Exodus 17:3-7; Romans 5:1-2,5-8; John 4:5-42
What will Satiate Your Thirst?
1. The book of Exodus today relates how the children of Israel were disgruntled over their lack of water and how Yahweh heard their groaning and provided them with fresh water. Their ingratitude was met with God’s generosity in keeping to his promise. He chose them to be his own and will always stand by them. As a reminder of their nagging and forgetfulness of God’s mercy and generosity, Yahweh called that place Massah, meaning testing place, and Meribah, meaning a place of quarrel.
2. In the Gospel reading, we see Jesus with a woman at the well in the afternoon. Jesus was tired and hungry from his journey. He sat at the well to rest while waiting for his disciples who had gone shopping in the city. And there came the Samaritan woman. For obvious reasons, she went to the well in the afternoon to fetch water. Women usually go to the well in the morning and evening. She went in the afternoon, perhaps, to avoid meeting with other women; it could be because of her lifestyle. She may have been an object of gossip and ridicule in the city, so she tried to avoid other women as much as possible.
3. The Samaritan woman may have gone through a lot and was thirsty – not for water, but acceptance, love, meaning, and happiness. She was lonely and tried to obey her thirst for anything. The men in her life did not satiate her thirst, she had had five already, and the 6th one was not her real husband. She tried to hide that fact from Jesus: “I do not have a husband.” She was a lost soul, but a very interesting one at that. She was suspicious of Jesus and his request for water, but she was prepared to engage Him. She brought up issues of concern to her, even the racial and spiritual ones: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” She challenged Jesus’ assumptions: “Sir, you do not even have a bucket, and the cistern is deep; where can you get this living water?” She confronted Jesus’ claim and questioned his authority: “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flock?” She called Jesus’s bluff: “Sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” She stood up to Jesus on religious matters and put him on the defensive: “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you people say the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” At last, she capitulated after learning from Jesus; she demonstrated that, though her moral life may not mean much, her religious knowledge was flawless: she was not hopeless: “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” When she heard that Jesus was the expected Messiah, she forgot what brought her to the well in the first place; she has now received the water of life: “the woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” She is energized by the words of the Psalmist: “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My being thirsts for God, the living God.” (Ps. 42:2-3). She had a steady and progressive understanding of Jesus, from ‘Sir’ to ‘Prophet’ and finally to ‘Messiah.’ she is now a disciple and ready to spread the good news of salvation. She is no more ashamed of being seen in public but is prepared to face her future, knowing that the Messiah is on her side. The encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well mirrors a process of coming to faith, underscored by the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). The Samaritan woman was predisposed to receive the message of salvation; Jesus created enabling environment to bring that about.
4. Like the woman at the well, we are to be thirsty for living water. We must come close to Jesus, listen to his words, receive him in the Eucharist, and allow him to refresh us with the water of life in the sacrament of reconciliation. Though Moses struck the rock and water flowed for the children of Israel to drink, they were thirsty again. They failed to see the God who journeyed with them every step of the way. They would soon find fault and grumble against God again and again. May we not be quick to satisfy our thirst with whatever we can lay our hands on. It is not everything that can satisfy us and satiate our thirst. As the Samaritan woman discovered, Jesus will always fill us with abundance so that we will never be thirsty again. Our thirst can only be satisfied by God. St. Augustine says, “Our hearts are made for God, and they will not rest until they rest in God.” Our human hearts have spiritual thirst, and we must satisfy them with spiritual food. The Samaritan woman was thirsty for love, understanding, peace, joy, and community; she found the fulfillment of her desires in Jesus. We, too, are thirsty for joy and happiness. Our greatest joy can only come from the freedom that Jesus gives us – from fear, worry, and anxiety.
5. Let us listen again to the words of Jesus to the woman at the well: “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.” Let us ask Jesus to give us this water always so that his grace and love may fill and sustain us. Amen.
Rev. Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP
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