Our psalm for today is a canticle commonly sung in the Morning Prayer liturgy in the Episcopal Church (BCP, pp 44, 82). Because of its familiarity from the years of singing it when Morning Prayer was the most frequent Sunday liturgy, it is almost impossible for me to read it silently without the tune carrying me along. Venite, Latin for come, calls us this Lenten season to come and experience the reconciling love of God.

When the woman in our gospel lesson, the one we know only as “the woman at the well,” experienced the awesome power of Jesus’ presence, she rushed to call her neighbors to “come and see.” That call echoes down through the ages to us here and now. When we take the time to “hearken to his voice” as the psalmist cries, as the Samaritans of Sychar did so long age, we come to know what it is to have “God’s love. . . . poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,” to experience the grace of God at work in our lives day by day. Once that happens to us, we know why the woman at the well left her water jar at the well in her haste to share with others the good news of God’s reconciling grace. We too want others to come and see what we have found.

As I write this, I am visiting my 94-year-old mother in Tennessee. She told me that was shocked a couple of Sundays ago when an usher at her church greeted her saying, “You are such an inspiration to me!” She says she can’t imagine why, as she looks at her circumscribed life, weak and frail as she is, almost blind, barely getting around with a walker. She wonders what there is about her life that could possibly be an inspiration to anyone now that she can’t DO anything for anyone. She can’t see what her faithfulness through all her diminishments says to those she doesn’t even know but who see her as a model of discipleship. Showing up, especially when it is difficult, coming to worship the Lord Sunday by Sunday no matter what, says “Come and see what joy I have found here, what peace I have experienced in the love of God.” Without knowing it, she follows St. Francis’ dictum to “Preach the gospel; use words if you must,” happy to leave the words to others.