Homily – Third Sunday in Lent - February 27, 2005

 

 

There was a young lad one time on his way to school and he looked in a sculptor’s yard and he saw this huge big hunk of marble there.  The sculptor was about to start working.  The young lad couldn’t wait because he had to keep going.  And each day as he passed by, he heard the work going on.  The doors were closed. But months later he was passing by and the front door of the sculptor’s yard was opened and he looked in.  There in the yard, where the hung of marble had been, was a tiger, perfect, life-like, muscles, claws, paws, tail, and head – powerful!  And he pulled the sculptor by the sleeve and said, “How did you know there was a tiger in there?”

 

We listen to the story of the woman at the well for this Third Sunday in Lent.  And of course there are many dimensions to the story.

 

We see Jesus talking to a woman – a Samaritan – both things unheard of in his time and place. We see the woman engaged in conversation with him – being bold enough to state her case. We see the disciples – who have spent a good deal of time with Jesus still being confused and still wondering what is going on. And finally we see that Jesus goes and spends some time with the Samaritans in their town – again a surprise and a sign of a new way and break with the past.

 

And all of this is a story of transformation. The woman changes, the people of the town change, the disciples change – indeed the whole place changes.

 

The writer Ellen Bass observed that there’s a part of every living thing that wants to become itself – the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.  That is spirituality.

 

The quest for wholeness is a global phenomenon.  Sam Keen, a freelance philosopher, looks at how this impulse toward renewal is reflected in the world’s religions: The great metaphors from all spiritual traditions – grace, liberation, being born again, awakening from illusion – testify that it is possible to transcend the conditioning of my past and do a new thing.

 

And we see that happening in the encounter in the scripture today.  But what is amazing is the wonders willingness to let it happen.  She leaves herself open – she allows Jesus in – she lets down the barriers and thus becomes new.

 

This is our Lenten quest. We would become transformed as the Woman at the Well was. We would allow Jesus in to transform us. But what happens?  What are the obstacles?

 

Perhaps we become convinced sometimes that we can’t change – We’re so stuck in our ways that difference seems impossible. We wouldn’t recognize life if we looked at it though new eyes – and so we keep Jesus on the periphery. We don’t let his words and way inside.

 

Or perhaps we don’t even listen. We’ve see things one way for so long that we can’t recognize the difference. We’re not focused enough on who we can be – and so we stay as we are.

 

Or maybe we just don’t want to change. We’re comfortable where we are.

 

But we see the Jesus who asks to be refreshed by the well inviting us. And his invitation is without judgment – he let nothing about the woman be an obstacle and he let’s nothing about us be a hindrance to new life with Him.

 

As we continue on this Lenten Journey let us be refreshed by Him – washed by him – nourished by Him. Let us allow him into the parts of our lives that we keep guarded – and let him heal them.