Scrutiny Year A Readings
Lectionary: 28
Reading I
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?”
So Moses cried out to the LORD,
“What shall I do with this people?
a little more and they will stone me!”
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.
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.
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?”
Responsorial Psalm
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
Brothers and sisters:
Since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
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.
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.
For Christ, while we were still helpless,
died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Verse Before the Gospel
Lord, you are truly the Savior of the world;
give me living water, that I may never thirst again.
Gospel
Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar,
near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there.
Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
“Give me a drink.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
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.—
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.”
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?
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself
with his children and his flocks?”
Jesus answered and said to her,
“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.”
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.”
Jesus said to her,
“Go call your husband and come back.”
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.’
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,
“Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.
Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain;
but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus said to her,
“Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You people worship what you do not understand;
we worship what we understand,
because salvation is from the Jews.
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.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
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,
“I am he, the one speaking with you.”
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?”
The woman left her water jar
and went into the town and said to the people,
“Come see a man who told me everything I have done.
Could he possibly be the Christ?”
They went out of the town and came to him.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.”
But he said to them,
“I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
So the disciples said to one another,
“Could someone have brought him something to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me
and to finish his work.
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.
The reaper is already receiving payment
and gathering crops for eternal life,
so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.
For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’
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.”
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.”
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word,
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.”
MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
When the Israelites complained about no water in the desert, God answered by giving them water. When they complained about being hungry, they received quail and manna. In their time of need, obstinate or not, God responded by giving them what they needed. There was no precondition to this. If fact, it could be argued that many times they were undeserving of God’s help. Yet, He was always faithful to them, even when they were faithless. We need to be reminded that the 40-year journey in the desert was a direct result of their refusal to enter the Land of Canaan. Imagine, the Israelites were gifted with an intimate, personal relationship with God that included a first-hand witness to His greatness. This wasn’t enough for them to avoid the worship of false idols, threats of rebellion, a longing to return to Egypt, and continuous doubt. Whatever they asked for, they received. God was faithful while they continued to struggle with faithlessness. As it was then, it still remains the case today with us. The desert we find ourselves in is defined by our lives, much of it spent wandering aimlessly from one place to another, ignoring the will of God while pursuing interests that we think will fulfill our desires. We are easily distracted by daily trials and tribulations, all the while making ourselves the center of all things. When we don’t get our way or things don’t turn out the way that we want, we become obstinate, blaming God for what has occurred instead of our own decision-making process. All the while, God is there before us, true to His word that He will never forget us. How can God forget us when we are central to The Divine Plan. Created in His image, we stand at the pinnacle of His creation. And yet, even at the pinnacle, we complain and ignore Him who put us there. We can receive hope and comfort when reading the Exodus Story. The Israelites, set aside as a people special to God, never deserved this status. We. As partakers in that very same covenant through Jesus Christ, are undeserving of this status. That is the entire point: God the Father sent His only Son into this world to suffer and die for us to achieve what we could not achieve ourselves. We fall short of what is expected, and we will continue to do so.
The hope that we receive is through an understanding that we cannot do this alone and God never intended for us to do it alone. It is through a deep, intimate relationship with Him that our fullest potential can be realized, and we can be set on the right path to a joyous life and salvation. The Apostle Paul tells us,
“Since we have been
justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
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.”
Faith is defined by the complete trust and confidence in someone of something. It comes about first by accepting Jesus Christ for who He is, the Son of God. With that faith comes an inner peace which then opens us up to the love of God. Faith brings about peace and peace brings about love. I feel that we all can reflect upon the times in our lives when we encountered calamity. Was our focus on our faith with an understanding that it was the key to any obstacle that we were facing in our lives? How quickly things tend to get out of hand when that which should be a central focus in our daily living is dismissed so easily in favor of our own faulted decision-making process. Hope, the expectation of things to come, does not disappoint if it is grounded in Jesus Christ.
The interaction of Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman reveals to us a central tenant of our faith. It is through Jesus that we receive this Living Water. First given to us in our baptism in the form of Sanctifying Grace, we are given the opportunity to partake in it daily through Sacred Scripture, prayer, and an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. When we are open to the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Love of God, we are literally showered with this Living Water and are immersed in its cleansing power. Worship of God is only the first step in this process. We must then understand who we worship and what we are receiving. The deeper our understanding and the more intent we are in pursuing a relationship with Jesus will lead us directly to the Father. As Jesus said in the Gospel today,
“God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”
In other words, knowing God leads to a deeper relationship with Him. Jesus, being the Living Word, is the key to wisdom and the truth. It is through truth that we find God moved by the Spirit. To know God is to love God. The Apostle John writes this in his letter:
“Everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”
Love is a two-way street. We have to love and be loved. God loves us. This we must accept and be open to. Once we open ourselves to this love then we can love and also be loved. It is through this process that we remain in the Spirit and can experience the Living Water of Jesus Christ.
Deacon Tom
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