The well of gossip, judgements and lies

The well of gossip, judgements and lies March 23, 2014

Today’s Gospel passage, along with the passages we will hear for the next two Sundays, are some of the most beautiful passages of the Gospels.

All three tell a similar story: the unraveling of faith in a human soul.  All three narrate the story of a person who when encountering Christ, comes to believe in Him.  Today we have the Samaritan woman, next week the man born blind and the following week Martha, the sister of Lazarus.

The Samaritan woman is annoyed with Jesus’ presence.  He asks for a drink.  Her response is dismissive: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”  We can almost add to her words to Jesus: Get lost.  Then she points out to him, perhaps a bit sarcastically: “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where then can you get this living water?”  Once again, we could add to her words: Leave me alone.

The woman didn’t want to be bothered.  Why?

In Jesus’ time (as many women still do today), women went to draw water early in the morning before the sun came out, while it was still cool.  Drawing water and carrying it back home was a burdensome and sweaty task.  This woman came to the well at noon, more than likely to avoid the other women.  She did this perhaps because she was a known sinner, having had five husbands?  Others probably shunned her and ignored her.  Yet Jesus comes right up to her and asks for water, to the woman who wants to be left alone.  He goes to the sinner whose heart had been hardened.  No wonder the apostles and other onlookers were scandalized: Jesus provided plenty of material to gossip about.

The woman is thirsty for the living waters Jesus offers.  She is incredibly thirsty because her sins have parched her soul.  She keeps drawing water from the wells of sin which always leave her thirsty.

The woman begins to pay attention when Jesus calls her out on a half-truth by saying: “you have had five husbands.”  Once the truth is revealed, perhaps a truth she was greatly ashamed of, that she’d had five husbands, she is able to recognize Jesus as a “prophet.”

As the conversation continues, Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah and the woman becomes an evangelizer by bringing others to Christ by sharing her experience.  Her experience with Christ moved the woman from darkness into light, from living in a lie to living in the truth, from drinking water from a well that leaves her always thirsty and wanting to drinking from the well of living waters.

The passage makes two questions arise in my mind, I will focus more on the second:

1. In what ways am I like the Samaritan woman?  What well do I keep going to that leaves my soul parched rather than going to Christ who will quench my thirst?

2. In what ways am I like the apostles and the other women of the village?  In what ways do I judge others, jump to conclusions without knowing the whole story, gossip and destroy the reputation of others?  How often do I make false judgments and act based upon them, doing violence to others by my words and actions?

I remember getting upset once in college when I got up from my pew at Mass to let an older lady sit down and a young guy rushed in and sat down.  I was furious!  A week later, I spotted the guy on campus, I noticed he had a limp.  As I walked past him, I overheard his conversation: he had a deformed foot and couldn’t stand on it very long.  I overheard at just the right moment.

Once a lady said to me, “Father I never gossip because all I say is true.”  Gossip is true most of the time, just because I know something doesn’t mean I can share it with others.

Gossip, rash judgement, half-truths and lies are always destructive.  They sow discord and undermine trust.  This happens between husband and wife, it happens in families, work places, parishes etc.  We must remain in the Truth, using our words only to express what is true and kind.

My advice for when you hear something dubious or suspicious about another person is that you have two options.  First, keep living as if you never heard it because it’s more than likely gossip, idle talk or a lie.  Second, go to the person and clear it with him or her.  If it is indeed a lie, then go to the person that told you that gossip and tell him or her to stop it.  It’s the only way to put an end to it.  You have to pull the rug from underneath the lie.

We must not drink from the well of gossip, rash judgement, half-truths and lies, its water leaves us still thirsty.  The living waters Christ offers will keep us in the Truth and will allow us to be lights in the darkness like the Samaritan woman.


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