The Tender Voice of Jesus

Around the corner from my office is a statue by sculptor Ivan  Mestrovic of the encounter between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. The Lord is looking straight at the woman. The woman is clinging to a large jar and looking down. It is midday.  What did this woman expect when she woke up that day? Another dry and empty day as the pariah of the town? In Mosaic law, it is the husband who divorces the wife, so she has already been cast off five times. And her current live-in has not married her. Yet here is a bone weary male Jewish stranger, asking her for a drink. Asking her for a drink. Apparently from her bucket. No wonder she is looking down. This statue on the Notre Dame campus freezes time right there.  But in the Gospel, we hear Jesus tenderly poke and prod and speak to her until she opens up and lifts her head. He holds out to her an abundance of the water of life, greater than she has ever imagined.  And she takes it. 

She drops her bucket (to which she clings so tightly in the statue)  and runs to tell the news about the stranger. When she comes back,  she doesn’t bring a bucket; she brings a whole village! 

In art, we look at spaces, not just objects. What most impresses me about Mestrovic’s statue is the tenderness in the space between the two characters. Some of us are preachers, some are teachers.  Whatever our ministry in life, when we seek to help people come to God, it is that tone of tenderness that crosses divides. More important than words, come into the space with gentleness. Living water will flow.

Consider/Discuss 

• Jesus also entrusts his thirst to us. We encounter him in order to be filled.  Yet he has no bucket but ours. What is our role in fulfilling Jesus’ mission to the thirsty world in which we live? 
• Read through the Gospel again, this time imagining great tenderness in the voice of Jesus. How do you hear the passage differently? 

Living and Praying with the Word 

Like the woman at the well and the Israelites in the desert, Lord,  sometimes we wonder if you—or anyone—cares. Yet you continue to tenderly poke and prod and speak to us. Help us to raise our eyes and see you looking at us with love. As we continue on through this Lent, bring us to repentance and to glory, but also deepen our tenderness in our mission to bring living water to those who thirst for you.