3rd Lent 2012
Fr. Bob VerEecke, S.J.
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. Who are you what have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ, Superstar. Do you think you are what they say you are?
Day by Day, Oh dear Lord, three things I pray. To see thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, Day by Day.
You probably recognize these lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar and
Godspell. They are both playing on Broadway and I got to see them in
tandem. One on Thursday night, the other on Friday. You could say that it
was a real Jesus weekend. In fact I also met with two of my former students
whom I had directed in Godspell when I was teaching at Regis High school
in the early 70’s. They both played the part of Jesus. So you could say I was
immersed in Jesus, inundated with Jesus, flooded with images of Jesus. I’m
using these water, baptismal images given the gospel of the woman at the
well. Oh well.
The Jesus who is portrayed in JC Superstar is tired, worried, conflicted, torn
between the expectations that his disciples have for him and his own sense
of God’s will for him. He is care-worn. The Jesus portrayed in Godspell
seems to have no cares in the world. This funny, almost clown-like Jesus is
completely at home with his friends, singing, dancing, playful, humorous.
Two very different portrayals of Jesus but the one thing they have in
common is this. Jesus is a man of mystery. Mystery Man. No one really
knows what to make of him. Not his opponents. Nor do his closest followers
who betray and deny him because they don’t know what to make of him. He
is enigmatic, infinitely attractive but maddeningly mysterious at the same
time. (Like Father like Son) Jesus of Nazareth was a strange dude. Still is.
Perhaps the words that Mary Magdalene and Judas sing capture that
attraction and elusiveness best. “I don’t know how to love him”.
Today’s gospel of the Samaritan woman captures that elusive, attractive but
strange quality of Jesus. Certainly the woman finds this stranger, strange,
mysterious. He, a Jew, is asking her a Samaritan for a drink from the well.
From the first moment of their encounter the ground rules of “social”
interaction are ignored. This stranger engages the woman in a theological
conversation about tradition, worship and the coming Messiah. She had
never met anyone quite like him. Here was this mystery man who was
promising her Living water, springing up to eternal life. Through him she
experiences something bubbling up inside her. From the well within him she
draws this living water. Her life is changed forever because of this chance
encounter. She becomes one of the first “evangelizers” in John’s gospel. She
leaves her water jar behind for Jesus has once again changed water into
wine. Ordinary water becomes the wine of gladness, the fruit of the vine.
She shares the good news of this mystery man who has been revealed to her
as Messiah, as the one we are all waiting for.
Liberty, Shana, Brandon: you’re here this afternoon because you have
encountered this elusive, attractive, endlessly mysterious man they call
Jesus. And he is making the same promise to you that he made to the
Woman at the well. He says to you “The water I shall give will become in
you a spring of water welling up to eternal life”. Throughout this process of
preparing for baptism, many of us have been telling you “about” Jesus. Now
it’s time to see for yourselves who he is for you, who he wants to be for you,
how much he has sacrificed for love of you. As you come to see him more
clearly, love him more dearly, follow him more nearly day by day, I promise
he will be infinitely attractive yet maddeningly mystifying.