The Wells of Jacob and
Jesus
Introduction
Jacob’s well
On
this third Sunday of Lent, Jesus and the disciples are journeying through
Jesus and the disciples are
sweaty and dusty, tired and thirsty. Near the town of
Ancestral
wells
Ancestral
wells are the wells to which mothers and fathers lead their sons and daughter
to drink, and to which those sons and daughters in turn lead their children. Ancestral
wells are all our stories. We are all conceived and born as "tabula
rasa"--as clean slates. We are all born with a kind of original innocence.
But the moment we come into this world, we are led to the ancestral well. There
with mother’s milk we start imbibing and ingesting. There our clean slates
begin to be written upon.
The
ancestral well runs deep. "Sir,"
says the Samaritan woman in the gospel today, "you don't have a bucket,
and the well is deep" (Jn
The ancestral well runs deep. From its depths we draw
many of the questions we ask of life and the answers we give. From it we ingest
the values and priorities with which we arrange our lives and the blessings and
curses we utter along the way. From the ancestral well we even imbibe the kind of
the politics we vote for (Democratic or Republican); the kind of morality we
espouse. From the ancestral well we imbibe the kind of God we believe in--a
Jewish or Christian or Islamic God.
Blessings in the well
Some
of the best stuff in us is ingested from the ancestral well. Some of my best
recipes for spaghetti sauce come from my Italian ancestral well. My taste for the healthy Mediterranean diet
and for pannini, prosciutto and pasta in particular come from my ancestral
well. My warm nature and my sense of hospitality also come from there. Our
custom of kissing mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters uncles and aunts
and cousins when greeting each other, instead of simply tossing them a
meaningless “Hi,” comes from our Italian ancestral well.
Mischief in the well
Some time ago a
friend wrote saying, “I was raised in a conservative working class family in
That’s his worldview which he imbibed at his
ancestral well. It sounds innocent enough, but it isn’t. Mischief lurks in it,
and my friend knows it. He continues saying, “This is my worldview, and it is
comfortable, but the truth is not comfortable. The truth hurts, especially if
you are comfortable and are living in Grafton or Cedarburg.”(Those are rich
little towns in
Over
the centuries weary wayfarers were stopping at the well of Jacob and imbibing
the blessing of its cool clear waters. At the same time they were also imbibing
a good amount of mischief from the well, for in ancestral wells there also lay stagnant
and murky waters. There was, for example, the mischief of religion crawling
around in Jacob’s well, and weary wayfarers were swallowing it. In the gospel today, the woman at the well , a
Samaritan, was arguing with Jesus, a
Jew, saying, “You Jews say it is in Jerusalem that God should be worshipped
while we Samaritans say that it is here on Mt. Gerizim that God should be
worshipped” (Jn 4:19).
Where
in the world did Samaritans get their claim that
It
sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Muslims say the only right place to worship God is
in a mosque, Jews say it’s in a synagogue, and Christians say it’s in a church.
All of us are drinking from our ancestral wells. Jesus refuses to drink from
his ancestral well. Instead he tells the Samaritan woman,”Believe me, ma’am,
the hour is coming when we will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor
in
Racist mischief in Jacob’s well
There was also the mischief of racism mixed in with
the mischief of religion crawling around in Jacob’s well, and weary wayfarers were
swallowing it. After resting a moment at the well, the disciples went off to
buy some food and left Jesus alone at the well. Along came the Samaritan woman
to draw water. Jesus asked her for a cup of water. “What!” she exclaimed. “You
are a Jew and ask me, a ritually unclean Samaritan, to hand you a cup of
water!” Here the gospel adds parenthetically, “Recall that Jews never touch
anything that Samaritans touch. They never have anything to do with Samaritans” (Jn 4:9). That's a euphemism for
“Recall how Jews hate Samaritans." Jews considered themselves as racial
and religious pure-breds and Samaritans as racial and religious mongrels. Where
in the world did the Jews of Jesus' day learn to hate Samaritans as mongrels
and infidels? Why, of course, at the ancestral well. As babes in arm they were
carried to that well and there swallowed and gulped it down with mother’s milk.
That, too, sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Where in
the world do Usama bin Laden and the Islamists and Jihadists learn to hate us
Western mongrels and infidels with hatred so intense that it purposely planned
and succeeded in bringing down two towers and three thousand innocent human
beings on 9/11? Why, of course, they learn it at the ancestral well. As babes
in arm they are carried to its stagnant and murky waters. There they imbibe their worldview that Islam
is the only way: that the whole world should be Islamic; that Medina and Mecca
in Saudi Arabia are the only true places where Allah should be worshipped; that
Jihad is the holy warfare decreed by Allah to make the whole world Islamic, and
that dying in that battle makes you a glorious martyr and gains for you immediate
entrance into Paradise where 72 virgins await you.
Islamic extremists institutionalize the
hatred of their ancestral well in schools called madrasas. There little Muslim
kids are not taught to read in order to become intelligent human beings
(thinking profoundly and drinking discriminately), but there they are taught to
hate in order to become suicide bombers. There little minds are deceived into
thinking that some hate-filled political agenda is far more precious than their
own individual lives.
Conclusion
Jesus’ well
The conversation between Jesus and the
Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob is rambling. There is even a liturgical directive
that says the gospel may be cut short for the Sunday assembly. When the story
opens, it is the woman who has cool clear water, and it is the Lord who is
thirsty and is asking for a drink. In
the course of the rambling, we find ourselves saying, “For God's sake, give the
poor man his drink of water." Nowhere in the whole story does it say that
Jesus ever got it. There is no material
transaction. There is only spiritual transaction in which the tables are turned.
At the end of the day, it is Jesus who has cool clear water, and it is the
woman who is thirsty and is asking for a drink.
We Christians drink from two wells: the
ancestral well and the well of Jesus. At our ancestral wells we do, indeed, imbibe
the riches of our Italian, Hispanic, Germanic and Irish origins. And we do,
indeed, drink from the riches of our Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths. But this
is also true: at the ancestral well we often imbibe as animals do at a trough--mindlessly
swallowing and gulping down anything that comes our way. With its prejudices,
half-truths and full lies the ancestral well at times slops us as pigs are
slopped at a trough. But Christians drink also from the well of Jesus. There we
are challenged to do what human beings were created to do: not to imbibe as
animals do at troughs, but rather to think profoundly and drink discriminately.
There at the well of Jesus flow the fresh
clean waters of our baptism calling us to rebirth. There the waters of our
baptism, as well as our Lenten repentance, call us to go back into the womb and
unlearn whatever in our worldview needs to be unlearned, for the wonderful
process of life is not only about learning but also about unlearning.
There at the well of Jesus the waters of
our baptism call us to wash away labels like Samaritan and Jew, labels like
Latino and Black and White, labels like Believer and Infidel. There at the well
of Jesus the waters of our baptism call us to wash away pretentious claims
about the right place to worship God, and to concentrate instead on worshipping
the Father in spirit and truth.
There at the well of Jesus flow waters so
cool and so clear that they can even refresh you on a “hot, hot, hot” August
day in