Msgr. Andrew Varga, pastor of St. Luke Parish in Westport, Connecticut, sent in this terrific homilette on Spy Wednesday.

See also these related articles:

• Spy Wednesday
• Holy Thursday
• Good Friday
• Holy Saturday
• The Easter Vigil

A homily for the third Sunday of Lent

Today, through our ancestors in faith, Moses and the Unnamed Woman of Samaria, the Church’s liturgy calls us to reflect on water—living water. But all week everything in me has resisted—a lot! NO, NOT NOW! The images in my mind are of too much water. Too much rain on our soil here at home. Flooding on our streets. Homes damaged and people displaced. Worse, the images of the death dealing tsunami in Japan swirl in my head and are constantly reinforced by news stations bringing the effects of that tragedy into my cottage and into my heart night after night. I see crates of bottled water being distributed to mothers who fear for their infant’s lives because they cannot depend on the gift of nature to help them. I hear about workers in nuclear plants being severely burned by stepping into contaminated water. How can we possibly—how dare we —reflect on living water today?

This gospel truly scrutinized my heart. The only answer I found is that I, and you, too, have already been swept away in waters of death and called to a new kind of life and a new way of seeing reality. Are we not aware that we who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death … so that we may live in newness of life. But living in newness of life is a lifetime project for us both individually and together. And that’s the heart of the message of today’s gospel.

In John’s gospel, and especially in the pericopes proclaimed on the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent, Jesus attracts people … he draws people to himself, never for their own sake alone, but for the sake of the community. In these passages that are used for the scrutiny rites for the elect preparing for baptism, Jesus confronts and challenges people, and asks them to make a decision about him. The choice that they make brings them to the place where all disciples must live, that is in the midst of paradox, in the midst of the paschal mystery of dying and rising.

At one level, this is the story of a woman of ill repute whom Jesus desires to forgive, heal, and even send as his messenger to her townspeople. It is a story into which we are easily drawn as we identify with the woman’s efforts and failures to live and love well, as we witness her intimate conversation with Jesus. With her, we try to make meaning of this encounter. We can learn from her that becoming a disciple is a process that takes time…a lifetime.

The Samaritan woman shows how important it is to be being true to oneself before God. She has no guile as she states the truth of her own situation. Jesus responds to her as one not particularly concerned about law, rules, and norms, but as one who breaks through structures and expectations that are oppressive, unjust, racist, or exclusive. As she gradually comes to know Jesus, the woman commits to discipleship expressed in her willingness to leave her water jar to tell her story among the townspeople. Her decision reminds us that discipleship is not for one’s self but leads to action that makes a difference in the lives of others. If discipleship is to mean anything at all, it will shine forth in our words, actions, and manner of life.

Another and deeper layer of the Gospel has little to do with this woman and everything to do with the community of discipleship that God desires. The Samaritan woman typically has been characterized as a sinful, sexually promiscuous, adulterous woman and seductress—a rather demeaning and sexist portrait of a strong and bold woman disciple and evangelizer. Rather, this passage is meant to reveal to us God’s desire for disciples who will worship in spirit and in truth. In fact, this woman scrutinizes Jesus, carrying on a serious theological conversation about his identity and about where and how disciples should worship. Representing the whole people of Samaria who do not worship in Jerusalem as the Jews do, she literally challenges Jesus to explain himself and his message and in doing so gets drawn into a more and more intimate relationship with him.

She questions him, but in fact, the entire dialog between Jesus and the woman is symbolic of God ‘wooing’ Samaria. It calls to mind the Hound of Heaven: You have seduced us, Lord, and we have been seduced. Her community, like ours, enters into the gradual process of falling in love — into full covenant fidelity. This passage is not concerned with the woman’s private moral life but with the love life, the worship life, the integrity of life of the whole community. It has to do with how we, as disciples, find meaning and make meaning in life and in the face of disaster and death.

From the moment of our immersion into the waters of death at baptism, we have been being wooed into a more intimate relationship with God, each other, and with our sisters and brothers throughout the world. Fidelity to those relationships may plunge us into devastating waters time and time again. Life in Christ will situate us over and over again in the midst of paradox and the unexplainable. But we always rise again and we shall rise again. Only if we believe in the paschal mystery that we proclaim and celebrate in this Eucharist does that which makes no sense make sense. Only in the context of such mystery and gift can we at one and the same time find ourselves deeply saddened, even repelled by the death-dealing power of the waters of the earth that we have witnessed and yet cry out from the core our being, Please, give us living water.

