an accident waiting to
happen. Some would want shoes, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a job, a car, and
when they get older, they want a house. When one gets much older, they want
teeth, hair, no wrinkles, hearing and sometimes sight. These are
temporal, not eternal.
We
define success as:
At
age 4 success is: Not urinating in your pants.
At age 12 success is: Having friends.
At age 17 success is: Having a driver's license.
At age 35 success is: Having money.
At age 50 success is: Having money.
At age 70 success is: Having a driver’s license.
At age 75 success is: Having friends.
At
age 80 success is: Not urinating in your pants.
It
is all temporal. We think, “If only I could do this, I would be happy.”
Happiness only comes from God. Temporal things were never designed to
satisfy the thirst of the soul. Maybe, it is the fleeting need or insatiable
need of the flesh, but not the soul. This is what living water quenches,
and only Jesus can give it to us. If we understand the gift of God and
who it is who can give it to us, we would have asked and we would have sought
Him.
Could
it be that not seeking this gift is a sign that we do not know the Giver and
what He can give? We don’t understand it fully so we continue to look for
satisfaction, for our thirst elsewhere. The woman said, “Give me
this water so I will not be thirsty again or come all the way here to
draw.” She did not fully understand that this living water is what she
needs. She had been drinking salt water. She had husband number one
and she thought she would be satisfied with husband number two. That goes
on five times and this present husband is not even her husband. She was
still not satisfied. Only God can satisfy the thirsty soul. She did
not know that Jesus knew that and so He gives her a word of knowledge about her
moral condition. The woman tries to avoid it not knowing that Jesus and
His living water is the answer to the thirst of her soul. It is not
five or six husbands; it is not a toy, a pair of shoes, a girlfriend or a
boyfriend, not teeth or hair, not sight or hearing.
We
need those things, but the soul thirst for God. The Samaritan woman
talked theology, invoked tradition, succession, antiquity, and talked about
worship. She was wrong about all those things. Jesus affirmed
the necessity of belonging to the people of God. It is important as Jesus
said and is necessary that we belong to the chosen people of God. That
time, it was Israel. Today, it is the Church. We need to be one with the
people of God, within God’s household. Jesus said that salvation is from the
Jews and of the Jews. Read Psalm 132:13-18 which talks about how God has
chosen Zion and wants it to be a dwelling place and to be the worship place of
His people. Romans 9:4-5 also talk about how that adoption as sons,
promises, and oracles of God belong to Israel because God chose His people.
Nevertheless,
Jesus emphasized true worship which is more important and which even His chosen
people must know and do and practice. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees who were the
leaders of His chosen people. He rebuked them for their hypocrisy because
they were not true worshippers who worshipped God in spirit and in truth.
Our goal is not to be children of Abraham or members of God’s church or
His household by birth or ceremonial means. We are to be children of God,
true sons of God in heart and in deed. It is not that it is not important
that you be baptized and belong to the Church. It is but this is only the
beginning. True worship is obeying God including His instruction on how
to be part of His Church and how to worship Him, where to worship Him, what to
wear and what to give and more.
In
stressing true worship, Jesus touched the heart of the Samaritan woman.
He did not dwell on the theological argument but by showing her need of a
Savior. This is showing her that her thirst cannot be quenched by the
things she had been pursuing, but only by the living water that Jesus could
give. She says, “We, too, as Samaritans, look forward to the coming of
the Messiah because He will quench this thirst that You are talking
about.” Jesus tells her, “I am He.” She obviously believed.
There
is a prophecy in the Old Testament that God speaks, “I was found by those who
did not seek Me.” The woman did not expect Jesus to be there. She
was just doing her daily routine - getting water out of the well because they
needed it. God willed to be found by her. It is not unfair to those who
say they seek God. God wills to be found, but He wants us also to seek
Him. Seek the Lord while He wills to be found. He doesn't just show
Himself to you. He wants you to draw near to Him and He will draw near to
you. He wills to be found and we need to make an effort to seek Him too.
The
genuine encounter with Him will change our lives – a genuine, personal
encounter with God. I am not just talking about a religious ceremony. I
am not talking about that point in your life before and after baptism, before
and after membership in Church, but it is where you really had a genuine, true
encounter with the Son of God Himself that changed your life from that day
forward. The woman conversed with Christ. Our talking to God,
our praying to Him, and our listening to Him gives us the answers and makes us
learn. That encounter should also make you want to share the explicable joy and
peace that you have with others. You should not be able to contain it,
not if we have a genuine encounter with Christ.
