Reflection on the Readings at Mass for the Third Sunday of Lent – Year A. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray.
The Teachings of the Liturgy Versus the Quarrelsome Spirit
In our reflection on the readings from the Second Sunday of Lent we considered the challenges that our human inclination to seek comfort presents; especially in the light of the Divine Symphony leading and guiding us into being comfortably uncomfortable in the world; that is, of being in the world, but not of the world; being a holy people in a world that is inclined to celebrate sinful people, while it persecutes holy people. In today’s readings for the Third Sunday of Lent – Year A, we will consider another challenging human inclination.
From Exodus 17:3-7, “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 and 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 more distant we feel from the person who we want to love us, the more we act out – the more demonstrations we make; trying to get their attention. We show our frustration, we show our anger and displeasure at having believed the story we told ourselves; that the person we love is not prioritizing us as we want them to. If this idea has reminded you of some relationship that you were/are in with a loved one, you have not missed the point. The falser stories that people in the relationships tell themselves about the other person, the more the relationship becomes strained, because that is the nature of lies; they divide us. Here is the lie the Israelites told themselves; Moses it was you who made us leave Egypt. Yet, did not Moses tell Pharoah that God said let His people go? Did not God part the Red Sea? Does not Exodus 2:23 read, “A long time passed, during which the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their bondage and cried out, and from their bondage their cry for help went up to God.”? Yet, the false narrative today is that Moses forced them out of Egypt and now wants them to die of thirst in the desert.
Whenever God is not providing for as we think He should be, the human inclination is to begin to distrust God, and whenever that happens, we either divorce God by taking matters into our own hands, because we can do everything better and faster than God, or we begin to complain, quarrel, become a victim, and launch grievances against God. In both scenarios, we needlessly create distance between God and ourselves, because we lack trust and patience with God. In the instant case, God was merciful enough with the Israelites to provide them with water out of a rock.
In relation to the Israelites quarreling with God over their thirst in the desert, for the Gospel Reading, the compliers of the lectionary choose to contrast that narrative with John 4:5-52, where a Samarian woman quarrels with Jesus at a well in a town of Samaria called Sychar, which was a place that the Jews had spiritually deserted. From the outset of the story, we know something is off here. “There is a woman of Samaria who came to draw water,” the text reads, and Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink,” which not only she never does, but when the disciples came back from town with food to eat, Jesus tells them that He doesn’t need to eat, saying, “I have food to eat of which you do not know . . . My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” Okay, got it, Jesus doesn’t need food or water. Yet, He just asked this woman of Samaria for water; so, what is really going on here? Well, we find out the answer to that question rather immediately. This Samaritan woman is very quarrelsome, and obviously, Jesus knew that. She is also very observant. She clearly identifies Jesus as not only being not from Sychar, but as a Jew, and rather than just give the man sitting at the well some water to quench His apparent thirst, she decides to launch into the historical grievance between Jews and Samaritans, saying, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans,” and later she continues with the historical grievance, saying, “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.”
So, we begin to understand why it was this woman at the well that Jesus interrupted. The Samaritan woman is quarrelsome with Jesus, because she is broken – she feels distant from God for several reasons. Not only is she conflicted over her traditional worship practice of acknowledging only the Pentateuch as God’s word and worshiping at Mount Gerizim, rather than at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, but she is also in an adulterous relationship, and at every turn Jesus corrects the false stories that have defined this woman’s life. The water that you have approached this cistern for at noon is not here, rather I am the source of living water, and “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.” Yes, it is a lie that you can worship God on Mount Gerizim; “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.” Notice how it was Jesus’ deconstruction of the stories that had defined this Samaritan’s woman’s life that led to conversion. The text says, “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 have 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; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”
There is no greater pitfall or human folly than having hope in a lie; hoping in some false narrative or some imaginative story we have repeatedly told ourselves. Lies do hurt, especially the lies we tell ourselves. Yet, when the Second Reading from Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 teach us that, “. . . 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,” we are being reminded that truth itself has made His home in us. Therefore, what is the benefit of living in the false reality of a lie, when truth itself is conforming our nature to the truth. When believe as Catholics that God became man, so that man can become like God, that also means that believe in the idiom of that saying, that Truth became man, so that man can live in the truth. The Second Reading also points to the liturgy of the Mass itself, saying, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” The memorial sacrifice on the altar as Mass; Christ being crucified for us, so that we might have life is the central truth of the entire universe. This truth is recapitulated from the rising of the sun, until its setting at every Holy Mass where a true sacrifice is offered to God. If you want to know the truth, go to Mass, and then go live that truth in your own life. For, we are not only commanded to live in that truth of God’s love for us, but we are equipped and empowered to live that truth because we have God the Holy Spirit in us – pressing us – awakening us – sanctifying us – propelling us to be a holy people.
Living in this truth means that we have nothing to quarrel with God about, because it would like quarrel with ourselves, but the dark world, who rejects the light of Christ has a great deal to quarrel with us about, and that is precisely why the liturgy of the Mass fills us with His peace and grace before we are sent back out into it, so that we might give away to the world, what the God who loves the world has given us to share with it.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