I think all of us at some point in our lives have someone—maybe our parents, a teacher, a certain group—someone we wanted so much to just love us as we were. We want someone who knows everything about us, all the good stuff and all the bad stuff, and who still wants us anyway.

But sometimes say to ourselves, I’m not smart enough, or tall enough, I’m not thin enough, or good enough, or beautiful enough. Perhaps we think I’m not popular enough, I could never take on a leadership role. I’m not holy enough, I couldn’t do anything at Mass. I’m not intelligent enough; I couldn’t go to grad school. Often we feel we aren’t enough, so we pretend to be someone we aren’t. Maybe if I drank more, people will like me; maybe if I made enough money, I’ll be happy; maybe if I sleep around enough, I won’t be alone.

Sometimes our world tell us: She’s too Black, he’s too White, they’re too conservative, they’re too liberal, you’re too old, too young, too dark, too different, you’re not holy enough, you’re divorced, you’re gay, you got pregnant, you messed up. Whatever you are, you are NOT ENOUGH.

Today, Christ says, enough! Enough of all of this fear, enough of all these barriers we’ve created. We have work to do, and we can’t do it if we’re divided.

In the Gospel, Jesus doesn’t care about barriers, or rules, or laws if they are meant to separate us. He doesn’t care about tradition if it’s meant to put other people down. In today’s story, all Jesus cared about was the Samaritan woman and her people. In those few moments, he showed her by his words and his actions that no matter what she thought, no matter what society thought, and no matter what the law thought, in his eyes she was enough.

Here, Christ does the same with us. We aren’t perfect, yet Christ speaks to us. We are human and he is God, yet Christ becomes intimately one with us. Our world might tell us we aren’t good enough, yet Christ confronts us in this meal with his love saying, The Body of Christ—you are good; The Blood of Christ—you are enough.

If we believe that, if we say Amen to that, we must then treat all people as Christ treats us—as enough, as worthy, as children of the same Father. There’s too much work to do—the harvest is ready. There are so many people thirsting to be known and loved for who they are. Every week God gives us that extravagant love, despite all our weakness and barriers. If we want our worship here to be authentic, to be worship in Spirit and Truth, then we must go out and tell others about this love, this gift of God.

Tonight in a concrete way the Church has a chance to show that love.

Dear Elect, in a few moments you will stand here before us and dare to reveal your own barriers. The Word of God has scrutinized you, and you will look into your hearts for your deepest longings. And you will turn to us, the Church, for encouragement, prayer, and support. Friends, no matter what the world has told you, no matter what your own fears have told you, here, you are enough.

We believe that about you not because of any deeds you have done, not because you’ve passed any tests or proven yourselves. We believe you are enough because of our faith in Christ and because of our hope in the glory of God. And that hope will not disappoint.

We believe that the God who brought the Israelites out of their slavery will also bring you out of the slavery of jealousy, pride, and being too busy.

We believe that the God who brought flowing water out of solid stone will also pour his love into your hearts so that they may not become hardened by isolation, laziness, distrust, and selfishness.

We believe that the God who revealed his true identity to an outcast will also reveal to you the truth about what’s really important and what really makes us holy in God’s eyes.

We believe this because of our baptism, because God is stronger than our sin. We know this because of the Holy Spirit, because God always gives us more than we expect. We know this because of the Eucharist, the bread we eat and the wine we drink Sunday after Sunday, because God makes even our imperfect lives into the Body and Blood of Christ.

For when God wants to know you, it will be completely, without boundaries, without rejection, without requiring you to be someone you aren’t. All that is asked is that you believe and have faith.

When you first came to us, it was because of a word someone had told you, because of a story from a modern-day Samaritan who spoke of one who knew everything she or he had done. Since that day, you’ve been gathering with us, hearing God’s word with us. We pray that you will no longer believe because of our word but because you have heard for yourselves, and have come to know that you are enough, that God is more than enough, and that Jesus is truly the savior of the world.

Walter Burghardt, SJ, died Saturday at the age of 95. Though he wouldn’t have remembered, I met Burghardt more than 30 years ago, when I was 19, at a liturgy conference at the University of Notre Dame. As many of you know, and as I was ignorant of at the time, Burghardt was the model of the mystagogical preacher envisioned by the reforms of Vatican II. At an age when most homilists are getting ready to retire to lake homes, Burghardt told me then that he still struggled with every homily and often woke in the middle of the night, stomach churning with nerves, fearful he would not be able to do justice to God’s word and God’s people.

