Harden Not Our Hearts

Stone-faced, stone-cold, heart of stone, bloodless stone, stony disposition: these are all descriptions of someone each of us knows – a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, perhaps a stranger. This condition is caused by a difficult and troubled childhood, loss of a loved one (perhaps a parent or spouse), betrayal, sickness, sadness, loneliness or feeling abandoned and unloved. Here’s where Moses helps us help them.

Our first reading from Exodus reminds us we all must be like Moses with his staff that he used to strike the stone.  When we recognize someone in need of understanding, compassion, love, and acceptance – their thirst for water, living water – instead of thinking they will be suspicious and distrustful and will stone us if we reach out to them, we must be bold and brave.

We must go to them. We must take Moses’ staff we call “the Lord in our midst” made very real by our understanding, compassion, love, and acceptance. Then with that formidable staff we strike their hard and stony hearts to open them so water will flow to become living water for them to drink making them smile, warming their cold blood and hearts, and quenching their thirst. Especially this Lent, the Christ in all of us must wield our staffs to break and shatter their stones.

When we go to them, they should hear our voices singing, “Harden not your hearts.”  Our choir and responsorial psalm strike at or get to the heart of the matter.  So does our second reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  Paul told us and still tells us today: “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Perhaps that’s the best way to describe the staff that breaks their stones. It’s the love of God and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ parable of the Samaritan woman at the well as told to us in today’s Gospel provides all us with a Lenten challenge.  The question is: Will we meet his challenge or simply walk away.

This story is filled with symbolism.  To understand this, we must appreciate the history of first-century Jews and Samaritans who were divided by centuries of hostility and deep prejudice. They shared a common heritage with both believing they had the true faith.

Samaritans were considered heretics, foreigners, and unclean by Jews who avoided contact with them. They were Jews who intermarried with other people including the Jewish enemy – the Assyrians. The Samaritan woman understood racial hatred and bloodline disputes. We all must recognize and oppose that hatred and those disputes so prominent in today’s world and in our own nation.

In this story of the woman at the well, as told to us by John about Jacob’s Well,  Jesus deliberately crossed clear ethnic and religious boundaries. That was a very bold step. Jesus could have easily avoided Samaria, but he didn’t, and he met her at noon in the fullest light of the day – not in secret.

We’re also supposed to cross these ethnic and religious boundaries and use this woman as our model for Christian faith and witness.  We must come to realize that no matter who we are, who they are – no matter what our or their faith or social status may be – God is revealed through us, and we must act accordingly.

We must meet people at Jacob’s well that is a rich biblical symbol for community where we share resources, develop relationships, resolve differences, and reconcile. We must meet our friends and strangers at their wells, in their homes, in their neighborhoods, and in this church where we eat and drink with them, talk with them.

We seek their welfare and well-being. That’s how we draw well water to quench thirst for affection and recognition – that which is needed for their and our lives. It’s living water.

I end with this story.  There was an old and well-respected rabbi and teacher who asked his students how they could tell when night had ended and day was on its way back. His students replied, “Could it be when you see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” 

“No,” answered the rabbi.

“Could it be when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it’s a fig tree or a peach tree?" 

“No,” was the response.

“Well then,” the students demanded, “when is it?”  

The rabbi smiled and said, “It is when you look on the face of any man or woman and see that she or he is your brother or sister.  Because if you cannot do that, then no matter what time it is, it is still night.”

So, we must all ask ourselves, “Is it still night?  Or, do we see our brothers and sisters?  Do we give them living water?  Do we quench their thirsts?  Have we broken and shattered those stones?

Deacon David Pierce