Dear Friends,
Two stories of chance encounters at places of refreshment
teach us the need for both speaking up and listening.
In today’s gospel, Jesus showed a lot of imagination and
took a big risk in talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, asking her for
a drink of water. It was not the done thing. The woman was dumbfounded that he
would talk to her. The disciples were dumbfounded too.
A number of years ago, Bill, a young medical student at
Cornell and recently engaged to Anna, was assigned to an extended research
project at Yale. Understandably, he was not happy about being away from Anna
for three months. Without enthusiasm, Bill boarded a bus for New Haven.
Somewhere along the way, a short layover found him dejectedly
seated at the lunch counter in the terminal, drinking coffee.
Sitting next to him was a middle-aged Black woman. She
looked at his unsmiling face and said to him. “Honey, what’s wrong? You look so unhappy!” “I am," he said. She pushed
on. “What’s wrong, honey?”
He told her the sad story of needing to leave behind his
fiancé for three months. The woman said, "Show me her picture.” Bill obliged.
“Oh, she’s beautiful,” the woman exuded. “Honey, marriage is wonderful. You’re
going to have a long and happy life together. Now you just gotta do what you gotta
do.”
Bill watched her board her bus, having taken in her message.
Thinking back to that moment after being a compassionate physician for many years,
Bill knew that that single encounter changed his attitude, his outlook, his sense
of God’s presence.
We have a lot in common with the Samaritan woman and Bill.
One came to fill her bucket with water, the other wanted a cup of coffee. Each
was wrapped up in their own concerns: she with the scars of five marriages, he with
the youthful loneliness of Anna’s absence. In a moment of grace, the Samaritan
woman met the one who is the source of life and hope. Bill met the messenger of
the one who is the source of life and hope. In their chance encounters, each
met God in a whole new way. It changed them for the better.
This third week of Lent, beginning today, will we be ready
to meet God or the messenger of God? Will we accept the potential the encounter
offers?
~ Sister Joan Sobala