At the sprightly age of 75, Burghardt founded the Just Word project—a retreat and training program designed to energize Catholic preaching, which he once called “dull as dishwater.” Burghardt recognized that the homilist has a responsibility, as Pope Paul VI said in Evangelization in the Modern Word, to take account “of the links between the gospel and the concrete life of men and women. The church considers it highly important to establish structures which are more human, more just, more respectful of the right of the person, less oppressive and coercive” (29, 36).

In a scathing critique of Catholic preaching, Burghardt observed that “all too many Christian preachers either do not believe [this], or believing it, are reluctant or afraid to preach it. The consequence? Encouragement without challenge; biblical sermons bereft of the prophets; a bloodless Jesus who never said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice sake” (Mt 5:10). Ultimately, just a church, a cordial fellowship of believers, not a just church” (The Living Pulpit, October-December 2000, 10).

Burghardt was one of my early inspirations who helped me understand liturgy has the power to change people’s heart and to change the world in which we live. The sadness of his passing is tempered by the great joy of having lived in the company of one of God’s truly faithful servants. May the angels lead him into paradise.

[via Whispers]

In the August 27, 2007, issue of America, Cardinal Godfried Danneels writes about liturgy 40 years after the Council. The entire article is deserving of a careful read, but here are my favorite lines:

How many celebrants consider the homily to be the climax of the liturgy and the barometer of the celebration? How many have the feeling that the celebration is more or less over after the Liturgy of the Word?

Too much attention is also given to the intellectual approach to the liturgy. Imagination, affect, emotion and, properly understood, aesthetics are not given enough room….

Liturgy is neither the time nor the place for catechesis….

Nor should liturgy be used as a means for disseminating information, no matter how essential that information might be. It should not be forced to serve as an easy way to notify the participants about this, that and the other thing. One does not attend the liturgy on Mission Sunday in order to learn something about this or that mission territory….

The church fathers, too, adhered to the principle that mystagogical catechesis (in which the deepest core of the sacred mysteries was laid bare) should come only after the sacraments of initiation. Their pedagogical approach was “sensorial”: participate first and experience things at an existential level in the heart of the community, and only then explain….

These approaches to preaching mystagogically are defined by Jan Michael Joncas in Forum Essay, Number 4: Preaching the Rites of Christian Initiation (Chicago, Illinois: Liturgy Training Publications, 1994) 95-117.

The five approaches outlined by Joncas are:

1. hallowing cosmic symbols;
2. exploring anthropological patterns;
3. celebrating biblical history;
4. analyzing beliefs and behaviors; and
5. revealing the future present.

According to Joncas, these are general techniques used by the majority of mystagogical preachers from the 2nd to the 5th centuries of the church. These preachers looked to the phenomenology of the heavens and nature to find correlations with the symbols of the rites. They were keen observers of human ways of life, social structures, and secular activities. They wove images and references to various scriptural passages that evoked the same symbols, whether or not the context of the passage related to the context of the rite. Their catecheses and homilies were often pointed critiques of beliefs and behaviors that went against their understanding of the Christian lifestyle. Finally, they employed a realized eschatology in the use of their images, placing the event of the rite within the vision of the eschaton so as to lead the hearers to praise of God and conversion of heart.

Joncas cautions that the use of these approaches to craft initiatory homilies for today must take into consideration that the world of the 4th century is much different from ours. Advances in our understanding of society, cosmology, scripture, medicine, and even demonology would make a direct translation of these approaches inappropriate for contemporary hearers. Nonetheless, if interpreted and translated into a contemporary style, these approaches can give preachers today some guidelines for crafting mystagogical texts in the patristic tradition.

The stories of the man born blind, the woman at the well and the raising of Lazarus from the dead are a set of readings that must always be proclaimed whenever we celebrate the Scrutinies. Why then are today’s readings so important for those who are preparing for initiation? Why are they so important for us who are already baptized?

These readings teach us about our baptismal promises. The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is not so much about the woman believing in Christ but about the woman fulfilling her role in proclaiming the Gospel. She reminds us that our baptism commits us to a life of evangelization. Likewise, the story of Lazarus is not so much about Jesus raising him from the dead but about having faith in Christ even when it looks like death has won. This story reminds us that we are committed to a life of faith and trust. And the story of the man born blind is not so much about the man being healed, but about seeing as God sees. Today’s Gospel reminds us that we are committed to a life that reveals God’s vision, to a life of constant conversion. This is what I mean by conversion.

