John 4:5-15
5 [Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
…near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6 Jacob’s well was there…
One of the things that pilgrims to the Holy Land quickly learn is that everything is built on top of something else, which is on the site of some other historical event. It’s a small geographical area built in layers that date back to the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).
As you walk around on the historical sites, you can’t help but feel a deep connection with all the generations of people of faith who have walked that same path before you.
Visitors to the United States from other parts of the world often comment that everything here is so new. Someone who lives in a 500 year old farmhouse in Italy is not likely to be as impressed by a 200 year old structure as we are…
Returning to the United States after wandering around in ancient ruins, worshipping in churches that are built on top of Roman temples, and eating in restaurants that have been operating on the same spot for 1000 years, can be disorienting. For those of us whose families immigrated to this country sometime during the last 200 years, there is no physical connection to our ancestors or to the places where they lived and died. Ours is a more existential connection.
So, what does any of that have to do with faith? Everything and nothing. Faith is believing without seeing, so it isn’t affected by our physical location. It can be more difficult, however, to develop a sense of connection with our forebears in faith when we’re physically separated from the places where they lived.
Prayer: Lord Jesus: Thank you for the gift of the Church, the Body of Christ, in which we all dwell together in You. AMEN