『3-8-26: 3rd Sunday of Lent Homily』のカバーアート

3-8-26: 3rd Sunday of Lent Homily

3-8-26: 3rd Sunday of Lent Homily

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 3rd Sunday of Lent 3-8-2026Taking place at a well...taking time at a well... In the early 300s a Church bishop in Palestine name Eusebius ran a book production factory and library in a city on the mediterranean coast called Caesarea. Eusebius of Caesarea built on the innovative legacy of two scholars – Origen and Pamphilus – who, basically, invented the book. The predecessor to the book, the scroll, was cumbersome, old-technology, and ripe for creative destruction. The book was to the scroll what a digital spreadsheet is to a paper ledger. A book, or codex, was a technological innovation which presented information in a much more efficient and searchable manner than a scroll could. Of the many books published by Eusebius was one called the Onomasticon. It sounds a bit like a mouth disease or the name of a dinosaur but it’s just a long Greek word meaning “book of names.” The Onomastican is a book- length list of many of the places named in the bible, alongside a list of what those places were called at the time Eusebius wrote. Today’s gospel from St. John begins with a place-name which is referenced in the Onomasticon: “Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.” If Sychar were large or well-known, there would’ve been no need to tell the reader that it was a town or that it was in Samaria. Sychar was small and off the radar, so John has to tell us where it is. Sychar is not otherwise mentioned in Holy Scripture. Before probing the theological and spiritual depth of this multi-layered gospel, it’s worth pausing over what this opening line is telling us. The town of Sychar is mentioned because it’s close to a reliable water source – the well of Jacob. Important things happen near wells in the Bible and elsewhere. Moses meets his wife near a well. Isaac’s wife Rebekah is found at a well. Towns and castles and forts are built over wells. No water, no life. The memorable opening scenes of the movie Lawrence of Arabia revolve around a well in a stark desert landscape. A man is murdered for drinking from the wrong well. When asked why he shot the man, the gunman replies “He was nothing – the well is everything.” A well doesn’t move, any more than a mountain moves. A well is a local landmark, and you can pull water from Jacob’s well today. It's still there, in the exact same spot as it was two thousand years ago. The town of Sychar was absorbed into the Roman city of Neapolis, which became modern Nablus. And you can visit modern Nablus in the West Bank, at some risk, and visit the large Orthodox church in which the well is found. A church has been built over the well since the 4th century, as attested to by St. Jerome. The meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well embeds Scripture in history. No New Testament events occur “once upon a time” or “in fairytale land.” Even parables, which are stories and not necessarily historically true, were told by actual people at actual times in actual places. So the recounting of a parable is always a historical event even if the parable itself is not. Today’s gospel “takes place” in Sychar. What an interesting phrase that is! What does it mean to “take place.” It can mean something metaphorical when we say that someone “took second place or third place” in a race, but here it means something much more tangible. Where does Star Wars take place – In a galaxy far far away. That is, Star Wars doesn’t actually take place. It takes celluloid, it takes film. Where does Rome & Juliet take place – it’s set in Verona, Italy, but it takes place at your local theater. Today’s gospel “takes place” in Sychar in the sense that it grabs reality, in the sense that it also “takes time” in Sychar too. This conversation happened in time and in space and in reality. Our faith is sticky, isn’t it? It’s easily remembered because all real memories are inseparable from places. How strange it would be to say that you loved your grandma’s cooking but had no idea where you ate it. You remember where you ate those meals in the same instance in which you remember the meals themselves. A memory, a real memory, and its location are inseparable. This is another way of saying that we naturally link historical truth with time and place. To verify an event, we ask where and when. Isn’t that perhaps the deeper reason why we place a town-name after Jesus’ given name. He is Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of the 4th realm or of the heavenly spheres. He is from somewhere because he is real. Uncle Sam is not from anywhere because he doesn’t actually exist. And we have Teresa of Avila and Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua. Where is Thor from, really? Where are Spok or Captain Kirk from, really? So... today, we are eavesdroppers on a conversation, at a well, in the town of Sychar around 32 A.D...
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