Third Sunday of Lent
“Jesus
said to her, ‘Go call your husband and come back.’ The woman answered and said to him, ‘I do not have a
husband.’ Jesus answered her, ‘You
are right in saying, “I do not have a husband.” For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is
not your husband.’” This whole
situation of having five husbands and a lover probably strikes us as odd (I
hope it strikes us as odd). Now,
to be fair, we don’t know what happened to the Samaritan woman’s previous five
husbands. Our first guess is probably
that she was the Elizabeth Taylor of her day. But perhaps they just died, and she was just trying to see
if her current lover could survive.
I guess we’ll never know.
But
having five husbands shouldn’t seem odd to us, no matter how the situation
unfolded. It shouldn’t seem odd to
us because all of us here have, maybe not five husbands, but five lovers. Now, before you prepare to check your
husband’s email account or browsing history of your wife on the internet, I
don’t mean that kind of lover. I
mean someone or something that we give our love to, in place of God, just like
the Samaritan woman.
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| The Prophet Ezekiel |
on the day you were
born your navel cord was not cut; you were not washed with water or anointed;
you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye looked on you with pity or
compassion to do any of these things for you. Rather, on the day you were born you were left out in the
field, rejected. Then I passed by
and saw you struggling in your blood, and I said to you in your blood,
“Live!” I helped you grow up like
a field plant, so that you grew, maturing into a woman…but still you were stark
naked. I passed by you again and
saw that you were now old enough for love. So I spread the corner of my cloak over you to cover your
nakedness; I swore an oath to you and entered into covenant with you…and you
became mine. Then I bathed you
with water, washed away your blood, and anointed you with oil. I clothed you with an embroidered gown,
put leather sandals on your feet; I gave you a fine linen sash and silk robes
to wear. I adorned you with
jewelry, putting bracelets on your arms, a necklace about your neck…earrings in
your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver; your garments
made of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. Fine flour, honey, and olive oil were your food. You were very, very beautiful, fit for
royalty…But you trusted in your own beauty and used your renown to serve as a
prostitute. You poured out your
prostitution on every passerby.
God says how he loved
Israel and cared for her, then wooed her, and married her, but then, after all
that care, she went after other lovers.
God uses this image of an unfaithful spouse to describe Israel in their
unfaithfulness.
We
see that unfaithfulness in the first reading. God had freed the People of Israel from slavery in
Egypt. He had demolished Pharaoh’s
army in the Red Sea, as Israel passed through dry-shod. And yet, Israel longed for life back in
Egypt. She longed for her foreign
lover, in whom she put her trust, rather than on God, her spouse. And so they complained that they were
dying of thirst. They didn’t trust
in God to provide them with water, even though He had saved them from their
enemies.
So
we can read the Samaritan woman’s five former husbands and one lover in an
analogical sense. They are the
things in which we put our trust.
But, eventually, our lovers abandon us, just as they abandoned the
Samaritan woman. You see, she was
drawing water at the hottest time of the day. Likely, she was doing this to avoid the dirty looks from the
other villagers, who looked down on her for having five husbands and a
lover. She had to draw water at
the worst time of the day because her five husbands and lover would not draw
water for her.
But,
as she meets Jesus, she finds someone who says He will be able to giver her
living water, so she does not have to draw water again. He promises her more. She is skeptical. And she becomes quite dodgy as he
presses her on her life, and invites her to abandon her other lovers for Him,
the Divine Bridegroom, who truly loves her, because He created her in love.
What
are the lovers in our life? What
do we value more than God? What
has promised to quench our thirst, yet leaves us drawing water at the hottest
time of the day? Maybe it’s
financial security that we feel will take care of us. Maybe it’s health.
Maybe it’s a job. Maybe it’s
sports. But if it’s not Jesus,
then it won’t really be there for us.
In the end, everything else fades away. All our other lovers will abandon us, and will not take care
of us right when we feel like we need them the most. But Jesus, our Divine Bridegroom, will always be there for
us, giving us living water, the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we are never
thirsty again. As we hear God
speak from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 55, verses 1-2: “All you who
are thirsty, come to the water!
You who have no money, come, buy grain and eat; Come, buy grain without
money, wine and milk without cost!
Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what does not
satisfy? Only listen to me, and
you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.” Jesus is the living water. Receive from Him, trust in Him alone, and thirst no more!!
