It is important for us to be interested especially in this type of meetings. I have the impression that these meetings are even more precious now than before two thousands years ago. It is surprising discovery, because we can see daily hundreds of various people. However, we really meet just with people, who are similar to us: with people having equal education, same age category, same family, or having the same faith. We can see certainly a lot of other people, too: ľ in the shop, or on the street. We are living side by side, without really meeting each other. We differ thus from our Lord, who knew how to stop on His way to talk with people, who had nothing common with Him, at first sight.

Jesus met this way also with Samaritan woman. His disciples went to the town to buy some food and left Jesus alone. It was around noon, and there was therefore no queue by the water-well. The weather was very hot. Samaritan woman, who came to scoop up the water, met with Jesus eyeball to eyeball. She could not disappear in a crowd, which can protect isolation so well against the real meeting with others. There were still two barriers: nationality and gender.
A Jew and a Samaritan woman. Man and woman. It would be understandable if they would not say anything one to another, and act as if the other one would not exist.

Jesus makes a step to this woman, however. He makes contact ľ by His request or beg: öGive me to drink.ö Lord Jesus, Messiah, and Son of God begins the meeting with Samaritan woman by a request. Not by condemnation: öAre not you ashamed of having so many men?ö He does not start with an offer: öIf you want to get Salvation from God, you can get it from me.ö He begins with a request. öGive me to drink.ö

Jesus says to that woman: öI need your help, I need something from you, something what you can give me, without necessity to become a different woman.ö

Yes, Christ does not approach this woman with all of His glory and strength. He shows at first His weakness: He is thirsty. He does not say to the Samaritan woman: öYou need me, though you do not know it.ö But He says: öI need your help.ö This Christĺs attitude puts our relations to other people, especially to unbelievers, into a special light. We are convinced that we have a lot, what we can give to these people, but we are forgetting that they also have something, what they could give to us. We say very easily: öWe know the Truth. So join us!ö But we are not able to say: öWe need you.ö We can say: öWe need new membersö or öWe need your financial support.ö But we are not able to address so called atheists: öWe need you, such as you are now. We need your questions and objections. We need the fire of your criticism, so that we could purify our faith, so that we could get rid of everything, what does not serve God neither our neighbors.ö We must learn how to say these words, if we really want to become a Christĺs church, if we really want to follow Jesus.

But Jesus is not asking Samaritan woman for help to avoid death from thirst. By this request Jesus even does not want to point to this woman, to make her feel more important. He Himself wants to give, and give in abundance. Jesus knows, how difficult it is to receive a gift, specially, when it is a big gift. How degrading it can be! Saint Vincent said to the nuns, who were helping poor: öYou will have to forget that bread, which you are giving them.ö Yes, even the love gift can hurt and do more harm than help. If some people accept such gifts without twinges of conscience, it witnesses on the fact that they were already degraded, that they lost all of their self-respect. To avoid degradation that could cause rejection of Godĺs gift, Jesus degrades Himself. He makes Himself vulnerable; He exposes Himself to a goodness or badness of this strange woman. This first stage is absolutely essential, so that Jesus could later offer what He can give. He must first receive, maybe also reject, so that He could finally give. At first He must create the relationship, by exposing Himself to other person and by expecting something from him.

Without relationship there is no real gift. We cannot enrich anybody else till there is no intimate relationship built between us. And this confidence must be shown first by that one, who wants to give. We forget importance of this relationship, too much. The whole social policy acts, as if nothing like this relationship would be necessary. The insurance policy creates an impression that what is important is a financial provision, not relationships among people. From whence it follows that inhabitants of states with strong social policy are more easily indifferent to each other and think mostly on their own rights and privileges, while Americans, who are rather poorly protected by the state, are warm one to another and having greater mutual concrete solidarity. Only the relationship adds a value to the gift. Otherwise we have no joy from what we are getting. We can see that the things dearest to us are not those, which have the highest material value, but those, which we got from the people, which we love most.

This applies certainly also for this Godĺs gift that Jesus talked about. This Godĺs gift is after all nothing else than restoration of relationship with Him. The most important word in öGodĺs giftö is not ögiftö, but öGodĺsö. After all this gift is God Himself. When we read this section, we read about the water, the spring. These pictures symbolize the Godĺs grace. We have to realize that this water is
a Holy Spirit, in other words God Himself. The greatest Godĺs gift is God Himself, His presence. His gift is an intimate relationship with Him.

It is special that in this section a Samaritan woman receives in fact the Godĺs gift even before she hears about it. Because the gift is already in the contact with Jesus. As we have seen, the contact was built by a request: öGive me to drink.ö This request is already a Godĺs gift. Godĺs gift does not begin on Pentecost, when disciples received Holy Spirit, neither on Good Friday, when we all received remission of sins. Godĺs gift begins already with Christ becoming a man. That he became somebody, who needed us. We people need God, for whom we mean something. We need God, who is not only giving, but also receiving. We need that God would receive our human lives. Then He can change everything by His presence. Then He can give us everything what we need, without our previous awareness what it is. This God is no stranger to us, He is our brother.

Let us pray:

Lord, You had laid down Your strength so that You would come near to us. Help us to use our faith not like a weapon hindering us from building relationships with other people.

Help us to be able to expose ourselves to the different opinions. Help us, please, to see in everybody our brother or sister, who need us. Amen.