Rev. John Campoli, i.v.dei
His Love Ministries

I enjoy reading the inscriptions on headstones in old cemeteries. They have a way of telling you much about the person buried there. One I came across for a woman named Grace Lewellen Smith is probably the saddest I ever read. II says:

Sleeps, but rests not
Loved, but was loved not
Tried to please, but pleased not
Died, as she lived, alone

Grace was a woman who thirsted for love, who tried to please her husbands, but, in their eyes, she always fell short. What do you thirst for?

The Samaritan woman needed water. So, she comes to the well to fill her empty jar. But she comes to the well at noon. That’s a bad time to get water.

The sun is at its highest, and there is no shade. The water will warm up as she walks home with her full jar. It’s much better to come in the morning. But not if you’re trying to avoid people.

In the morning, all the other women would be there. She doesn’t want to deal with the looks or the gossip. “There she is, the woman who’s had five husbands.” So, she comes to the well at noon every day, hoping to avoid their glances. She’s willing to endure the heat and the loneliness to avoid the shame. But she’s not ready to bear the thirst. And so she brings her empty jar to the well.

We all have a thirst inside us, and we try to quench that thirst in a thousand different ways. What do we put into our water jars? What are the wells we visit? Music, viral videos, books, talk shows, fine art? What are we doing to fill up the empty spaces in our lives? Are we working, playing, or praying? Some of those ways are noble and beautiful. Some of them are low and ugly.

We try to fill our jar each day, only to find it empty again, just like the Samaritan woman in today’s gospel.

And then, one day, she meets a stranger at the well. She’s come to fill her jar, and Jesus asks her for a drink. It doesn’t matter that she’s a Samaritan. It doesn’t matter that she’s been married five times. He asks her for a drink.

But it’s not water that he seeks. It’s something else. When he says, “Give me a drink,” Jesus means, “Show me the gift of faith that you have received.”

Jesus thirsts for her faith, and he thirsts for our faith, too.

Today, as we come to the well of the Eucharist, Jesus says to us, “Give me a drink.” In other words, “Draw near to me, get to know me, believe in me. I long to be with you.”

Maybe we don’t believe that. We doubt that Jesus could thirst for someone so weak-willed, so hardhearted. We don’t pray enough. We snap at our kids. We cut people off on the freeway. We’re rude to store clerks.

Jesus doesn’t thirst for me, we think. But he loves us in our weaknesses just as he loved her with her five husbands.

Her thirst was quenched, not by water from the well, but by the living water of God’s love. So likewise, our thirst is satisfied when we accept that we are loved, not despite who or what we are, but because of who he is.

The story tells us that she left her water jar at the well. That’s her headstone. Unlike Grace Smith’s, her stone is a testament to love. And, the woman went to tell the whole town about this man who showed kindness and compassion, and acceptance toward her. She left her burden, and so can we.

Her jar is empty, but her heart is overflowing with the Living Water of Christ’s love because she allowed him to kindle the spark of faith in her.

Our faith is what Jesus thirsts for. It is for this reason he was sent into the world. He thirsts for us because he loves us. No matter how sinful we are.

It’s what Paul tells us in the letter to the Romans: “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God doesn’t love us because we are good. God loves us so that we can become good. From the pierced side of his crucified body flowed blood and water.

“Give me a drink,” Jesus says to us, “so I can quench your thirst with living water.”