My name is Don, and I’ve been a Catholic priest now for over 50 years. And during that time, I keep going back to the same readings over and over again, only to discover that they contain something I never understood was there before. It gives me new enthusiasm and excitement for the message that keeps revealing itself. And I pray that the message that I’m sending you will be valuable, and if you find it so, please share these podcasts with your friends. Thank you. Good morning.
I want to say something about the readings that you’re about to hear, because I’m using the readings from cycle A. And Cycle A is one of the three cycles we have, and this cycle is the one that is always used when there is a group of people preparing for entrance into the church, because this cycle carries five gospels that capture, and I think the most beautiful way, the essence of what the message of Christ is. So the first two readings are. The first two sets of readings we just listened to in these last two weeks were taken from year C, but now I’ve switched over to A because the first two readings had the same gospel as Cycle A. So you’re listening to the classic set of readings that capture the fullness of what God has asked Jesus to reveal to you and to me, and what he is inside of us now revealing to us. This is a long gospel.
Also, it’s about the woman in the well, and the theme is mercy. And so when you listen attentively to this reading, listen as it is a description of what it means that God is filled with mercy for you and for me. Mercy often feels like to some people, it’s a license to do anything you want. God forgives all your sins, so you don’t have to worry about doing anything. It’s not quite that easy. The world is difficult to live in and to stay pure.
And we will sin, and we do sin. And without mercy, then a relationship with God doesn’t seem really possible if we’re also honest with ourselves and face our sins. So listen attentively to this gospel and then I’ll work with you in the thoughts afterwards. Okay? So let us begin with the opening prayer. O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness, who is in fasting, prayer and almsgiving have shown us a remedy for sin.
Look graciously on this confession of our lowliness, that we who are bowed down by our own conscience may always be lifted up by your mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and Ever. Amen. A reading from the Old Testament, from the book of Exodus 17. In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses, saying, why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst with our children, our livestock? So Moses cried out to the Lord, what shall I do with this people?
A little more and they will stone me. The Lord answered, moses, go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding your hand as you go the staff with which you struck the river. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock of Horeb. Strike the rock and the water will flow from it for the people to drink. This Moses did in the presence of the elders of Israel. The place was called Massah in Meribah because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the Lord, saying, is the Lord in our midst or not?
The Word of the Lord Response to oil Psalm if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord. Let us acclaim the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us joyfully sing psalms to him. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Come, let us bow down in worship.
Let us kneel before the Lord who made us for he is our God and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts oh, that today you would hear his voice Harden not your hearts as in Meribah, as in the day of Massah. In the desert where your fathers tempted me, they tested me though they had seen my works. If today you hear his voice, Harden not your hearts. A reading from the New Testament. From St.
Paul’s letter to the Romans. Fifth chapter, first and second verse in the fifth through the eighth verse. Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand. And we boast in hope of the glory of God. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appropriate time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The Word of the Lord Verse before the Gospel. Lord, you are Truly the Savior of the world. Give me living water that I may never thirst again. The gospel for this third Sunday of Lent is taken from St.
John 4 fifth verse to the 42nd verse. Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of the 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 town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? But 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 this cistern is deep.
Where then can I 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 come here to draw water.
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. You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father. Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand. We worship what we understand because salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. And indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, one called the Christ. When he comes, he will tell us everything. Jesus said to her, I am he the one speaking with you.
At that moment, his disciples returned and were amazed that he was talking with a woman. But still no one said, what are you looking for? Or why are you talking with her? The woman left her water jar, went into town and said to the people, come see a man who told me everything I’ve done. Could he possibly be the Christ? They went out of town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat, which you do not know. The disciples said to one another, could someone have brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, in four months the harvest will be here? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest.
The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that one sows, another reaps. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the work, and you are sharing in the fruits of their work. Now many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified. He told me everything I’ve done.
