A DEEPER LISTENING: A RICHER EVERYDAY LIFE
Image: JESUS MAFA. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, Art in the Christian Tradition, Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Original source
The Gospel of the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4:5-42 is a masterly crafted story of how the attitude we bring to our everyday experiences colors – oh, so tremendously colors – what we receive from our encounters with others. Jesus doesn’t see this woman the way she sees herself, nor does he see her the way others see her. So, of course, in the beginning she doesn’t hear his message. Her response echoes that of the disciples when Jesus asked them to feed the five thousand (Mark 6:34-44). In both instances, Jesus receives an “Are you crazy?” reply that leads the reader to understand that they, and perhaps we, too, are not attuned to the deeper realities present in our “ordinary” encounters with the people in our everyday lives.
The story is, in a way, the Cinderella story of a lowly disciple who doesn’t think she has much to offer anyone, who couldn’t even be in a good relationship with her spouse, and yet she ends up being possibly the only person, other than Jesus, to lead a whole town of people to Jesus.
Each of us is the woman at the well, approaching the people we meet with little expectation of what the Spirit of God has done and is doing in us. Remember that our God is a Trinity of persons with love ever flowing in and out of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Remember that we are “made in the image and likeness” of this One-in-Three God, and that Jesus promised us that the Father would send us the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, who would be “with us always.” (John 14:16-17)
So, when I “meet” someone, is it not possible for me to let myself be “attuned to the Spirit of God” present in both of us? Have I experienced the presence of these “living waters” flowing, not just during the encounter but, as with their source, the Spirit, “welling up to eternity”? (John 4:10-11, 14)
CONNECTION TO SYNODALITY
Pope Francis has asked us to practice this deeper listening to each other during the Church’s Synod on Synodality1. (Use this website’s Main Menu to read about the Synod on Synodality that is now, 2023, in its Continental Stage.) Why did Pope Francis ask us to practice this deeper listening in our Synod meetings? So that, if we are not used to encountering and listening like this in our everyday lives, we would have an experience of it. He wants us to use in our everyday lives this Synodal listening, this discernment of the Spirit working in ourselves and in others. What the woman at the well experienced was a transformation of her ordinary listening into a synodalital listening. (To me, this sounds like “listening to the heart” of the other, but with the caveat that the heart of each of us is truly attuned to, and seeking union with, the God who created us. And that is deeper and more real than what the person may think is “listening to the heart!”)
Ponder the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. What do you think she thought of herself and her relationship with God and others as she took her daily walk to the well? What do you think she thought about them after Jesus stayed in her town for two days?
A Challenge: During the coming week, try listening to the people with whom you interact in this discerning way. Then, at end of the week, ask yourself the questions in the above paragraph about the your week.
Sister Loretta
- The principle of synodality is defined specifically as “the action of the Spirit in the communion of the Body of Christ and in the missionary journey of the People of God,” Synodality in the life and mission of the Church, #46, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s International Theological Commission, March, 2018. And we are the Body of Christ.
THE WOMAN AT THE WELL JOHN 4:5-42
“Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.
It was about noon.
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
‘How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?’
—For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.—
Jesus answered and said to her,
‘If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water.’
The woman said to him,
‘Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep;
where then can you get this living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob. . . ?’
Jesus answered and said to her,
‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’
The woman said to him,
‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.’” John 4:5-15
(Note: Does she get what Jesus means or is she still interpreting what he is saying based upon the perspective of reality she created from her past experiences. Would you or I have gotten what Jesus meant?)
‘Then Jesus changes the subject and tells her to call her husband and com back, to which she responds that she has no husband. (This was omitted in the shorter Sunday Gospel.) Jesus says, ‘You are right in saying, “I do not have a husband.”
For you have had five husbands,
and the one you have now is not your husband.
What you have said is true.’
The woman said to him,
‘Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.’
The woman left her water jar
and went into the town and said to the people,
‘Come see a man who told me everything I have done.
Could he possibly be the Christ?’
They went out of the town and came to him.” John 4:17-30
“Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him
because of the word of the woman who testified,
‘He told me everything I have done.’
When the Samaritans came to him,
they invited him to stay with them;
and he stayed there two days.
Many more began to believe in him because of his word.” John 4:39-41