Meditation Thirteen First Psalm: Psalm 56; Psalm 57; Psalm 58 Second Psalm: Psalm 64; Psalm 65 Old Testament: Jeremiah 1:11-19 New Testament: Romans 1:1-15 Gospel: John 4:27-42
When I was an undergraduate philosophy student, I had a professor who told us, “You can trust me, but only for so long.” By this he meant that his role as a teacher was to bring us to a place where we no longer had to accept his word on everything, but could engage the ideas, questions, and problems we encountered for ourselves. In fact, the more classes I had with this professor, the less he presented himself as a learned authority on philosophy and the more honest he became about his own questions and struggles with the discipline he taught. The result was that we as students were forced to understand the material better and were allowed to come to our own insights and conclusions. Today’s reading from the Gospel according to John shows a similar shift in how the people of Sychar encountered Jesus. It began with the testimony of a notoriously sinful woman: “He told me all that I ever did” (Jn. 4:39). While many Samaritans from the city believed in Jesus on account of this witness, many more put their faith in him after spending two days in his presence. We can probably assume that those who had already accepted the woman’s testimony also found their conviction strengthened during that time. All of us have, on some level, experienced this in our own relationship with Christ. Many of us were brought up in the Christian faith held by our parents, but a point came when we had to take ownership 36
from dust to triumph: reflections for a holy lent