Homily

Who are these Samaritans we hear about several times in the Gospels? If we go back about 1020 years before the birth of Christ, we find the first king of Israel, King Saul. The Jews had begged the Lord to allow them to have an earthly king like all the other nations, and the Lord gave in to their request but not without a warning of the dangers involved in such a political system. This kingdom lasted only 90 years before it split into two separate nations and each with its own king. The northern tribes called their land the Kingdom of Israel, while in the south they were known as the Kingdom of Judah, with the capital being Jerusalem.

Now the Samaritans in the north come from two different groups. (1) When this kingdom fell to the Assyrians about 700 years Before Christ, many of the Jewish leaders and people were taken to Assyria. The ones left behind would become the core group of the Samaritans. (2) The Assyrians also brought large numbers of foreigners from Babylon and Media into northern Israel and they eventually mixed in with the native population, also becoming part of the people who would be known as Samaritans.

The Samaritans refused to worship at the temple in Jerusalem and their relationship with their former brothers in the south became dramatically worse when they looked for ways to block the restoration of Jerusalem after the end of the Babylonian captivity, when the Jewish leadership was allowed to go back to Judah after years of exile in Babylon. Also, in the second century B.C. the Samaritans helped their Syrian rulers to wage war against the Jews. To counter this aggression, later on the Jewish High Priest, in a time of brief victory for the Jews, burned down the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerizim.

Religiously the Samaritans accepted only the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament as being Sacred Scripture. They considered Moses to be the last and greatest prophet, and they claimed that the southern Jews started to go bad when Eli set up a shrine at Shiloh, because Gerizim was set by God to be the only place for sacrifice to the Lord. The temple in Jerusalem was an offense to God, and they, the Samaritans, were the only true Israelites. They rebuilt their temple on Mt. Gerizim around the time of Christ's birth, so you can imagine the hostile and bad feelings between the Samaritans and the Jews at the time when Jesus sat down with this woman at the well. (And, interestingly today there are still Samaritans, whose religious practices also have some borrowing of pagan ideas. They do not offer animal sacrifices any more, but they keep many of the Old Testament Jewish feasts.)

The Samaritan woman Jesus spoke with at the well became a kind of evangelist and an apostle when she went to tell her neighbors about Jesus. She did not care about the traditional hatred between Samaritans and Jews, because Jesus had converted her heart to God, and she now convinced her neighbors to come and see Him for themselves. She has a name that was given to her at baptism, "Photini," or, "One who has seen the light." In Christian tradition her story does not end here but it was noted that she became, after the Resurrection, a great preacher and teacher of the Christian faith and she received the title, "Equal-to-the-Apostles." In fact, her feast day on our calendar is February 26.

It's difficult to know very much reliable information about her beyond this. Her legend began to grow in the Byzantine Empire as time went on and there were detailed stories developed in the minds of pious preachers and writers. It may very well be true that she died during the persecution of Nero, and that she was baptized along with her sisters and two sons on the day of Pentecost, and then went on as a missionary, but some of the other, later stories about her activities probably come from pious imaginations.

According to the legend, she was to be arrested in Rome during the time of Nero's persecution. She was supposed to be arrested but she went first to Nero herself and began to talk to him about Jesus. Nero asked her and her son and companions whether they were willing to die for the Nazarene, and they all said, "yes." They were beaten but refused to recant. According to the legend, Nero had his daughter, Domnina, bring Photini and her companions to sit in front of a table covered with gold, jewels and fine clothes, and Domnina was to tempt these Christian women with these riches to give up their faith in Christ. Instead Photini converts Nero's daughter, who is baptized along with 100 of her slaves, and she orders that the gold and jewels be distributed to the poor people of Rome!

For three years they were imprisoned and tortured in Rome and they turned their prison into a kind of church where many came to believe and were baptized. Finally Nero had all of them killed except St. Photini, who, after suffering the loss of her family and friends died in prison some time after.

St. Photini is my New Testament girlfriend. What I love about her is this attitude she conveys in the Gospel. Jesus points out that she is a pretty immoral woman, but she doesn't get angry with Him, she's not abusive, or defensive. She doesn't try to explain away her behavior or deny it. She is just so open to the truth here, she is so open to Jesus, she is so caught up by him that nothing else now matters to her. And we see that by the symbol of her leaving her water jug behind at the well. She has become enthusiastic for Christ, so much so that she is willing to face the scorn and abuse of her neighbors to give them the good news of the Messiah she met at the well. She is so enthusiastic for Jesus that they overlook her immoral faults, they overlook that Jesus is a Jew, because there is something about her, something so changed and so compelling that they just have to go see the man who brought this change about. Then they, themselves, become converts.

When we stop to think about the living water we have received, and when we pause to consider all the good that has been given to us by the Lord, which is always greater and more perfect than the trials and sorrows that have come our way and are only temporary, let us also make some room in our lives to be enthusiastic for Jesus Christ, and never be afraid to tell anyone Who He is, or what He has done for us, because there is no one in this world Who is more enthusiastic for our life and our salvation, than Jesus. May St. Photini pray for us.