Sunday Readings
February 24, 2008 :: Third Sunday of Lent
Scripture
EXODUS 17:3 — 7
In the desert, Moses strikes the rock, and water flows for his people.
ROMANS 5:1 — 2, 5 — 8
Through Jesus and our faith we can have peace with God.
JOHN 4:5 — 42
Jesus meets the woman at the well who leads many to believe in him.
THEME
The need for water led Moses to beg God on behalf of his people. God sent water flowing from a rock. The need for water led the Samaritan woman to the well, and to an encounter with Jesus. Jesus sparked her curiosity when he told her of the living water he could provide. Jesus’ story must have worked! The woman left her bucket behind in her zeal to tell others about him. Though she was a sinner, her faith in Jesus brought her forgiveness and peace.
FOCUSING OBJECT
An empty water bucket
REFLECTIONS
The woman at the well did not ask Jesus for a favor. Jesus asked her for a favor. She had the bucket. He wanted a drink. She has had five husbands and is living with a sixth man. She is a Samaritan and a woman-both characteristics a Jesish man was raised to look down on. Yet, she dares to question and argue with Jesus. As rugged as she is, she recognizes what is special in Jesus and she wants that living water he is talking about. She is so convinced he is the Messiah that she leaves her bucket behind as she runs off to tell others the good news. She won Jesus so many followers that he stayed with them for two days. She is a weed, a flower, and a rebel, all rolled into one.
• Do you know anyone like the Samaritan woman-someone who seems so unholy and so holy at the same time? someone hard to figure out? Do you feel like that sometimes? Why or why not?
• Jesus came to turn weeds into flowers, and wallflowers into movers and shakers. Share about a time you were most flower-like, a time you were most weed-like, or a time you were most rebel-like.
CLOSING
Her head bowed low
Fertile with seed
The stately flower
Basks in the warm sun
Long and lean
Lionistic mane
A blue ribbon winner
She graces the plains
No sweet scent does she give
No tender care does she need
For she’s branded a rebel
A flower and a weed
“Ode to the Sunflower,” by Kelly Milbourn,
a high school student
For complete Sunday reading go to http://www.usccb.org/nab/
In Touch With the Word: Lectionary-Based Prayer Reflections, by Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart (Winona, MN: Saint Mary’s Press, 2004).
Copyright © 2004 by Saint Mary’s Press, www.smp.org.
All rights reserved. Used with permission of the publisher.