NEW TESTAMENT: Romans 5: 1 - 11 (all but Roman Catholic)
Romans 5: 1 - 2, 5 - 8 (Roman Catholic)

Roma 5:1 (NRSV) Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

h/t montreal anglicans

Romans 5:1-11
Paul has already demonstrated that “we are justified by faith”. He says that there are three consequences of being justified (found worthy in God’s court):
• “peace with God”, a state of harmony with him,
• “hope” (v. 2) of sharing his power and eternal life, and
• being reconciled with him.
It is through Christ that we have “access to this grace”, this blessed state of harmony. We also bask in the glory (“boast”) of “our sufferings” (v. 3, and not our accomplishments). Through a progression from them to patient “endurance” under spiritual duress, to maturity in the faith (“character”, v. 4) we come to hope. This is hope of a certainty (“does not disappoint”, v. 5) for God’s love enters our very beings “through the Holy Spirit” (which is also God’s gift). “For while we were still weak” (v. 6, i.e. before we knew Christ), at the appropriate time in God’s plan, “Christ died for the ungodly”. It would be rare enough for anyone to die for a pious (“righteous”, v. 7) person, and perhaps a bit more likely for a particularly “good person”, but Christ sacrificed his life for us when we were neither: we were unredeemed sinners then! This proves God’s love for us. So even more certainly, having been made worthy through his death (“blood”, v. 9), will we evade adverse judgement (“wrath”) at the end of time. Then we were against God (“enemies”, v. 10), then we were restored to favour with God by Christ’s death. Even more certainly will we be given eternal life (“saved”) by the risen Christ (“by his life”). We even bask in God’s glory through Christ, being now reconciled (v. 11).

Verse 1: “through our Lord Jesus Christ”: Christ is active as the mediator, the interface between the Father and humans, in carrying out God’s plan of/for salvation. In some form or other, Paul makes frequent use of this phrase in this chapter: see also vv. 2, 9, 11, 17, 21. [JBC] He writes in 1:5: “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name”; see also 2:16. “Through” means mediated by, in the Father’s plan of salvation.



GOSPEL: John 4: 5 - 42 (RCL)
John 4: 5 - 15 (16 - 19a) 19b - 26 (27 - 38) 39a (39b) 40 - 42 (Roman Catholic)

John 4:5 (NRSV) So he came to a Samaritan city called Sy'char, 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."
16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, "Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, "One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."


John 4:5-42
Jesus enters Samaria en route from Judea to Galilee. Exhausted by the heat, Jesus rests; his disciples go for food (v. 8). Rabbis did not speak to strange women in public and Jews considered Samaritans ritually unclean, so the woman is surprised by Jesus’ request (v. 9). Jesus answers her: if you knew that God gives to those who ask (“‘the gift of God’”, v. 10) and that I am his agent, you would be the one asking for a drink, “‘and he would have given you living water’”. She misunderstands, thinking that he asks for bubbly spring water. (A legend about Jacob: for him water rose to the top of this well and overflowed.) Are you counting on such a miracle, for “you have no bucket” (v. 11). This water was good enough for Jacob, so are you greater than him? Jesus contrasts the well water with “water gushing up to eternal life” (v. 14). (In John, living water is the vehicle of the gift of the Spirit in baptism.) While she still doesn’t understand, she at least now asks (v. 15). Vv. 16-18 are difficult, but they do show that Jesus has insight, so he must be “a prophet” (v. 19), and can therefore resolve a religious dispute: the common ancestors of the two peoples worshipped on Mount Gerizim (“this mountain”, v. 20) but Jews claim that the only proper worship site is Jerusalem. Jesus replies (v. 21): “the hour” of God’s intervention in the world “is coming”; then cultic sites will be irrelevant. Samaritans, by accepting only part of the Bible, denied themselves access to the part of God’s end-time plans given through the prophets (“what you do not know”, v. 22); “Jews” are at least on the right track. The time is both “coming, and ... now here” (v. 23) to worship God spiritually, discerning “truth”, the reality revealed in Jesus. God is “spirit” (v. 24, life-giving power). She decides to wait to understand until the “Messiah” (v. 25) comes, but Jesus tells her: “‘I am he’” (v. 26). In her haste to tell others about this amazing man, she leaves her “water jar” (v. 28) behind. Come, she says, judge for yourselves! Jesus tells his disciples that the food that sustains his life is obeying the Father and completing his task (v. 34). There is no time for delay (v. 35a) for God’s harvest, “gathering fruit for eternal life” (v. 36, conversion to Christ) is ready now. Others have already begun to sow, have preached the good news. Meanwhile, after hearing the woman’s witness, many hear for themselves and come to belief in Christ. Jesus is “truly the Saviour of the world” (v. 42).
Verses 3-4: “he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria”: The direct route from Judea to Galilee was through Samaria. The Samaritans were a mixture of Jews whom the conquering Assyrians (in 721 BC) had deemed too insignificant to deport to Babylon and of Gentile people whom the Assyrians had settled in Palestine. See 2 Kings 17; Ezra 4:1-3; Nehemiah 4:1-9. Relations between Jews and Samaritans were never good, but in 52 AD a clash was so serious that it was resolved by Roman intervention (see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.6.1-3 118-36; Jewish Wars 2:12.3-5 232-46). [NJBC]


Verse 6: “It was about noon”: That a person would visit the well to draw water in the middle of the day is surprising; Water was usually drawn during the less hot times of the day: morning and evening. That the woman draws water about noon suggests that she was an outcast from her village.

Verses 13-15: Not only is Jesus greater than Jacob (for whom the well was an entirely adequate source of water for him, his family and his flocks) but Jesus supplants the reality described in the Old Testament. He is also “the bread of life” which supplants the bread from heaven. See also 6:49-51. In Exodus 16:4, Yahweh tells Moses “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you”.

V. 35a is probably a proverb meaning no need to rush: little could be in the fields done for “four months” after sowing (in the days before drilling of seed), but God’s harvest is different: “the fields are ripe for harvesting”. Sowing (preaching the good news) and reaping of this harvest, of “fruit for eternal life” (v. 36), of those who believe, are now consecutive. “‘One sows and another reaps’” (v. 37) usually means that people are deprived of the reward for their labours, but here it has another, positive, meaning: “others [prophets, John the Baptist, perhaps the woman] have laboured” (v. 38); the disciples now join in telling the gospel. Meanwhile, starting from the woman’s witness and going on to their own experiences (“we have heard for ourselves”, v. 42), many Samaritans are converted to belief in Christ. Jesus “is truly the Saviour of the [whole] world”.