
Mass readings for the 1st Scrutiny:
Exodus 17.3-7 Psalm 95.1-2,6-9 Romans 5.1-2, 5-8 John 4.5-42
For many of us, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well is familiar… we know all the “beats” and as we hear it again, anticipate the lines, and like a good story we’ve heard before, we enjoy the back and forth between Jesus and the woman; and especially, the big pay-off when she begins to understand what Jesus is talking about, and that he is no ordinary man; when she becomes an evangelist, when her life changes in a fundamental way.
But in recent years, I’ve come to this story having to acknowledge that for our culture today, for many people in our society from late adolescence to early middle age, the woman’s predicament is a curious one. What’s the problem? So what, she’s had some long-term relationships that haven’t worked out? Who hasn’t? Who marries the first person one has a serious relationship with, and then stays with them?
The wisdom of our culture, the foolishness of our culture, has now encouraged several generations to “play the field,” “have some fun” and only as one’s energy and frankly, one’s interest in that lifestyle begins to fade, then “settle down” with someone.
With reference to the Samaritan woman’s five failed marriages, I think we can translate these to today’s long-term relationships, the kind that are so very common; with marriage itself looked upon as a formalizing of a successful long-term relationship – celebrated with a ceremony and a party. And I’m not looking to dismiss these marriages out of hand, but they often are a culmination of a years-long relationship and not the start of one, a mutual locking in because things have been pretty good so far. And that good track record, rather than faith, has prompted the civil commitment with a veneer of spirituality, perhaps in some circumstances, the more substantial trappings of religion as the promises are at last made.
Now I acknowledge the risk here of being anachronistic in pursuit of relevance. The Samaritan woman’s experience is of her time, and those were pre-modern times; and she was living outside its norms.
Today, the chaste woman would be more likely to find herself at the well alone – not because anyone necessarily had shamed her for being so out of step with contemporary morality which is indifferent if suspicious of those who opt out of the current sexual marketplace, but because of her own discomfort in being in the company of those who have morally degenerated. And I know many young Catholics, those in their early twenties through to their thirties who have this experience of not wanting to keep company anymore with those who have fallen into attitudes of moral permissiveness. These Catholics see these friends inculcate in their own children in this corruption, and affirm it in their social circle, and no longer want any part of it. This degeneration is further reinforced by our culture in its entertainment that makes human intimate relationships the stuff of farce; at universities, there’s a campus culture that pushes young people into dangerous experimentation; and now we see our federal government further entrenching this mindset in its proposed pharmacare program that will provide contraception to all takers and call it a public good.
And with respect to those who argue that such a step, in addition to readily accessible abortion, is an appropriate response to poverty, I would invite you to really think about the moral economy we are creating. We will be encouraging even further the least of our society to engage in sex as distracting activity, and making the lives of the children conceived despite contraception, dispensable, disposable. And this is abhorrent to the gospel that regards human life as precious, and seeks to raise every person to the dignity of being sons and daughters of God.
The point of relevance for us lies in this woman’s experience. Now, she finds herself at the well in the heat of the day instead of coming with the women of the village in the cool of the morning to get the water. Now that could be because she has been shunned by the other women; or it is her own sense of shame. In either case, this uncomfortable situation is a consequence of her life decisions. She certainly didn’t plan for her life to be like this, but as with us all, we live today as the result of the accumulated consequence of countless decisions, with some we see in hindsight being of greater importance than others. Today’s social predicament is just the same. Successive governments have passed laws that have deepened the corruption, successive classes of educators have taught this as progress, and successive generations of clergy disregarded the growing evidence of its failure, and practically blessed it.
There are any number of articles, videos, books in the popular media and the academy documenting how less and less happy we all are, how we long for meaningful relationship, how we are so disappointed in each other – how today men are “going their own way” and women bemoaning the fact that are no good men left.
Aren’t we all tired of it? Are we not hungry for something better, thirsty for something truly satisfying?
For those preparing for baptism, being examined shortly in today’s scrutiny, the hope is that they understand what Jesus is talking about; what this living water is, what we hope to have well up within them, a spring of life that will sustain them, and so, make the sugary beverages the world has to offer unpalatable, and so undesired.
And the crux of the matter today isn’t sex, but it is relationship and how it fits into a Christ-like view of the world. See the world as a playground, a place of potential personal sensual experience which can only be enjoyed in a brief lifetime; understand relationships as part of that and you will risk failure and invite disappointment into your life. Understand the world as a place of spiritual growth, and life as a growing outward from the self, to becoming something, someone beyond oneself, then relationships are filled with possibilities for the self-giving, the unselfish and transformative, creative and life-sustaining love we see in God and at work in Christ.
This faith is not about prohibitions, about shame, but the good choices we have in Christ, and in the real freedom they give. It’s about water in the desert, and knowing the mirage from oasis, finding the well and never thirsting again.
Amen.