Our Gospel today (John 4:5-42) illustrates how easily we humans fail to see the spiritual significance of the physical things around us. You can see and hear me give this Homily on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT5VvXrtumo
So we hear Jesus suggest to the woman at the well that he can give her “living water,” but she completely misunderstands him, and instead produces her wonderfully practical answer. “You have no bucket sir… and the well is deep.” Actually, he’s already given her a strong hint that he is not talking about ordinary water. He had said to her, ‘If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you: Give me a drink,” but she clearly hadn’t realised what that meant. It reminds me of the time when Jesus tells his disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees (Matt 16:8-12) and they think he is telling them off for forgetting to bring bread.
The woman’s misunderstanding continues when she and Jesus begin to talk about where God is most especially present for worship. She is trying to point out to him that the gulf between him as a Jew and her as a Samaritan is too wide to be bridged; because Jesus as a Jew believes that the supreme place for worship is Jerusalem whereas she as a Samaritan believes it is their local mountain. Once again, as with the water, Jesus is teaching a different way of looking at things, in which what matters is the worship of God who is spirit, not the place where it takes place.
What both these examples show us is that this human failure to see the spiritual meaning underlying physical things is not just a problem for us today. Just as Jesus had to explain what he was actually talking about to the woman, so St Paul for example had to point out to the Christians in Corinth that the Rock out of which water flows in the desert, the rock that we heard of in our 1st Reading (Exodus 17:3-7) was actually God in Christ revealing himself to them (1 Cor 10:4); and St Irenaeus approximately 100 years later said the same. He wrote : |”Through many acts of indulgence God tried to prepare them for perseverance in his service. He kept calling them to what was primary by means of what was secondary, that is, through foreshadowings to the reality, through things of time to the things of eternity, through things of the flesh to the things of the spirit, through earthly things to the heavenly things.”
It is worth reminding ourselves that this approach to everything, to view the spiritual meaning and not just the surface appearance, applies even at the very heart of our faith; because viewed on the surface Jesus of Nazareth is just one amongst any number of 1st Century Jewish preachers who got crucified by the Romans. St Paul however says in our 2nd Reading “What proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners”; but this is only true if, rather than looking at what Jesus is on the surface, we view him spiritually through the eyes of faith and love.
One of the spiritual exercises therefore that we could do in Lent, or indeed at any other time, is to make an active attempt to see the spiritual in things that are physical; and given the teaching of Jesus on water today, might I suggest a meditation on one of the taps (faucets if you are an American) in your house. Instead of taking for granted the water that comes out of it, we should go and stand or sit in front of it, and meditate on how water speaks to us of God – first to give us what sustains our physical life – and then in our Baptism what God gives us to lead us into eternal life so that all water is a sign of God’s presence. One might move on from there to think of those who do not have running water in their homes, and pray for those agencies and governments that are working to make good clean water available for more people. Water, along with light and air, are the three things necessary for most life to exist, and all three are not only, as physical things, gifts from the Creator, but also powerful symbols of his spiritual presence, the grace he gives us that we so dearly need if we are to be fully human, destined to be one with God now, and then on beyond our physical death into his eternity
We might also apply the conversation Jesus had with the woman about the best place of worship to our own situation. We might do well to remember how easily without thinking about it, many of us Christians can be guilty of this attachment to our special place. We get so used to our own church building, that going to Mass anywhere else just doesn’t feel the same. Good Catholics, when they go away for a holiday, or for work, look up where the nearest convenient Sunday Mass is, and find it interesting to see what it is like, even in a different language. Sometimes the experience can be uplifting, and sometimes downright depressing, but that’s not the point. The point is that it is the Mass, and God is present whether the worship on the surface is uplifting or depressing, because as Jesus says “God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.’
So maybe a second Lenten exercise might be to research where the nearest Catholic Church to your next holiday or outing might be, and then to make a point of organising things so that you can get there for a Sunday Mass, or for a time of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Every now and then I go on a day trip to London, and usually search out one of the hidden Catholic Churches of that great City. Westminster Cathedral is easy to find of course near to Victoria Station, but most of the other Catholic churches, as with many in the UK, are quite hidden - often down some side street that you would never find without that bit of research. I was visiting the Covent Garden area last year to have fun in the London Transport Museum (some of you will remember how I can find God in trains and bridges!) and thus discovered just round the corner in Maiden Lane the lovely church of Corpus Christi. Of course, there are many rather less than beautiful Catholic Churches that are also worth a visit, simply to remind us that God is there for us in the Blessed Sacrament, whatever the physical building is like. It is another lesson in humbly looking beneath the physical surface to the spiritual reality that lies beneath it.
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