The Seventh Man is the Fountain of Life

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

March 15, 2020

In today’s gospel taken from John 4:4-42, Jesus asks a Samaritan woman: “Give me a drink.” Realizing that the Beggar for water is a Jew, the woman replies, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman for a drink.” Jesus fires back, “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.” With that response, the woman looks at Jesus and says, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep, where then can you this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Then Jesus says something thrilling but true, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.” Delighted by Jesus’ promise of a living water, the woman becomes the beggar, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 

Why did the woman express amazement over Jesus’ request for water? For centuries, there was a deep seated rift and animosity between the Jews and Samaritans. Originally, they were brothers and sisters. They constituted the twelve tribes of Israel. They suffered together in Egypt as slaves. Before the division of Israel into two kingdoms of South and North, they existed as one nation. It was shortly after Moses brought them to the Promised Land that trouble started to brew among them. As soon as Solomon died and was replaced by Rehoboam, Israel was divided into two. The Northern kingdom was inhabited by the Samaritans, while the Southern kingdom was inhabited by the Judeans. But in reality, they were all Jews. Their enmity continued until Jesus enters the stage. It is this centuries old hostility between Judah and Samaria that bewildered the Samaritan woman when Jesus rises above the social and religious restrictions that forbade him a man from talking to a woman alone and also a Jew talking to a Samaritan.  

Jesus came to the world to set humanity free. He came to reconcile us with God. He came to reconcile us with each other by breaking down walls that divide us. He is not in the business of continuing, promoting and prolonging an age-old rift that hasn’t served the Samaritans and the Jews well. So, when the Samaritan woman came to Jacob’s Well, he saw beyond her gender and ethnicity. He saw a daughter of God to save. Her life was dry. She has had five failed marriages. Her self esteem had reached an all-time low. She was alienated from society and any thought of her thirst being quenched was hopeless. Her life was so bad she had to go to the Well when no one else was around in order to escape the ridicule of others. She was thirsty. A thirst could be physical or spiritual. Often it is both as in the case of the Samaritan woman. Physically, she was thirsty, thirsting for water, and that brought her to the well day after day. But spiritually she was also thirsty, an inner thirst which drove her from one man to another and for which she hasn’t found any satisfaction. By the time she met Jesus she was in her sixth marriage, and yet she said to Jesus “I have no husband,” indicating that she was probably already looking for the seventh.

In biblical interpretations, numbers are often significant. According to biblical symbolism of numbers, six is a number of imperfections, of lack, of deficiency. The woman in her sixth marriage was therefore, in a situation of lack and deficiency. On the other hand, the number seven symbolically is a number of perfection, completion, finality and sufficiency. Jesus comes to this woman as the Seventh Man in her life. She encounters the Seventh Man and finally experiences the satisfaction her soul thirsts for. Jesus made the woman feel good about herself. She feels unworthy, but Jesus restores her sense of worth by asking her to help him. She thirsts no more as she became whole again. The Seventh Man, Jesus opens up a new era for her.

Beloved in Christ, I want us to understand that by engaging the Samaritan woman in a discussion, Jesus broke two Jewish laws. The first law he broke forbids a Jewish man from talking to a woman alone. He must be in the company of others when talking to a woman. The second law he broke forbids a Jew from talking to a Samaritan. I have already explained the hostility between the two nations. It is the reason why his disciples were amazed when they came back and saw him talking to a Samaritan woman.  Now, Jesus did not break laws simply because he was a renegade. No. He did so in order to accomplish a higher good. He disregarded a discriminatory racial law that looked down on others for not belonging to the so called privileged or superior race. He broke all racial barriers and put up residence with those considered as outcastes.  He ate with them, slept in their homes, lived in their neighborhood, preached to them, performed miracles among them, quenched their thirsts, restored their human dignity, and offered them salvation which the Jews considered to be exclusively theirs. He also disregarded the gender law that disfavors women. And by that single action, he demonstrates that all human beings- male and female are equal. He demonstrates that all men and women are God’s children. He demonstrates that though we are many and different—different racial origins, different backgrounds, different tongues, skin-color etc, we are still one human family, God’s family, God’s children created in God’s image. Jesus demonstrates that he is the fountain of life by giving a new life to a rejected woman. He engaged her in a discussion which was against the law; asked her for a drinking water which was against the law, forgave her sins which was a blasphemy to the Jews who did not accept the divinity of Jesus. Finally, by upholding her dignity as a woman, he upholds the dignity of all women. The Samaritan woman found the Lord and thirsted no more. To all those who thirst and hunger, you too can encounter the Lord. Encounter him today and thirst no more! In Revelation 21:6, the Lord says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.”