Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent

Is the Lord in our midst or not?
It’s a pretty basic question that has been asked by people throughout the centuries.
There could be many reasons why God is not here.
Maybe we’ve offended God and He left.
Maybe God is not really concerned about us
like we aren’t really concerned about insects or mice.
Or
Maybe God doesn’t exist!

For the Israelites, that would mean they have escaped from Egypt but are now alone in the desert.
But if God is here
then it means we have to ask what kind of relationship we’re supposed to have with God.
Is God our friend, just a director of our life, an oppressor, a judge, a confidant, a rock and refuge?
However we answer that affects how we deal with God in our life.

The Samaritan woman has no doubt that God exists. She knows her religion is right
and she finds God on the holy mountain.
It’s what she’s been taught,
it’s what she believes,
it’s what she’s experienced.

And along comes Jesus.

Did you ever think the Samaritan woman did not want to meet Jesus?
He is Jewish, In other words he believes his faith is correct,
God is worshipped not on a mountain but in a city, Jerusalem,
he has a different God, she thinks.
He is also a man and she’s had her troubles with men.
And Jesus does the unthinkable.
He talks to her!  
Jewish people would never speak to a Samaritan.
And a Jewish man would never speak to a woman alone – – remember this is Middle Eastern Society!
He even shocks his disciples when they return.

Yet He does
And the woman goes from

Unbelief to faith to testifying.

It’s a model for all of us.
We need First to get past the basic question of whether we believe God exists.
If he doesn’t, then we’re wasting our time here.
But if he does, then we have a lot of work to do.

If God exists,
and I assume that’s why we are all here, especially in the mist of this pandemic,
then our faith needs to grow and develop each and every day.
We are supposed to be searching out the answers to our questions.
Why? Because we, like the woman,
are supposed to take this faith to others and testify!
We Seem to get stuck in the first two steps.

Some people spend their whole life trying to figure out whether or not they believe in God.
If the Israelites did that they would never have found the promised land.
Others never learn much about their faith. Brought into the faith early as a child, they don’t develop,
they’re still in preschool!
There is no way they can testify because the minute someone asks them a question,
they doubt, or they don’t know the answer.
For example, years ago someone called the rectory on Monday and asked if they could receive ashes the next day. The priest I was living with, who answered the phone at 11 o’clock at night, had to think for a minute. He told the woman, tomorrow is Tuesday. We get ashes on Ash Wednesday. She said, “I know, but you see I’m gonna be very busy on Wednesday and I wondered if I could get them Tuesday.”
She had no idea why we receive ashes,
why they are given out on that one day.
How could she ever help other people come to know the faith?
There is a field called apologetics, that helps us to understand and know our faith so that we can be stronger in our faith for ourselves and develop, but more importantly, so that we can be witnesses to others.

There is no way we can evangelize if we don’t know what we’re talking about.
The Samaritan woman is the first evangelist.
She wasn’t perfect.
She wasn’t the likely one.
She knew herself to be a sinner in the eyes of her own community – – that’s why she’s out in the heat of the midday sun – – not one of God’s favorites.
But when she finds herself in the presence of God,
in the most unlikely place, and in an unlikely person – – a Jew and a man.
She knew it.
She recognized who he was and then dropped her bucket to run and tell everyone about him.

That is what we are supposed to do.
And God gives us,
even the most unlikely of us,
the mission.
Mark Twain once said,
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

So, whoever we are, And wherever we are in our faith journey,
we are commanded to move from
unbelief
to faith
to testifying.