If we are sincere about asking God to “open our eyes,” to see as God sees, then we must also be willing to change the way we live our lives so that our lives reflect God’s point to view, and not ours.

Here’s an example of how life changes once you’re given a new perspective. How many of you wear glasses or contact lenses? Then you might know what I am talking about. When I was in the 6th grade, I got my first pair of glasses. When I stepped out of the doctor’s office into the parking lot, the first thing I saw was this tree. Now, I had never in my life seen a tree like that. Before I got the glasses, I thought trees were just blobs of green and brown and red and orange. Theoretically, I knew what a tree looked like. I could see leaves and bark and such. But after I saw them through my new glasses, I realized that a tree was more than just leaves and bark. The leaves had lines, and edges, and curves. There were birds in the trees that I could see. There were cracks and grooves in the bark that I had missed before.

Finally being able to see the detail, the intricacies of nature, and its true beauty is like how God sees each of us. In the first reading, God told Samuel that God doesn’t see as humans see. We can only see part of the picture, what’s on the outside of a person. But God sees deeper, into the heart of that person. God sees the fullness of that person’s potential. God sees that person’s intricate and detailed beauty.

Jesus tells the blind man “you have seen the Son of Man, you have seen the Christ; the one speaking with you is he.” What if each of us could put on some glasses—”God glasses”—that allow us to see that intricate and detailed beauty of each person? Imagine how differently we would act if we remembered Jesus’ words (“you have seen Christ, he is speaking with you now”).

How differently we would act if each time we encountered our co-workers, we saw Christ. How differently we would treat our parents, our children, our spouse, and our classmates, our friends, our enemies. How differently we would treat the people who sit around us in church, the people we see here every week but to whom we never talk, the people who don’t speak our language, the people who don’t look, act, or think the way we do. How differently we would treat the beggar, the homeless, the people we label as failure, as sinner, the people we label as conservative, liberal, gay, straight, too old, too young, too dark, too light, too smart, too dumb, too much of something that doesn’t fit our point of view. Imagine if each time we encounter each other, each time we speak with one another, we “see” Christ, we “hear” Jesus. How different our world would be.

Our Elect are with us here today. In three weeks they will step into that water there in the font. They will be clothed in white and given the light of the Easter Candle. They will be anointed with oil as priest, prophet and king in Christ. And they will stand with us at this table to give thanks and break bread and drink wine, becoming with us what they eat, the Body and Blood of Christ.

Dear Elect, in a moment you will stand in our midst along with your godparents. We will pray for you that God’s light may heal the dark places of your lives and strengthen each of you. Your baptism will change you. It will change your identity. It will change the way you “see” the world, and thus, it will change the way you act within the world. For this is the duty of the baptized: to be imitators of Christ and to see as God sees.

We, the faithful, stand with each of you, not to judge you, not to test you, nor to evaluate you. No, we stand with you to give you the courage and strength that you will need to face those dark places. We will ask God to help you see those moments of failure and weakness as God sees them—not as reasons to condemn you, but as opportunities to love you with an even greater love. Seeing you as God sees you, we give thanks, for you are a sign to us that God is still making all things new.

There’s one thing about getting my glasses for the first time that I will never forget. When I saw that tree and I saw how beautiful it was, all I could do was be amazed and give praise for the awesome wonder of God’s creation. When we see as God sees, all we can do is stand and praise God for showing us a glimpse of heaven.

Have you ever been in love with someone you weren’t supposed to love? Someone your parents or your friends disapproved of?

In the first two paragraphs of today’s Gospel, Jesus does some astounding things.

• He goes to Samaria.
• He walks up to a well where a woman is drawing water.
• He sends off his disciples so he is alone with the woman.
• He speaks to her.
• He does this at noon, when anyone walking by can see.

All of these are very large barriers for a Jewish man to cross in Jesus’ day. His friends clearly disapproved. What does Jesus want so badly that he is willing to engage in such risky behavior?

This story really begins with the wedding at Cana when Jesus reveals himself as the Bridegroom. The Bridegroom is in search of a Bride and he has discovered that the House of Israel only seemed interested in a marriage of convenience. So Jesus stepped out. He went to the part of town he shouldn’t have. He asked out the girl with the reputation. He went to Samaria, across the border, to a place self-respecting Jews did not go.

The very nature of the God is an incessant craving for intimacy. The reason for creation is so God could have an “other” to love. The reason the Son became flesh is so God could feel how we feel, love how we love, want what we want. That God could love us like that seems almost reckless. If God had parents, surely they would not approve.

