Samaritan Sunday
It is celebrated 28 days after Easter.
The Lord comes to a town in Samaria called Sychar. (Samaria was the name of the city built in 880 BC by the king of Israel, Ambri, then Mount Shomor which was its citadel and finally the entire northern kingdom of Israel, which was overthrown by the Assyrians in 721 BC and their ruler settled there gentiles from many places).
There was Jacob’s spring, the well that he had dug. Tired of the journey, the Lord sat alone by the well and down naively, because his disciples went to buy food. There comes a woman from Samaria to get water and the Lord, being thirsty as a man, asked her for water.
She understood from his appearance that he was a Jew and marveled that a Jew would ask a Samaritan woman for water. If you knew, he said to her, the gift of God, who it is that asks you to drink water, you would ask him and he would give you living water. The Lord affirmed that if he had known he would have become a partaker of truly living water, as he did and enjoyed later when he learned it, while the conference of Jews who clearly learned, then crucified the Lord of glory. It is a gift from God, because he considers everyone dear, even the gentiles hated by the Jews, and he offers himself and makes the faithful vessels receptive to his Godhead.
The Samaritan woman did not understand the greatness of living water, she wonders how she will find water without a bucket in a deep well. He then attempts to compare him with Jacob, who calls him father, extolling the genus from the place and singles out the water with the thought that no better can be found. But when he heard that the “water that I will give you” will become a spring that flows to eternal life, he left the word of a soul that yearns and is led to faith and asked to receive it so that he would not thirst again. The Lord wanting to reveal himself little by little, tells her to call her husband, knowing how many men she has had and the one she has now is not hers. But she is not upset by the control, but immediately understands that the Lord is a prophet and asks him for explanations on high matters.
Do you see how long-suffering and industrious this woman is? How much collection and knowledge did she have in her mind, how much knowledge of inspired Scripture? And immediately he asks him where God should be properly worshipped, here in this place or in Jerusalem? And then he receives the answer, that the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. He even knows that salvation is from the Jews, he did not say it will be, in the future, because it was he himself. The time is coming and it is now that true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.
Because the supreme and adored Father is the Father of self-truth, that is, of the only begotten Son and has the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit and those who worship him do so because they act through them. The Lord removes any physical sense of place and worship, saying: “God is a Spirit and those who worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth.” As the spirit that God is He is incorporeal, and the incorporeal is not located in a place nor described by local boundaries. As incorporeal God is nowhere, as God He is not everywhere, as continuous and containing everything.
God is everywhere, not only here on earth but also above the earth, Father incorporeal and indefinite in time and place.
Of course, both the soul and the angel are incorporeal, but they are not in a place, but they are not everywhere either, because they do not hold the universe together, but they need what is held together.
As the Samaritan woman heard these exquisite and godly words from Christ, refreshed, she remembers the expected and desired Messiah, the so-called Christ who, when he comes, will teach us everything. Do you see how ready she was for faith? How would he know this, if he had not studied the prophetic books very wisely? Thus he anticipates about Christ that he will teach the whole truth. As soon as the Lord saw her so hot, he openly said to her: I am Christ, who is speaking to you. She immediately becomes a chosen evangelist and, leaving the water bottle and her house, runs and draws all the Samaritans to Christ and later with the rest of her light-like life (as Saint Fotini) she seals her love for the Lord with her martyrdom.
(Excerpt from a speech by Saint Gregory Palamas)