When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of His Word. And they said to the woman, we no longer believe because of your word. We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world, the Gospel of the Lord. Sam Sa When I was ordained 55 years ago, something had changed in the church.
A major change when it came to preaching. For in the Catholic world, we are always, as priests of this religion, told to preach on certain readings each Sunday in their the same readings all over the world that everyone ponders and wonders about. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that what happens when you gather a large group of people and say, think about this together and know that we’re interconnected? And I still love that image, that everywhere in the world people have listened to this gospel story. And what I think is interesting about that notion of a church that is longing to realize what’s in these readings, that 55 years ago, for the first time, we added to the Sunday readings an Old Testament reading. Before that, for 2,000 years, there was not an Old Testament reading.
In fact, growing up as a Catholic, I always thought The Old Testament was wrong, The New Testament was right. The Old Testament was bad. The New Testament is good. The one was based on law and punishment, the other is forgiveness in life. And it’s like I missed such an important story. It’s a story of a God who has a passion, a longing, a love for humanity so intense, so wonderfully fleshed out in these stories that you see him acting in many ways like a crazy lover.
He created a beautiful place for these humans he created, and it was idyllic. They didn’t have to do anything. They could just enjoy the beauty that God created them. And that’s not what human beings reveal to us in this Old Testament story. They’re not people that want to be cared for and nurtured that way. They want to be someone who has autonomy and strength and be able to do something and make something happen.
And that is placed in us by God. We want to achieve something. And it’s a reflection of who God is. When God created us, he created us in such a way that he wanted an engagement in our lives where his passion for us, his love for us was going to be manifested over centuries. And it would transform us once we understood who he really is. And he couldn’t reveal that in the beginning.
That’s the story of the Old Testament. Those years from the time that we recorded the story of Adam and Eve to the time that let’s say that the story records God finally calling a people together and asking them to be his people. The call of Abraham. There’s not much that we know about that time, but there are a couple things. One in particular that really stands out. When God looked at the creation that he made, he looked at these human beings that he created out of love.
And he has this passion for them clearly throughout the Old and New Testament. But at this point, God looks at them and says, I am so disappointed in them. They are filled with evil and darkness in their heart and I am going to kill all of them. What a strange thing for God to say at the beginning of his working with human beings. And it is only to underscore the work that he is engaged in with human beings, drawing them out of darkness, out of sin, out of self destructive behavior. We needed to grow and to evolve.
And that’s what the whole Old Testament is about. It’s a beautiful story of God slowly revealing who he is and inviting people to understand who they are and what they’re really made for. And that’s what Jesus talks about when he’s talking to his disciples. He’s saying, you know what, this story of the Old Testament that you studied and wondered about and all that, that’s the story of the evolution of God’s relationship with human beings. Human beings evolving and becoming more what God called them to be, and God revealing more of who he is. And now it’s finally come to the final chapter.
And that’s me, that’s Jesus. He’s saying, I’m asking you to take up this work and don’t think that you’ve done the work all yourself. It’s been. Been going on for centuries. And so you’re here for the harvest. And the harvest is people seeing God as he is and seeing themselves for the first time fully as they are.
And that’s the beautiful story about the woman at the well. It starts off with the theme of thirst. Thirst when God created human beings, when God looked at them and said at one point, as I told you, that he wanted to destroy them all, something told him, no, wait, look, look more deeply. And it’s a wonderful story of God saying, you know, inside of human beings buried, not really fully developed, there’s a spark of life, a longing for goodness in the midst of their evil. And he sees that, and he calls it Noah. And he brings that out and says, I’ll start again.
I’ll build on that goodness that is there. I know because I placed it there. And so there we have it, the beginning of this evolutionary story of human beings growing in understanding who they are and God revealing himself more and more as to who he is. There was one more time in the Old Testament when God looked at his people and said, the Israelites. And they turned back to their old ways. Moses had gone to get the Ten Commandments, bring this wisdom to human beings.
