3rd Sunday in Lent

John 4:5-42

So now we have reached the third week of our Lenten journey through the wilderness and we have come to our third major story in our series of biblical stories about transformation and the way our relationship with God has the power to change everything.  And this week we heard the story of the Woman at the Well.  Once again, the story is long and complicated and dense, but at least this week, we have a story we know, or at least we think we do. 

And also this story, more than the others is actually set in the wilderness, of sorts.  I mean they are right outside of town, but at the start of our story, a very human Jesus is sitting by a well and he is tired and thirsty.  And this is part of the power of the wilderness.  It draws our attention to our humanity, to the urgency of our basic needs, to the reality that self-sufficiency is always an illusion. 

And this wilderness need gives him the opportunity to start a conversation with this Samaritan woman who comes to draw water at the well.  A conversation that is only possible in the wilderness.  Because everywhere else these two people would never speak.  It says so plainly in the text, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”  Race, class, gender and religion divide these characters so deeply that they would usually never interact.  But here in the wilderness, Jesus is vulnerable, just vulnerable enough to create an opportunity for a relationship to form. 

And so they speak.  And all of a sudden, Jesus and this woman have the longest, most theologically dense recorded conversation that Jesus ever has, with anyone anywhere in any of the Gospels.  Which makes sense, seeing as she is meant to be his wife.

Yes, I just said that.  Because you see, in the Bible when women walk up to men at wells, they almost always end up married.  Literally the whole people of Israel is created by women coming up to men at wells.  The exact set-up from in this story is used when Rebekah meets Abraham’s servant and asks her to come back to become Isaac’s wife.   Then her son Jacob returns to meet his future wife Rachael at the same well and their bond ends up forming the 12 tribes of Israel and then centuries later Moses meets his wife Zipporah at well in Midian who eventually leads him to the place where he sees the Burning the Bush and encounters the Living God for the first time, sparking the Exodus.

So if you were a person, Jewish or Samaritan, who knew anything about Torah when this story was being written, you would totally expect from the set-up that these two people are going to end up married, and that marriage may or may not be critical to the salvation of God’s people.  Which is why, in the very earliest interpretations of this story – she, the woman at the well, is the church. 

In this line of thought, the question that Jesus asks her early in their conversation about husbands is not meant to reveal her supposed sinfulness to but show she is available to marry.  Past attempts at salvation, at a meaningful relationship with God for the Samaritan people, for perhaps all of humanity, have ended in tragedy, but now because she is currently unmarried, she is ready to receive the Messiah.  She is a symbol of the church awaiting its bridegroom, Jesus the Messiah.

But the implications of this interpretation were terrifying, especially as the church attempted to institutionalize itself within the Roman Empire.  So instead, the tradition that the patriarchy handed down to us, the one most of us have almost always heard, is that instead she is a sinful women, sexually immoral in some way, and this a story about sinfulness and our need for redemption, not a story about relationships and partnership.

But whoever she is, Jesus and this woman who he meets at a well, these two strangers encountering one another across deep divisions, very quickly get into this really intense conversation about transformation, worship and what will happen when the Messiah comes.  And it is important to note that one thing nearly all the interpretations get right is that Jews and Samaritans hated each other, for a lot of reasons, many of them valid.  They were deeply divided, even polarized from each other.  Is any of this sounding familiar to us today at all?

Yet Jesus declares over the course of the conversation that his reign, he himself will overcome all this and that “true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth” and he reveals for the first time, to anyone in the Gospel of John, explicitly that he is the Messiah.  And through this revelation, in the end everyone was changed, the woman, the disciples, a whole bunch of random Samaritans from this city, and maybe even Jesus himself as he begins to publicly reveal his messianic call.

And so, this story shows us that Transformation is possible, that meaningful relationships and even partnerships can form across deep divides.  It shows us that reconciliation is possible even among those who have only shown animosity and hate.

But it is also important to note that everyone is transformed, but not all at the same speed.  The woman’s change is fast.  She is almost immediately transformed, so are many (but not all) of the Samaritans who she calls, possibly because the reality of tragedy and loss made her and them more open to a change in the status quo.

The disciples however, they are a bit more suspicious, even to the end.  They still have questions, but their transformation is ongoing.  They may have a bit more in common with Nicodemus in this way.  And not unlike him, their power, privilege and relative comfort in the current system might be getting in their way.  But here is what is beautiful, is that Jesus makes it clear that even they are included in the salvific meal in the meantime.  And also, that they are expected to participate in work of the harvest even if they are not yet fully transformed.

So what does all this mean for us in 2026?

First, Transformation is possible.  Jesus meant it when he said that he would draw all people to himself.  The divide between Jews and Samaritans at this time was deep, much deeper than our current political and social divisions and yet Jesus finds ways to overcome them, to bring these people who were raised for generations to hate each other back together through the transforming power of his love and grace.  And he can and one day will do it again.

And then also, Jesus tells us in the passage that “We (his followers) worship in Spirit and Truth”  Which seems pretty radical in our current post-truth world.  But it calls us to pay attention to deep truths, because they are still there.  They are still True, no matter what other noise tries to drown them out.  And in a world where words can no longer be trusted, actions shout.  So we as faithful Christians need to act like we mean it.  We need to act consistently in faith and devotion.  Because when we act out of our deepest, most clearly held values, the truth shines forth and no amount of lies from the outside can overcome it.

And finally that everywhere, all the time, Jesus provides us with all the resources we that we need.  Even in the wilderness, the abundance of this passage is striking.  Springs of water gushing up, food to eat, fruit for eternal life. Even in the wilderness of our own lives, Jesus abundantly provides everything we need, water, bread and wine, divine sacraments that sustain our souls through any obstacle.  Even when we are scared, Even when it is hard, even in the deepest parts of the wilderness, we have everything we need to hold fast to the Truth of the one true God who reigns with peace, humility and sacrifice.  Amen