Grab Your Bucket and Go

Readings for Sunday March 27, 2011

Third Sunday of Lent


Ever think you can hide something from God? Guess again. This Sunday’s Gospel takes us to an important story from the Gospel of St. John, the meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. This account shows us Jesus’ ability to peer into the heart of each and every person. Jesus and His disciples had been traveling, and they stopped in a Samaritan town to rest. This passage can only be properly understood within the context of the bitter hatred between the Jews of Jesus’ day and the Samaritans. The Jews considered the Samaritans to be half-bred Jews, those who had betrayed a pure Judaism and intermarried with the Gentiles. For Jesus to even talk with a Samaritan, especially a Samaritan woman, was a major breaking of a cultural barrier. Jesus begins to have a dialogue with this woman, but it is evident that Jesus is using the conversation as a means of going deeper with the woman to challenge her to conversion. A few things stand out in this passage. First, Jesus is concerned with her eternal life, not just the quality of life she has here on earth. Second, Jesus connects her eternal life with her current moral state. She has been in adulterous relationships, and Jesus confronts her on them. Third, Jesus connects eternal life with her beliefs and worship. What we believe and how we worship God will affect whether we make it to heaven or not. Christ calls us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. There is a clear reason why we worship God and how we worship Him. (This, of course, is connected to the Mass, in which God is worshipped in Spirit and Truth.) Finally, we see that the bottom line to eternal life is not a series of doctrines, but ultimately a relationship with a person, Jesus. When you and I encounter Jesus, we are given the invitation to totally give our lives over to Him. Because He is God, when we meet Jesus, we are challenged to give every part of our life to Him. We are called to completely turn away from sin so Christ’s goodness can live in us. This Lent, Christ invites us to hold nothing back from Him, giving over to Him every sin and every attraction to sin. God hates sin, and wants to completely obliterate it from us. God only acts when we ask Him to act. He has given us the freedom to hide things from Him, but He never stops inviting us to deeper conversion. Do not be afraid to completely abandon yourself to Christ! What the Samaritan woman – and her entire town – came to realize is that salvation comes from Jesus Himself. May we have the grace, this Lent, to deepen our love for Jesus, not being afraid of Him, but turning to Him as our Friend, Lord, and Savior.
Summary of the Gospel from YM Central

Reading 1 Exodus 17:3-7

3- 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?” 4- So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me!” 5- The LORD answered Moses, “Go over there in front of the people, along with some of the elders of Israel, holding in your hand, as you go, the staff with which you struck the river. 6- I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.” This Moses did, in the presence of the elders of Israel. 7- The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?”

Discussion Questions:

How would you describe Moses’ response to the complaints of the people?

Does it seem that God was more available to people in the Old Testament times than today? Why or why not?

When do you tend to ask God for help?

What did Moses and Aaron do here at Massah and Meribah that kept them from entering the promised land ?
(See Numbers 20:1-12 if you are curious about the answer)

Psalm 95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.


Reading II Romans 5:1-2, 5-8

1- Brothers and sisters: Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2- through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. 5- And 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. 6- For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. 7- Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. 8- But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Discussion Questions:

How does Paul describe humankind’s condition before Christ?

How should a Christian look upon suffering and stress?

Gospel John 4:5-42 or 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

5 Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her,“Give me a drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”-- For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. -- 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; 14 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.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 17 The woman answered and said to him,“I do not have a husband.”Jesus answered her,‘You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ 18 For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, 19 “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.”Jesus said to her, 26 “I am he, the one speaking with you.” 27 At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but still no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, 29 “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and came to him. 31 Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” 39 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.”40 When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more began to believe in him because of his word, 42 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.”

Discussion Questions:

How would you describe the woman’s response for most of her conversation with Jesus? Puzzled, Searching, Avoidance, Skeptical.

What was the woman thirsting for? What are you really thirsting for?

What emotions ran through the Samaritan woman as she interacted with Jesus? Why do you think she felt like that?

Describe how sin keeps us from a relationship with Christ. How does Christ help us get beyond the affects of sin?

In this passage, Jesus connects eternal life with living a good moral life, worshipping God, and being in a relationship with Him. How would you respond to the person who thinks that going to heaven is just a matter of being a ‘nice
person’?

Enjoy the Readings-please pass them on… and as Father Oji constantly reminds us “remember to say your Rosary every day” IHN tommy