Reflecting on the Word

By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

Around the corner from my office at Notre Dame 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 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.

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