That reckless love, that intimacy with Jesus, is what Pope John Paul II said catechists are to help people find. If you’ve ever loved someone, you know intimacy is a two way street. You cannot have intimacy all by yourself. Someone has to desire you, to want to be intimate back, to share their life with you. No matter how much we desire Jesus, he desires us more. No matter how much the woman at the well needed Jesus, he needed her more.

In this story, Jesus was reckless in his love. He was willing to cross over physical and social boundaries to get what he needed. He was willing to put up with the questioning and suspicion of his closest disciples to teach them not have such a small love, not to limit their love only to places and people where they feel safe.

The disciples didn’t love the Samaritans. The Samaritans were foreigners who had strange customs and strange foods. They had odd rituals, and weird devotional practices. The disciples were willing to follow Jesus into Samaria, but they didn’t really cross over the boundary. They are like some Americans who go to foreign countries for vacation and get upset when they can’t get eggs and bacon for breakfast. When the disciples went to town to buy food, they probably went to the first century version of McDonalds. It didn’t occur to them to tell people about Jesus while they were there. Who throws pearls before swine after all?

The Woman at the Well, on the other hand, couldn’t wait. She rushed off so fast, she left her water jar, left everything. She ran, totally committed to the love she had discovered. She ran to town to announce the good news. This was the same town the disciples had just returned from. The woman went into the town and returned to the well with hearts to woo. The disciples returned with lunch.

We have Samaritan Women among us today. The Elect are here, asking the same kinds of questions the woman at the well asked. In a moment, we will pray for them that their love remains true, that their commitment is total. We will pray God strengthens all that God loves in them and that they will be healed from all that hinders their love for God.

We can be sure they do love God with a passionate, reckless love that perhaps some people in their lives may not approve of. Their catechists and this community have succeeded in matchmaking them with Jesus, bringing them to that love and intimacy Pope John Paul talked about.

Likewise, we can be sure that Jesus loves them. He loves them, needs them, desires them, wants them as much as he needed the Samaritan woman. He is crossing over their Samarias, sitting at their wells, courting them in broad daylight, not caring who knows that he is crazy in love with them. This Easter Vigil, when the Elect step up to the well of living water, they will become the Bride. Their desire, their need, their thirst for intimacy will be so fully quenched, they will never thirst again.

And we who will be witnesses at this new Cana, at the Easter Vigil’s wedding banquet, we will remember when our own love of Christ was newly in bloom and our own desire was met with overwhelming desire. On that night of overflowing water, we will remember how our baptism quenched all our thirsts. On that night, we will renew our vows, our promise, our total commitment to the love of Christ.

It is a reckless, head over heals kind of love affair we have. It is a love that crosses boundaries and seeks intimacy in places we might not have expected, in places we might not have gone, in people who are not like us, who at first might have seemed foreign and unsafe.

When we read this love story of the Woman at the Well, we hear it differently at different times in our lives. When we are new to love or when we are feeling unlovable, we might imagine ourselves to be the woman, a person thirsting for intimacy, a person parched by the day to day struggles of trying to make sense of life. When we are bored or burnt out or not vibrantly in touch with our faith, we might think we are the disciples, good hearted folks who are a bit clueless and need a little reminding of what it means to be a Catholic and a Christian.

But today, in this place, as we are about to pray for the Elect in our midst, we, the baptized, are like Christ at Cana, at the Wedding Banquet, to whom the Mother of God says, “They have no wine.” In Christ, we can turn water into wine, loneliness and isolation into intimacy and communion. With Christ, we can cross the boundaries of places we might otherwise be afraid to go. Through Christ, we can sit at the well of those who are not like us in so many ways, but are like us in the one way that matters. We all thirst for that deep intimacy that only the Bridegroom can give.

The boundary breaking, intimate, deep-as-a-well love Jesus showed the woman freed her. The love welled up in her to the point she couldn’t contain it. She had to share it. She herself became a well, a fountain overflowing with Christ’s love. She became like Jesus, crossing boundaries, finding those searching for love and telling them to come and see.

When we were plunged into the waters of life, we also became like Jesus, seeking intimacy with all the world, especially in the places that might seem risky and out of bounds—in our enemies, in those who are foreign to us, in those who would persecute us.

We when eat and drink at this wedding banquet every Sunday, we become what we eat. We become the love of Christ for the world.

Do we believe that? Can we imagine it? If so, let’s leave our little water jars and our small love behind and go out to love with astounding, reckless abandon.