The
woman went to the town’s people and shared her experience with them. That
was only the beginning; an introduction. They heard about Christ and they
sought Him. They asked for him to stay with them, and having themselves a
personal encounter with Him, that was what made the profound difference in
their lives. It was not just hearing about Him. The big difference
was encountering Him. For two days, He stayed with them and they communed
with Him.
This
is the hope they had – these second-class citizens looked down by Israelites, rejected
by them. God did not reject. There is hope for the whole world –
the adulterers, prostitutes, tax gatherers, Gentiles and sinners – coming
around and communing with God. God and man at Table are sat down.
People of other religions have hope. Romans 5 says, "While we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us." If He would do that while we were
yet His enemies and reconcile us to God through His death, how much more shall
we be saved by His resurrection life? If by His death, we were
reconciled, can you imagine what His resurrected life can do for us?
We
have hope that we always need to have on our journey. The song says, “We
are walking once more in the pilgrim way of Lent.” We are reliving His
Passion and His death so that we can appreciate Easter more and celebrate it in
fullness and with a lot more meaning.
Going
back to Exodus 17:1, the Israelites journeyed by stages from the wilderness of
sin according to the command of the Lord. At that point, there was no
water. All the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness.
The wilderness is named the wilderness of sin. God is taking us away from
that wilderness, but it is a journey and by stages according to the word, the
command, and the will of the Lord. At that point, in that place where
there was no water, according to the will of God. Was it the will of God
for them to die of thirst? They didn’t die at that time, because God
wanted to show them something; but first, God wanted them to trust in Him and
not to lose hope. What happened to them, at that stage, was according to
the command of the Lord. Is God a cruel God who makes His people
thirsty? It is not thirsty to death, but thirsty enough to understand
they need living water. God wants them to depend on Him and to
trust in Him and to put their hope in Him – not in Egypt.
What
happened was that the people quarreled with and grumbled against Moses over
water. It was a legitimate need. Imagine yourself in the desert – dry,
waterless and you walk for forty years. You would ask for water, but
probably it was in the walk they asked. It was a legitimate need, but
they grumbled and they said, “We should have just stayed in Egypt.” They
tested God by asking, “Is the Lord with us?” They started doubting
God. They journeyed by stages from the wilderness. God was leading
them – led by the cloud by day and by night and by fire. We are to be led
by God; and according to His command, He takes us in stages from glory to glory
until we reached that full stature of Christ.
The
reading from Exodus 17 and Psalm 95 both call it testing the Lord, not Moses.
“When your fathers tested Me and tried Me, after seeing the miracles I
performed, the miracles in Egypt.” In the book of Numbers14:22-24, it
recalls this incident and says "All who have seen My signs in Egypt yet
have put Me to the test and not listened to Me shall not see the Promised
Land." This attitude will hinder us from seeing and entering into
the kingdom of God. It may be a legitimate need but it is not about
the need but about but losing hope and starting not to trust in God.
The
name Meribah is argument, strife; division. They argued with Moses, but
in fact the Bible says that they tested God. The name Massah means test –
all the sons of Israel, all the members of the people of God, by stages, from
the wilderness, according to God’s itinerary. God is aware of the stages.
He prepared the itinerary. At this point in our Church’s
life, God knows that we are in a need of a place. According to the command of
God, He led Israel by stages. He is leading us right now, as He led His
people. We are the people of God. He will lead us by
stages. He knows what He is doing, but do we know what we are
doing? He simply asks us to trust in Him. Look to Him. He is the
cloud, and He is using people, leaders, so don’t argue with them. I know
you need water but do not lose hope because hope does not disappoint.
The
Lord is not slack concerning His promise. I challenge you not only to
lose hope but also to have that hope and share it! Don’t influence people
to lose hope; influence them to have hope. You have to be convinced
yourself first that you do have hope in God, if you knew the gift of God, the
hope He gives. People will call on Him only if they hear about Him.
Romans 10:13-14 says, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be
saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How shall
they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
somebody sharing the hope that they live and they have in their heart?”
Let
us live out that hope that we may be able to share it. God is counting on us to
share that genuine hope because that is the way it is in the kingdom of God.
LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
HIS EMINENCE, THE MOST REVEREND LUIS ANTONIO "CHITO" GOKIM TAGLE D.D.
ARCHBISHOP OF MANILA,
AND
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
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