Be more than just seen, but known, chosen, and loved.
A reflection on the Third Sunday of Lent by Ashley Hemingway
The readings mentioned in today’s blog post are the year A readings. If you heard the year C readings at Mass today, they might not match up… but hopefully there’s still fruit for your contemplation here!
Social media is weird.
I know you know this. I know this. I promise you this isn’t a rant about the evils of modern mass communication (we’ll save that rant for another day). But even though I gripe about it and roll my eyes about it, I haven’t gotten around to making myself delete the account just yet.
And why not? I think it goes deeper than just “screen addiction” or “keeping up with friends and family” or even “where else am I going to share blog posts?” I think social media fills a desire we all have in our human hearts: we want to feel seen.
Think about it: you post a relatable meme. Someone comments “I feel attacked!” or “Same” or whatnot. It feels good, in a way. “The thing in this little block is an experience that resonates with me.” I post about my new haircut. I post about my spring break vacation. I want others to see this beautiful scenery I saw, or this cute dog I got to pet, or this profound quote that I loved.
I’m not criticizing people who do this. I am a person who does this. If you know me, you know I post about my kid all day long. I, too, want to be seen.
So why is this not fulfilling? Why, instead of blogs and articles and research papers about the goodness of social media and how it’s done so much for us as a society, do we instead see blogs and articles and research papers completely to the contrary?
I think it’s because that desire of the human heart to be seen doesn’t go deep enough. Social media is a highlight reel. People see of me what I want them to see. Even my “look at me; I’m so normal and I struggle too; look at my dirty dishes” posts are planned and plotted and agendized. Social media is a “safe” place - it lets me be seen without being known.
Being known is a level of vulnerability most of us aren’t comfortable with. I like being seen. Being known is kind of squirmy. Because if you know me, like really know me, you’re going to have to know all of me. The icky parts. The doubts, fears, insecurities, sins, shortfalls. And what if you don’t like it? What if you’re repulsed by me, repelled by me?
We have this kind of bizarre idea that we can be loved without being known, that just being seen is sufficient enough for love. It’s not. To be loved with just sight is a superficial love, because there’s no need to engage the will. Our second reading helps illustrate this for us. “For Christ, while we were still helpless, died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find the courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6-8, italics added).
Love is to will the good of the other. And if all I show you is a highlight reel of my life, it seems like it’s already just too full of good. I don’t need any more. If my life is already perfect, I don’t need you to choose to love me.
But my life isn’t already perfect. I know this. God knows this, even though I want to pretend He doesn’t know. I need Him to will to love me. I need Him to choose to die for me even when I’m not worthy of it. I need to stop pretending it’s enough just to be seen and allow myself to be known.
I believe there may be no better meditation on the joy of being known than today’s Gospel reading, the story of the woman at the well. Even if you heard Year C readings today, please go home and check it out. In the story, Jesus is traveling through Samaria and sends his disciples on an errand so that He can sit alone at the town’s well at midday. He knows what He’s doing, and He knows who He’s there to see.
No one goes to a well at midday. It’s hot, and late, and a whole morning of chores has gone by without the help of water from the well. The only reason you might go to a well at midday is if you are so wounded by people who saw you but chose not to love you, that you no longer even want to be seen. Jesus knows this, and He waits for her there.
The woman comes to draw water. The encounter is already poised to be awkward. Jesus is of course a Jew; the Samaritans have Jewish heritage but have chosen to intermix religions with the other neighboring peoples - a common practice in the ancient near East, but a major problem for the Jews, for whom worship of God alone is paramount. The Samaritan woman is tense. “Give me a drink,” Jesus says. She responds with “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
What happens next is lovely. Jesus speaks truth to her. He tells her she doesn’t know Him (“if you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you ‘give me a drink’...”), but He begins to reveal Himself to her. Jesus, who knows her wounds and also knows that love requires knowledge, speaks to her first about who He really is before He reveals that He already knows her. He does the same for us, if we’re listening.
Then He reveals that He knows her too. And not only does he know her, he knows the dark things, the broken things, the scary things. “You are right in saying ‘I do not have a husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” The dialogue continues. He reveals Himself; He reveals that He knows her and chooses to love her. Their conversation concludes with Him allowing her to know the very essence of Him: “I am he [the Messiah], the one speaking with you.” God does this with us too. He reveals Himself a little; we draw near. He reveals that He knows us. We recoil. He pursues. He reveals Himself in order that we might know Him, so that we might allow ourselves to be known in response.
What good does it do to be known and loved? The woman at the well is transformed by the experience. She leaves her water bucket, and with it her old life, and runs and tells the townspeople of her encounter. Let’s think about that for a moment. This woman is at the well at midday so that she won’t be encountered; she won’t be known or even seen. There’s a serious stigma in the culture of the time around a woman with multiple partners. She has been hurt by those who saw, but didn’t take time to know.
And so for this woman to cast all that aside and go running into the town to tell people that she has been not just seen, but known and received in love, and that they, the ones who wounded her and shunned her, should go have that experience too? That’s extraordinary. It would be as if the alcoholic homeless man on the streetcorner caught you after Mass and asked you if you had ever really known the Lord, and brought you to adoration with him. Think about that for a moment - and then pray for the blessing of encountering someone so transformed.
The Samaritan woman has been hiding who she was for so long because she was afraid of being known and not loved. Don’t we do that too? Isn’t that why we put up walls around our hearts? Isn’t it something radical to allow ourselves to be known? Here’s the thing: Jesus already knows. He already chose to die for you, not because you earned it, but because you didn’t earn it, not even close, and He loves you anyway. This was true when you were created. It remains true when you’re striving or sinning. It remains true when you have doubts. It remains true when you’re confronted with the depth of your human frailty. It will remain true when you die. This love is yours to accept, but it entails knowing and being known.
Have you been to confession this Lent? There’s Confession available at St. Augustine’s Monday-Friday 4:30-5:20. Queen of Peace has a reconciliation service this Tuesday, March 22, at 7pm. St. Patrick has one Wednesday, March 23, at 6:30pm. Holy Faith has one Tuesday, April 5, at 6:30pm. Choose to go with one of our priests, or a total stranger. Choose to go behind the screen, or face-to-face. Choose to laugh or cry or keep a total poker face - just choose to go. It is good for you. I say this not to guilt you or shame you or make you feel uncomfortable or preached at. That’s not my point, and it’s not my job.
Rather, I say this because I’m the woman at the well, too. I have been seen but not known and it hurt me. I know what it is to put up walls and have them broken down by love given freely by Love itself. I have encountered the freedom that comes from being known and received with love, and I’ve been transformed by that freedom, and I want you to have that too.
Come, see a man who told me everything I have done.