The readings for this Sunday begin with the familiar story of God providing water to the Chosen People after they complain. Thus the place where this happens is named Massah and Meribah, literally meaning “to test” and “to quarrel or provoke,” respectively.
What is important to note is the complaining comes after a series of awesome and wonderful deeds that the Lord has done for the people.
It reminds us of one of the realities of human nature that is a propensity in all of us. As we often say, give someone a hand and they will take your arm. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.
This brings us to the core of the nature of sin, forgetfulness that leads to ingratitude, which in turn leads to greater negativity, such as the violence shown in this Old Testament story where the people are about to stone Moses.
Perspective
Thus, I offer for our reflection not so much that we ask for more, but the perspective from which we ask. In the story of the Chosen People, they ask—actually demand—things out of a sense of entitlement that comes from a lack of gratitude and forgetting what the Lord had done for them.
Contrast this with the prayer “Take and Receive” that comes from a consideration of how God is present in creation, how he gives himself to us, how he actively works in all things, reaching a crescendo of finding God in all things.
The prayer leads to an expression of gratitude that not just commits, but radically acknowledges our union with God by giving back to him everything he has given us, and asking him to make us instruments in his hands. Then the final lines of the prayer express the core of our relationship with God: “Give me only your love and your grace, these make me rich and I ask for nothing more.”
The Samaritan woman
The second point for reflection is the encounter between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. The conversation begins with the request for water to drink.
The conversation leads to the woman believing in Christ as the Messiah. This faith, in turn, makes the woman a witness to others that Christ is the Messiah. This brings more people to believe in Christ.
It is interesting to note that the conversation between Christ and the woman leads to faith through remembering stories—first, the story of the Chosen People, and then the personal story of the woman.
Here you have the clear comparison and contrast between the Chosen People in Massah and Meribah and the Samaritan woman in Jacob’s well. Both are stories of thirst, a need for water to drink, but the former forgets because of a sense of entitlement and the latter, considered an “outsider,” being a Samaritan, is made to remember through conversation.
The Chosen People are on the verge of becoming a mob ready to stone Moses—a precursor to the mob that jeer Pontius Pilate, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
Remember that part of this jeering mob are the cheering “fans” when Christ enters Jerusalem. (How quick people forget.)
These “mobs” get what they want and demand, but the woman gets so much more. She gains eternal life and brings others to Christ, the wellspring of living waters.
Our place in the spectrum
Let me invite you to reflect on this third point: our own place in the spectrum of the Chosen People in the first reading, and the Samaritan woman. The Chosen People are led to complacency as a result of their forgetting God’s loving providential presence in their life and journey.
The Samaritan woman is in a state of openness that comes from an inner thirst for life and meaning. Being an outsider, she does not have a sense of entitlement, and seems to seek a genuine sense of belongingness, a genuine search for the Messiah. When she encounters Christ, this inner longing resonates in his presence and with his person. This leads her to bear witness to Christ as the Messiah and bring others to Christ.
When one is searching, like the Samaritan woman, one has a strong sense of remembering. Memory gives us a sense of who we are, and it is in this sense of identity that we seek a deeper purpose and meaning, where we will discover our call and our mission.
It is in memory, in remembering that we encounter Christ in our personal journey and story. This journey and story is guided by the story of the Gospels, the early Christian community’s personal encounter with Christ.
‘Bigger story’
The “bigger story” enlightens the story of the Samaritan woman that leads her to an encounter with and faith in Christ. This is reminiscent of the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who, in a down moment in their journey, experience the presence of the Risen Lord.
In this experience of companionship on the journey, they begin with forgetting the “bigger story,” given the setback of the death of Christ on the Cross. The divine prophecies speak of this as part of the “bigger story,” but the human condition and human pain make them lose perspective and forget this part of the story—or forget the faith they had once placed in the promise of the story that made them follow Christ.
Then the Risen Lord makes them remember the story and as they do, they experience their “hearts burning within” and recognize Christ once more “at the breaking of bread.” This reinspires them and sends them off with a renewed sense of mission to proclaim and witness that Christ is indeed Risen.
This is the pattern of our own story. It is a journey. It is ongoing, and goes through the “boom and bust” cycle of remembering and forgetting, of fidelity and sinfulness. The journey must lead us to Christ, to allow him to enter the journey and for us to recognize his person and presence—the story of his loving providential presence in our journey and story.
From this remembering, our hearts will burn once more, like the Samaritan woman and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Like them, with hearts burning within, we will come to know Christ more each time, and this sends us off once more into a life of mission to proclaim God’s love that comes to us in Christ. —CONTRIBUTED
