Homily by Fr. Justin McDonnell on the Fifth Sunday after Easter

This discourse, recorded in the gospel of St John, between our blessed Lord and the Samaritan woman, is one of the more remarkable and more poignant of the many vivid and striking events recorded in the Fourth Gospel. It is unique to the Gospel of John, and does not appear in the Synoptic Gospels. On this Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, we meet a woman whom we know by the holy tradition of the Eastern Church. We know that this woman, who is unnamed in the gospel of John, is none other than Saint Photini, or Saint Svitlana in Ukrainian. The name itself is filled with spiritual meaning. Her name is derived from the Greek word “phós” and means enlightenment- “photismos”. That Saint Photini needed enlightenment, nobody can doubt, given what we know about her life from the Gospel. She was an adulteress, although we do not know the circumstances which gave rise to this situation. The fact that she is alone when she approaches Jacob’s Well at Sychar (still to be found there today) suggests that she is an outcast, or at least a sort of ‘fringe dweller’, on the edges of her community. Indeed, she seems to betoken her lowly status by the surprise with which she responds to Jesus’ initial request for a drink of water to quench His thirst: “how can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman for a drink?” (Jn. 4:9).

Indeed, so drawn in is she by His playful and ironic manner of conversing with her, she finds herself quickly moving from the surface of life to its very depths. She has an encounter with The Truth, and her life will never be the same. Indeed, she is so convicted by the light of The Truth, that she moves quickly from her own doubt, the darkness of her sins and imperfections, from questions about worship and temples, to the perception firstly of Jesus as a prophet, then as the Messiah, and finally as the Saviour of the world. Having herself been enlightened through this encounter with Jesus, she seeks to share this glad news with those who have shunned her, or who hold aloof from her; her neighbours in the place where she lived. She runs to them to announce the good news. Before any of the Gospels were even written, she becomes the living image of a missionary disciple, whose preaching is her own transformed life, and is a word of gladness that she demonstrates and passes on to her community. Eventually she becomes an “equal to the apostles” and a great missionary of the early Church, and was martyred under the emperor Nero in Rome.

Her journey in the faith was remarkable because of its immediacy, its intensity, its strong response, and its vitality. In her we perceive a largeness of soul and openness that is admirable and inviting. In the images of living water, and of the worship “in spirit and in truth” we feel her arrive at the perception of Jesus as the Salvation of the world, passing from merely external to internal apprehensions of his identity. We learn with her that Christ himself is the one who brings enlightenment to the souls of those who seek the truth, the “Living Water” that wells up in the heart of the believer. Those who seek the truth receive enlightenment from the one who is the source of light, and become themselves light bearing messengers of the good news of the gospel.

From this encounter we can glean many lessons for our life today. Firstly, the urgency of the moment in which we find ourselves seems to urge us to find a more convincing and vital way to bear witness to the Living Christ for our poor brethren who do not know His love. Sometimes we ourselves need to reawaken our knowledge of His love for us by searching our hearts, and opening ourselves to His gracefulness. We are to be vigilant and eager in our response of faith, “for the hour comes and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him” (Jn 4:23). What is the meaning of the worship where God is worshipped in spirit and in truth? And for what reason does God seek such worship? The answer to these questions are of course only found by considering the nature of God, which is described by our Lord when he says that God is a spirit and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. This is of course the ground of all the worship of God. That it must be true worship means that it must be spiritual, and that it must be also true spiritual worship means that is must gush forth from hearts open to The Truth, as such. Living this Truth with vitality is all the work of our spiritual lives.

