A perfect number

I must admit that many times I “zone out” during Sunday homilies, especially if the homilist is prone to use the same formula week after week.  In this case, the pastor of the church I’ve been attending of late starts every homily with a (poorly told) joke and tries to tie the readings into the punch line of the joke.  He is from India and has an accent, but not so bad that one can’t understand him.  His biggest problem comes from trying to speak too fast and he will either mispronounce words or leave them out entirely….usually.  I found myself fascinated by his take on the Gospel today.  It was an angle I felt the Holy Spirit was telling me to share in my blog.

Permeating through today's readings is a substance essential to life: water. Living in the Central Valley of California where it gets quite arid throughout the summer, I can relate with the people grumbling to Moses of their thirst. We all can relate to being parched for water, and we know the cool and refreshing feeling of water hitting our dried lips and quenching our thirst.  Amid our fasting and sacrificing during this season of Lent, we are reminded of the ways in which our souls thirst for God.  Whether it is longing for a juicy steak on a Friday, or craving those sweets we gave up, we realize the desires of the flesh and the spirit are real.  These moments during Lent are opportunities that remind us of our need for God, which is far greater than our need for any of these earthly things we fast from.

Jesus, in the Gospel of John, encounters a Samaritan woman; the encounter occurs, significantly, at a watering hole, at Jacob’s Well.  Jesus asks her for a drink. She hesitates incredulous that a Jew—and male—would ask her a Samaritan—and a female—for a drink.   Jews typically despised and shunned Samaritans.  Jesus assures her that He will give her “living water”:  “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus tells the woman “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Here is where my pastor caught my attention.  He pointed out that this exchange was, for him, a definition of our thirst for Jesus.  The woman has had 6 failed attempts at finding love and fulfillment, so she is wary of ANY man who tries to strike up a conversation with her.  Jesus is the seventh man who comes into her life and it is at a point when she is in sin and thirsting for spiritual fulfillment.  In the Bible, and in theology, the number seven pops up a lot; the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven days of Creation, the seven Sacraments.  Hence, the number seven is usually defined in theology as the number of perfection. Who could satisfy the woman’s thirst and need for God more perfectly than Jesus?

Touched deeply by Jesus, the woman spreads the word to her fellow Samaritans.  And the gospel tells us that many Samaritans came to believe in him.  Let us use this season of Lent to allow God to quench the deepest thirsts of our heart and soul, as we continue our journey towards the Resurrection.