Who is your Lover?

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.

           

The Prophet Ezekiel

God, throughout the Old Testament, used the metaphor of a marital relationship for the relationship between Himself and Israel.  The whole Book of Hosea follows that metaphor.  Perhaps my favorite use of this metaphor, though, is from the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 16.  It’s a long chapter, so I won’t quote it all, but just the first few verses will suffice:

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!!