The fact that God differs so radically from us is of course a truth which lies at the very foundation of all true religion, because it is impossible for us to convey true reverence for God and yet see in him any trace of our own feebleness and imperfection. Of course, the Holy Scriptures overflow with testimony pointing to God’s infinity and his omnipresence, to His transcendence, and to His singular holiness. This of course gives rise to the truth that God has no body and must be therefore a pure spirit. All that passes for the true worship of God must take its character from the nature of God. That is, it must be worship in spirit and in truth. If then, the Father has revealed himself as a spirit, it must necessarily follow that merely external and ceremonial worship is insufficient by itself. The worship in the temple in Jerusalem or, amongst the Samaritans on Mt Gerazim is not depicted as untrue, or as unspiritual, it is just incomplete, and partial. It was indeed true worship in that it pointed to its fulfilment in the Messiah, and pointed toward that which was to come. It pointed toward that truth, but was not its living embodiment. It was its adumbration (ad umbratio- from out of a shadow) and its prefiguration. It awaited its fulfilment in the arrival of the God-Man, the one who conveys to humanity both the spirit and the truth of God because He is The Truth incarnate, God clothed in man’s flesh. This is the scintillating and effulgent light of the revelation! God who is Spirit and Truth shines forth radiantly from his incarnate embodiment in Jesus the Christ. Nothing could be more astounding or earth shattering!

This knowledge of the truth of who He is brings the heart of man to the place where he must either bow down in worship, or shrink from it, retreating into shadows and eventually darkness. The worship of God requires the ready homage of the soul, an act of worship in which all the powers of the inner man are wonderfully combined, so that the understanding, the will, the mind, and the emotions, are all engaged in the lofty service of pure worship. To worship God in spirit and in truth with all of our will and understanding, with the powers of our soul embracing this truth of God, the soul with all of its energies, with all of its choices and decisions, the emotions with all of their striving and force, even the work of our body in acknowledging its duty to bow down and worship before the Lord God Almighty, is embraced by this central theme of the story: the true worshippers “shall worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father seeks such to worship him”.

It was not unknown amongst the pagans before the coming of Christ that the character of the divine was spiritual. The Greeks, the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Platonists of Alexandria, and numerous others, stated it very well. What therefore is new in what Christ tells us? Did he put forward something especially novel? Did he give us a new method by which to ascertain the truth? Did he give any new commandments, new inferences from ancient truths, or show us perhaps for the first time the centre point in all of these things? No, not really. What was really new, was that for the first time these things were no longer abstractions of the mind. They were embodied by his very being. To realise this is to plummet the very heart of religious truth. This conception of God as The Truth, as such, is given in His giving of his own life and being. The Samaritan Woman receives this gift, and finds her whole life transformed and renewed. She is “enlightened” by The Truth.

He proclaimed in giving it to her that this knowledge of the truth that we must worship God in “spirit and in truth” is for everybody no matter who we are. That it is possible for every single human being that exists to have a spiritual life, and that God indeed indwells all of us. This is made possible by the obvious kinship that exists between all human beings, all human spirits, and God who is our Creator. We should ourselves worship God in this truth, and we should in fact see the spirit of God living in the hearts of others. For us to worship God in spirit and in truth is in fact to live one’s whole spiritual life upon this foundation. We may have been reckless. We may even have been blasphemous or godless. The poor Samaritan woman was certainly not perfect as the story conveys. We may have had our sins pronounced corrupt. We may have felt a disinclination to approach the truth of God. We may have felt inclined to turn away and to hide from the God who is the one who searches out every heart, but with that woman of Samaria, Saint Photini, we too can allow our hearts to be filled with joy to recognise the light of this faith, and to see within ourselves the spirit of God speaking in our hearts; living, inspiring, guiding, consoling, and raising us up slowly step-by-step to perfection. To worship God in spirit and in truth means that we don’t only recognise this in ourselves, but we see it active and moving in the hearts of others. Indeed, this was one of the main responses of the Samaritan woman. She made haste to go and tell her neighbours, her friends, and those with whom she shared her life, about this remarkable encounter she had with He who not only teaches us to worship in spirit and truth, but He who is himself the truth, the giver of life, and the one who brings light to darkened souls. To worship in spirit is to live as spirit to spirit, heart to heart, in an immediate relationship to God. To worship in truth is to care about the truth as such and not to be derelict with regard to the truth. As we see, the Light and Life of the God-man is His gift. St Svitlana received that gift in abundance, and also gave it in abundance. May she pray for us, and glory to our God. Amen.

Photo: Mishka Góra

See also

January 26 Pastoral visit to Tasmania