Homily

Next Sunday is Mother’s Day and I remember an ad I saw for a Mother’s Day gift. It’s a bracelet of blue-colored beads and in the center of the bracelet is a tiny little round container with a clear plastic top, and that container is filled with a tiny bit of sand. Here is the description of the gift:

“Holly Daniels Christensen’s beachy bracelet lets its wearer carry the good vibes of sun and surf everywhere so you can send that light and love back into the universe. Holly puts a pinch of sand gathered from your choice of one of thousands of picturesque world beaches- into a silver-plated bezel and seals it with jewelry-grade resin. Then, she places the lovely bit of beach sand in a band of ocean-colored beads. An elegant symbol of where you’ve been and where you’re going, it’s a wearable reminder to keep cultivating good karma.”

It's called the Sentimental Sand Custom Karma Bracelet. There is an actual list of many hundreds of beaches around the world from which you can choose your sand to put into the bracelet capsule. You can even choose from several beaches. Mix and match sand is no problem for Holly. What it has to do with karma or your relationship to the universe is completely unclear, but it’s only $52.00 per bracelet. Love you mom!

I remember a story about village in Africa where Catholic Relief Services dug a well for the people. No more travelling half a mile to the river to fill buckets for your daily water needs. One woman was so happy that she could hardly talk. “Oh, I cannot believe how good this water tastes,” she said. Now that’s quite a different perspective from our own experience where tap water is hardly ever given a second thought. I bet that woman never even thought about sending light and love into the universe for the sake of good karma. What a contrast in cultures!

The Samaritan woman came to the village well to get water. We don’t know anything about her home except that she kept stocking it with men. Most likely she did this hoping they would fill the holes in her life, smooth over the rough spots of her unhappiness, provide her with loving care. It didn’t work.

I think Jesus had a great compassion for her, sensing her great need as she came to the well. She wasn’t thirsting for more and better material goods, and although she is intrigued by the idea of never again having to carry water in buckets back home, that is not her real problem.

In His conversation, Jesus pulls her out of her regular, everyday perspective, away from her relationships, even away from the everyday work of hauling water, and even away from her own identity as a Samaritan and a woman. He is able to get her to put all that aside for this moment so that she can truly and really see Him for Who He is. And when he tells her that He is the messiah, she believes. Her entire perspective on life has changed. She has found living water! She is so excited about her new understanding, her new perspective on life, that she wants to share it with everybody. Though the people of the village saw her as an immoral woman, she doesn’t care. She tells them all to come and see Jesus for themselves. She is converted. She is changed.

We are not living in a culture like the Samaritan or the woman in the African village. We live in a wealthy nation even though we usually don’t think about that. If we showed those women the ad for the Sentimental Sand Custom Karma bracelet what do you think they would say? We may not think of ourselves as wealthy but compared to those women we certainly are. As a people we have let our stuff lead us astray and we have allowed that which rusts and perishes to become more important than that which is eternal. We’ve paid more attention to bottled water, and to the bottles themselves, than we have to living water, because we can buy and carry and keep bottled water as we wish but living water cannot be bought or owned. It demands our faith. You would think the wealthiest nation on earth would be the happiest nation on earth, but it is not so, is it? Just yesterday another senseless shooting of innocent people. Nine people dead and at least seven wounded. These shootings are becoming weekly events in our country, but our national focus is now centered on transgender rights. Why is that?

Jesus led the woman at the well past the circumstances of her life, past the hardship of carrying water, her men, her national identity—He led her past all those external things so that she could see Him. She saw. She was converted. Whether there is only one water tap in our village or two sinks in every bathroom in our house, if we don’t want to die of thirst, we need to come to the only Source of Living Water and ask Him to let us drink. There is nothing wrong with the easy and comfortable lives we have compared to the rest of the world. It only becomes a negative when we are not grateful for all we have been given. There is nothing wrong with our material wealth unless we do not use it as our Lord has taught us. When that happens everything else starts to fall apart.

We ought to be a people who are well pleased, not a people who have to fear that if we go to the grocery store today, we may be killed. Karma is a joke. Christ is real life. Our society may be sinking into the abyss, but, even so, we must act and live and love as our Lord has commanded. We need to keep meeting Him at the well, listening to His word, striving to do as He asks us, and putting all our trust in Him. There are so many things in our life, good things and bad things, that can distract us just as they did the Samaritan. But let us focus every day first on the Source of Living Water and let us ask Him to help us drink until we thirst no more. Like the Samaritan woman Jesus has a deep compassion for each one of us. Let us come to Him and see it for ourselves.