And there’s God again, acting like a. A human again, saying, I’m going to kill them, you know, And Moses said, no, don’t, don’t, don’t do that. No, that’ll look bad for you, God. Why is that story in there other than to say it’s not about God changing, It’s about God revealing himself as a God who has to show slowly to people who they are because they needed a demanding, just God for so long before they could be invited into the merciful God who is both just and merciful. And mercy is the most essential message of Jesus. Mercy.
And what is it? I find people confused by it. Mercy is, you’re not held accountable. You can do anything you want. Everything’s forgiven. No, that’s not quite it.
Now Mercy is a disposition on the part of God that will not hold any single thing against you and that no sin that you ever commit, no matter how horrific or horrible, will separate you from the love that God has for you. Not for your action, not for what you did. But his intensity is to save, to save. To save, not to condemn, not to judge. And justice demands naming a sin, condemning it, and then punishing. And that’s all that human beings could handle in the first stage, let’s say, of their relationship with him.
But they slowly, slowly evolved, and they came to the point where this story then establishes the new relationship he has with his people. And it’s beautiful. First of all, the Old Testament would say that if you’re a sinner, God rejects you and has nothing to do with you, while the woman in the story is rejected. And Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans, much less women. Samaritans were Jews that had defected. They had gone to.
They had watered down or changed their teaching. And they were considered to be heretics by the temple. And they were the outcasts. And they were. They were considered dirty and unclean. And no rabbi or no teacher would ever get near anyone.
Unclean. They were rejected. That notion of rejection of a sinner is truly part of the Old Testament. And it’s radically changed in the New Testament, yet we still hold on to it. And what is Jesus saying about it? He’s saying, inside of every human being, there’s a longing for life, a longing for love, a longing for connection.
It’s life. And he uses an image that makes so much sense, even medically. We’re, I don’t know, 80% or 80% water. And so if he could create this stuff we’re made of into something that pours life into us, then he would give us the greatest of all gifts. And what is it that we need so desperately in order to live as a human being in this world? We need a God inside of us, a spirit in God.
We need to worship. That means honor who God is with this awareness of. He is in me. His wisdom is in me. It comes in me. That beautiful end of the story where the people that listened to this story, it was like it touched something inside of them.
And they said to the woman, we no longer are doing this because you told us. We know this man who is filled with mercy and forgiveness is the one. That’s what we’ve needed, longed for more than anything else, because that water is best symbolized by Jesus. Then looking at the woman and saying, you know what? You’re not really married, are you? She said, no.
No judgment, no condemnation. That’s the beautiful thing. It’s gotten hidden in the story. She’s an outcast, she should be rejected. She’s a sinner. She hasn’t done what she should according to the law.
And what is Jesus response? I want to give you life. I want to give you life. I want to give life. And she says, oh my God, if this is who this man is and if he is the one that is promised, because the one that’s promised is the one who’s going to save the world and bring life to the world and make all things whole and good. That’s the important gift of mercy.
It heals the brokenness and the separation of sin. And God will not let that happen. He’s intensely in love and wants nothing more than for you and for me to have life. And that’s mercy. A Closing Prayer Father, the Gospel invites us to worship you in spirit and in truth. The Spirit is your presence in us.
We accept it. We believe in it. The truth is that we see ourselves and name our sins. We see ourselves as we are. And when we see ourselves as we are, we know you for who you are. Our sins are not anything that keeps us from you, but rather draws us closer to the beauty of who you really are.
A lover, a forgiver, a reconciler. Someone who wants nothing more than to be in touch with us and bringing us life. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. I’d like to remind you that the program you just listened to is available on our website pastorreflectionsinstitute.com as well as on our podcast. Go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to Finding God in Ourselves. It’s free to listen to anywhere, anytime, and the music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show.
This ministry also needs your support, so make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website. Thank you so much for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Father Don Fisher, Catholic Priest of the Diocese of Dallas, is a production of the Pastoral reflections institute. Copyright 2022.