“Woman at the Well: Shame and Jesus’ Healing Love” – 3rd Sunday Lent (A) – 3.12.23
“Woman at the Well: Shame and Jesus’ Healing Love”
By: Fr. David Schmidt
Church of the Assumption (Regina Coeli Parish) - Bellevue, PA
Mass readings- https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031223.cfm
One thing that we all experience to some capacity is this feeling of shame. There are many reasons why a person might experience shame, but the element of shame that I want to focus on today is the shame that results from our sin. Shame from our sin is a common human experience going all the way back to the time when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden and hid from God in their shame.
In today’s Gospel of the Woman at the Well, we are given a model of how Jesus encounters us in our sin and shame, and how He brings us His healing. So I want to take us through this passage and highlight how Jesus desires to bring His healing to these areas of sin and shame in our heart.
The passage we heard today begins in verse 5 of chapter 4 of John’s Gospel, but right before that in verse 4 it says, “He had to pass through Samaria.” There was this sense that in His travels Jesus felt He had to go to Samaria first because He knew this woman needed Him. This shows how Jesus sees our pain and suffering, and that He knows our need for healing, so He comes, and He pursues us, so that we can encounter His healing love.
Then we hear of the detail that Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well was at noon. This is significant because it was the hottest time of the day, which means she was going at that time when no one else went, so as not to be seen by others. We can imagine that the woman at the well carried a great deal of shame with her as she was probably shamed by her sin and ostracized by her community.
This is often our reaction in our shame do to our sin. Like the Samaritan woman, when we experience shame, we hide, and we don’t want to be seen. We are afraid of letting anyone into that area of our heart, so we cover ourselves and we hide.
We might even think to ourselves in our shame, “How could I have fallen into this sin? How could God love me after what I have done? How could anyone look at me and think I am a good Christian?” We then start to believe the lie that we are a fraud. That, on the surface it may look like everything is going well and I am this great Catholic, but we say, “if they only knew what I had done, then they would know I am a fraud.”
We begin to identify ourselves with our sin instead of as sons and daughters of God. And we may walk around with a scarlet letter that we have placed on ourselves. And we can’t help but feel this terrible shame. Many people even begin to hate themselves because of their sin and shame. And they go through life carrying this shame and hatred for themselves.
In the next part of the passage, Jesus enters into a dialogue with the Samaritan woman. He says to her, “Give me a drink.” Notice that He doesn’t begin by immediately talking about what is causing her shame, but He is setting up the conversation so that He may touch on deeper areas of her heart that contain her deepest desires.
Jesus then talks about how if she knew the gift of God and who was speaking to her, that she would be asking Him for a drink, and that He would give her living water. These living waters where if we drink of it we would never thirst, and that well up to eternal life. He speaks of these living waters in a spiritual sense.
The woman then says, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
We see here that Jesus has sparked this desire within her that she didn’t realize she had. She didn’t realize that she desired this living water. Now at this moment, the woman is thinking more on the earthly level, as she is thinking that Jesus will show her where these living waters are so she could go there to draw water, and not have to come to the well. She doesn’t yet realize that Jesus is speaking in the spiritual sense of the living waters that well up to eternal life.
After making her aware of a deeper desire within her, it is only then that He begins to directly address the source of her shame. He tells her, “Go call your husband and come back.” We learn that she doesn’t have a husband, as Jesus tells her that she has had 5 husbands and the one she has now is not her husband.
When this is revealed, notice how Jesus doesn’t condemn her in her shame. He loves her as He tells her, her past. Jesus does the same with us. He knows our sins already, and when He comes to those areas of our heart where we experience shame from our sin, He doesn’t condemn us, but instead loves us. He desires to bring us His healing and mercy. He doesn’t yell and scream at us, and say to us, “What have you done! You are a terrible person!” He instead meets us with unconditional love.
We see next, how the woman realizes that this man, Jesus, is some sort of prophet for knowing her past, and they get into a dialogue about who God is and how one day the Father will be worshipped in Spirit and truth. Then the woman says, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Then, Jesus reveals Himself to her and says, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”
When Jesus reveals Himself as the Messiah to her, it ignites such great joy in her heart because she realizes that the Messiah has encountered her in this area of sin and shame within her heart, and she wasn’t condemned or ostracized by Him, but that she was loved by Him. He knew everything about her, yet still loved her.
It is the same with us. When we experience God’s love in those areas of sin and shame in our heart it elicits such profound joy within our heart because He sees everything that we have done, yet still loves us. And this causes us to experience an incredible freedom in our heart knowing that God sees us completely, and still loves us.
And there is yet another level to the meaning of this passage, that brings everything together and shows even more so the incredible depths of God’s love for us. We hear in verse 6, how Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman doesn’t take place at just any well, but at Jacob’s well.
The well was a place where some of the OT Patriarchs met their future bride. It is the place where Abraham’s servant meets Isaac’s future bride Rebecca. It is where Moses meets his future bride. As well as, most importantly, where Jacob meets his future bride, Rachel. So the fact that this encounter occurs at Jacob’s well, puts the entire passage into a nuptial and marital context.[1]
So in encountering the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well what this is signifying is Jesus acting as the Divine Bridegroom making a marriage proposal to her, revealing to her that He is the Bridegroom that she has been seeking.
We see evidence of this as the passage says that “the woman left her water jar” to go to the town to proclaim what Jesus had done for her. The woman came to the well to gather water to quench her physical thirst, but her leaving the water jar to go tell others what Christ did for her, indicates that she encountered and drank from the fountain of living water, and her deep thirst, which was for God, was now quenched.
What the marital element of the passage reveals is that Jesus not only desires to encounter us in those areas of our sin and shame within our heart, but He desires to unite Himself to us even knowing all the horrible things that we have done. There is no greater news than this. There is no greater love that we could ever dream of experiencing. The deepest desire of our heart is to love and be loved. To know and be known. To see and be seen. The most healing thing that we could ever experience is God’s infinite love pouring into those areas of sin and shame in our hearts and still loving us. It is Him seeing our entire heart, with nothing hidden, and everything exposed, even our deep sinfulness, and Him looking at us, and not only loving us, but saying, “I want to unite myself to you forever.”
God comes to us today and He is inviting us to this love. He is making a marriage proposal to us. He is saying, “I see the great pain in your heart. I see the great desire for love that causes you to go to these other wells to satisfy what only my love can satisfy within you. Don’t drink from these wells any longer. Come and drink from the living waters of my love that well up to eternal life. It is safe to drink from this living water. You don’t have to worry about experiencing shame. You are safe with me. You are safe in my love. Come and drink from the living waters of my love and let me satisfy your thirst for authentic love and healing. I am what you seek. I am what you desire. I desire to be with you even knowing all you have done. Be not afraid of letting me see you in your sin and shame. Let me come close to you. Let me heal you. Let me redeem you. Let me set you free. Surrender to my love. Surrender to my mercy. And may you experience the love and healing that you greatly long for.”
[1] Dr. Brant Pitre. “Jesus and the Woman at the Well (3rd Sunday in Lent, Year A).” Catholic Productions. https://catholicproductions.com/blogs/mass-readings-explained-year-a/the-third-sunday-of-lent-year-a
