Back when I was in high school at Northland High School in Columbus (Home of the Vikings!), I participated in some sports, and was an avid fan of the different sporting events. We had our natural rivals, which was Brookhaven, just down Karl Road from us. The intensity of rivalry grew when I went to college at Bowling Green State University (Go Fighting Falcons!) when our main rivalry was Miami of Ohio. We just didn’t like them. Of course, if you’re an Ohio State fan, you really don’t like that team up north. For Cleveland Browns fans, it’s Pittsburgh, and if you like the Cleveland Indians (oops, the Guardians), then you really don’t like the New Yok Yankees. Now most of this is good natured rivalry, although some people take it pretty seriously. But there are some groups that really take disliking other groups to a very unhealthy level. A recent poll found that a very high percentage of people, especially young adults, would never date or socialize with a person from another political party. And over the course of history, many, many wars have been fought over faith and religion.
We hear in today’s Gospel passage that Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. From this you can probably conclude that Jews and Samaritans don’t like each other too well. Well, that’s an understatement. Not only do they not like each other, they despised each other; their feelings for each other bordered on hatred. So that begs the question: Why was Jesus there with his disciples?
If we go back to the beginning of this passage, it says in John’s Gospel that we didn’t read in this Mass today that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria.” Samaria was in between Judea and Galilee, Judea to the south and Galilee in the north. And Jesus was travelling from Judea to Galilee. But he didn’t “have” to pass through Samaria. He could have crossed the Jordan River and gone around the east side outside of Samaria and enter Galilee from the north just like any other Jew would have done in order to avoid going through Samaria so they wouldn’t be defiled on their way. It’s kind of like crossing the road when you see someone coming the other way that you don’t want to talk with. Only in this case you’re avoiding an entire country region to avoid an entire group of people.
This hatred between these peoples goes all the way back to the year 722 B.C. when Assyria, who was the world power at that time, invaded the northern kingdom of Israel and deported many of the Israelite people there. The Assyrians then brought in peoples from five foreign nations to inhabit the land, who intermarried with some of the Israelite people that were left behind. With them they each brought their own “god” to worship. But the people there still worshipped the Lord, on a mountain apart from Jerusalem, and alongside the five gods from the foreign countries. So the Samaritans that ended up there were seen as “half-breed heretics” by the Jews who worshiped the one true God.
The Samaritans had five gods that they worshipped, but the worship they gave to the Lord was a false worship because it wasn’t exclusive to God alone. This practice continued for centuries up to the time of Jesus. So this woman at the well in Samaria, who had five husbands, and the man she currently has now is not her husband, is a living representative, an icon if you will, of the people of Samaria. The woman desires to enter into a nuptial relationship, but it’s not authentic – she’s trying to do it on her own terms. Likewise, the Samaritans are trying to enter into a relationship with God, but it isn’t proper or authentic because they want to do it on their own terms, not the way God demands it.
This is where the conversation between Jesus and the woman shifts to speaking about authentic worship. The word “worship” is used 9 times in this section of the passage. The Samaritans can’t have a true relationship with God because they are letting too many things get into the way: namely their five other gods, or “husbands.” They are trying to make up their own way of worship, to do things their own way, rather than God’s way. And Jesus tells the woman in no uncertain terms that it is only through him that salvation comes.
This is where I think in our own society, and even in the Catholic Church, we can become like the Samaritans. We think we can do things our own way, worship how we want, make the rules and regulations we want, and then think God will be okay with that. This is how we get over 30,000 different Protestant denominations in the world today: because someone is dissatisfied or upset with what they see or hear, and then start their own church. It happens every day. As Catholics, we have a very specific and ritualistic way of worship. It’s our Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Mass. Aside from a few cultural customs, there is no deviation from how we celebrate the Mass. And a beautiful aspect of this form of worship is that we can go to any Catholic Mass in the world and know what is taking place. I heard this just the other day on a Podcast called “Catholic Answers Focus.”
The idea that the early church was non-liturgical, non-ritualistic, is totally ahistorical. And if you want a single way to show that, consider the fact that the Eucharist was instituted at the Last Supper, which was the Passover, which has a whole liturgy connected to it. Many of the same evangelical Christians who loathe the idea of Christian liturgy will celebrate a seder meal during the season of Lent, which is in fact a liturgical, ritualistic celebration! And what the Mass is, is a Christianized version of that. And who instituted it? It’s odd to think that there are Christians who think that God spent 1500 years preparing the Jewish people to receive the Messiah, and what he formed was a completely liturgical, ritualistic people, and then the Messiah would come and completely do away with all of that? It just doesn’t make sense.
In this particular Gospel passage, I think that Jesus is pointing to the sacraments as the way for salvation and authentic worship. He comes to the well tired and thirsty, and asks the woman for a drink. Then he tells her that he is able to give her living water. After their conversation she leaves without her water jar to go tell the townspeople about her encounter with Jesus. Later in the Gospel when Jesus is on the cross he says, “I thirst.” Then after he dies the soldier pierces his side and blood and water flow out: the living water of Baptism and the blood of the Lamb, the Eucharist.
Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Not in order to get to Galilee, but to bring himself to them—to give himself to them. And they came to believe because of their encounter with him that began with the testimony of the woman who encountered him first.
Jesus also has to come to us, to give himself to us—completely—in and through the sacraments. When we participate in the sacraments, we encounter him in a special, unique way, just as the woman at the well did. So frequent the sacraments. Ask for his mercy and forgiveness and encounter Jesus in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Let him heal you and bring you closer to him. Encounter Christ in the Eucharist. Remember what Jesus says later in the Gospel of John: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”