Written by professors, graduates, and others in
the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary community, these reflections, prayers, and spiritual practices will take you along the journey with Jesus through the cross toward resurrection.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
• John 4:5–42
We are halfway through the Lenten journey when we cross paths with Jesus and the woman at the well today. A story so familiar and yet unfamiliar each time we encounter it. We struggle with this passage or at least I do. We usually read the passage by beginning with painting an unworthy picture of the woman at the well. We make moral judgments of her that follow her to the end of the passage. I invite you to leave the moral judgment of her behind; Jesus and John, the gospel writer, make no moral judgments of her and invite us into something deeper.
What you may notice when reading without judgment is that it seems so remarkably easy for the Samaritan woman and Jesus to set off on this truth-telling pursuit with each other. “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan. You are a male asking a female for water. You have no visible jar yet you claim to have an everlasting spring.” The Samaritan woman could have easily thrown in a lie without blinking an eye, especially when it comes down to the pressing demand of “Go and get your husband.” Rather she chooses to tell the truth about herself. I have no husband. In turn Jesus, publicly for the first time, reveals a truth about himself in a way he had not before. He simply says “I am the Messiah.” Truth-telling. I am your God and you are my people.
During Lent, we seek to tell more truths about ourselves and to discover truths revealed about the God we encounter at the well of our lives. We seek to take a hard look at what separates us from being who we are fully created to be. We seek to know our place in God’s story. We seek to know the truth of our lives. I believe the reason we tell the woman at the well story so often is because we want the freedom she possesses to tell the truth about who we are and who our God is. To say that our worth is dependent upon the truth revealed by Jesus at the well: “I am the Messiah. I am your God and you are my people.”
Our truth today lies in God who will journey through Samaria to do a little truth-telling about who each of us is and who our God is. Can we, during this Lent, tell the Godgiven truths about our God and about ourselves? Maybe it begins like this … I am a child of God, beloved, holy, etc.
Gracious God, you came to reveal yourself to us. May we tell the truth about who we are and who you are. For you are our God and we are your people. Amen.
– The Reverend Lisa Juica (MDiv’11)
Associate for Admissions
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
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