Samaritan Woman 2023 Fr. Nicholas Carr

Holy Spirit. Christ is risen. Before I forget,

a very happy Mother's Day to all mothers and

godmothers and matushki. I just learned that

word yesterday, the plural. And, of course, the

grandmothers and the great -grandmothers and

however many other generations there might be

here. Have you ever truly been thirsty? Have

you been really thirsty? You know, totally dehydrated.

Perhaps you were working on a hot day out in

the field or in the yard, or perhaps you were

hiking. But when you are really dehydrated, when

you are thirsty, you truly know the importance

of water. And how wonderful it is to raise that

glass of crystal clear water to your lips and

pour it into your parched mouth and realize that

life -giving nature of water and how essential

it is for life. And in today's gospel reading,

it's all about water. And it starts at a well,

Jacob's well. Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son

of Abraham. This well is located in Samaria,

and if you so desired, you could go there this

very day. You could go to the foot of Mount Gerizim,

and you could be on a pilgrimage, and you could

go up to that well, and you could drink from

the water that is in Jacob's well. Well, Jesus

arrives. at Jacob's well at noon. And being wearied

from his journey, he is thirsty and desires a

drink of water. And there is a Samaritan woman

there. And Jesus says to her, give me a drink.

And a dialogue, a conversation begins between

the woman whose name is Fotini, or perhaps Svetlana,

depending on your point of view. And Jesus, talks

to Svetlana and asks her for this water, and

she brings him water, but first they talk about

the difference between living water and physical

water. And Jesus says of this difference, whoever

drinks of this water, meaning the physical water,

will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the

water that I shall give him will never thirst,

but the water that I shall give him will become

in him a fountain of water springing up into

everlasting life. And Jesus is talking about

spiritual water. And just as our bodies need

physical water, so too our souls need spiritual

water. thirst for God. David speaks of this in

Psalm 42, saying, as the deer pants for the water

brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul

pants for God, for the living God. Blaise Pascal

said that there is a God -shaped vacuum in the

heart of every man which cannot be filled by

any created thing, but only by God the Creator,

made known through Jesus Christ. Our souls long

for this living water. We need this living water.

We need the Holy Spirit. And just as the holy

apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and

walked in God's will, so we too are to be are

to take that area, that vacuum in our hearts,

and to fill it, to ask God to fill it, to have

the Holy Spirit dwell in our hearts, to drink

from that well that has living water and be filled

with the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says to Fotini,

but the hour is coming and now is. When the true

worshipers will worship the Father in spirit

and in truth, for the Father is seeking such

to worship him. God is spirit, and those who

worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

So just as our bodies need physical water, so

our souls need to be filled with living water.

So why are they sometimes not? What happens?

Because all of us choose to drink from other

wells at times in our life. We don't go to God

in prayer when we really need to. We get distracted.

There are entertainments. There are wells that

fill us with that temporarily fill our thirst.

But they will not fill it eternally. And yet,

somehow, we still go back to those wells. It's

good for us to ask ourselves, what wells are

we drinking from? There is a well that we can

drink from that is from God. And there is a well

that we can drink from which is all about me.

It is about... and my life and my feelings and

my thoughts. It has to do with what I want. And

sometimes we even tell God what he should do

because we think we know better than he does.

And these are wells that will not spring up to

eternity. And then there are these wells of thought

that are in the world, ways of thinking, if you

will. As a teenager, I drank from such a well,

a group that I affiliated with at that time taught

about reincarnation. Perhaps you know what reincarnation

is, the believing that a soul could come back

in various bodies in various lifetimes, living

many lives as different people. And let me be

clear that we all have one life, we have one

soul, we have one body that's given to us from

God, and we live that life, and that reincarnation

does not happen. But at that time, I chose to

drink from that well of thought. And I was encouraged

to go inward and to seek out those past lives

that were inside me. And I convinced myself,

that I was the reincarnated soul of Captain James

Cook. And I really believed it. And I thought,

yes, I could see myself on the stern of the ship

with the wind blowing through my hair. And I

walked around and told people that I was the

reincarnation of James Cook. Well, I don't believe

that any longer. in case you were wondering.

But drinking from different wells sometimes can

lead us to self -delusion, where we trick ourselves,

or perhaps others tricked us, or perhaps it's

a combination of all the above, maybe even some

darkness involved in it. It tricks us into this

delusion where we choose to believe something

that is not true. And we really believe it, but

it is not true. And I call this well the all

about me well because it's usually focused on

something about you that gets you to think about

just you. And it could be even physical heritage.

It doesn't have to be spiritual heritage, but

it's all about me. And our eyes are not placed

on God. And so ultimately, since our eyes are

not placed on God, we go thirsty again. But there

is only one well that will give you living water,

and that is the church. The church founded by

our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, established

by the holy apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit

on Pentecost, which we very soon will celebrate

here. your eyes on you. But that well, the well

that we come to today, the well where we enter

into worship of the one true God, this will focus

our eyes on God. And how much better that we

would find God's will for our life. What a better

place we'll end up in if we listen to God's will

and go where he would direct us than to trust

in ourselves. So don't settle for this water

of the world in the many temporary wells, the

ones that only quench your thirst today. Instead,

we can go to the well of living water, which

will bring us into God's presence now as well

as for eternity. It will lead us away from pride

and self -will. and lead us to humility and seeking

God's will for our life. And instead of a self

-directed life, we will learn step by step to

lead a God -directed life. So let us follow the

example of Saint Fotini, who chose to follow

Christ and to drink this living water. May we

determine to strive more and more to drink from

that well. Christ is risen.