3rd Sunday of Lent
March 8, 2026
John 4:5-42
On May 9, 1969, two people gathered around a small inflatable pool to have a conversation, cool off, and share a towel, and by doing so hoped to change their world for the better. This episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood wasn’t complex: two men took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants and then swished their feet together in a shallow pool on a hot day. Fred Rogers and Francois Clemmons demonstrated that a black man and a white one could peacefully share the water. When Clemmons had to go, he used Rogers’ towel to dry his feet. Rogers left the pool directly after Clemmons and proceeded to use the same towel. Their casual intimacy spoke to the denying of Black citizens’ access to pools, or any other place in society just a few decades ago.1 In every episode, Mr. Rogers asked his viewers, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” And he meant it.
This week in our Gospel, we have an unlikely pair of people that sat around a well of water, needing refreshment, and having an intimate theological conversation that changed an entire village. You see, in Jesus’ day, Samaritans also faced segregation, racism, oppression, and injustice. The significance of Jesus telling his disciples they were going back to Galilee through Samaria, and then sending them off to the nearest village so he could rest at Jacob’s Well, cannot be overlooked. Jesus was waiting for someone and I don’t think he wanted to deal with the reaction to the scandal this would cause from his disciples. You may remember from last week that John’s Gospel talked about how God so loved the world–and Jesus was about to demonstrate exactly what that meant.
The story of this woman at the well is one of the longest stories in the Bible about a woman and it is the longest conversation that Jesus is recorded as having with anyone. Her story is one of the most powerful in the Gospels, so much so that the Eastern Orthodox actually named her Photini. She was a bold, curious, smart woman, and a gifted evangelist who was trusted by her people and chosen by God.
This Samaritan woman showed up at the well in the middle of the day to get water. It’s an odd time for going to a well outside of town by oneself, but she goes during the brightest time of day while you may remember Nicodemus went at night. And so we have Jesus, a Jewish man, asking this unnamed Samaritan, a woman, for a drink of water.
Much like the use of a pool and a towel between blacks and whites, Judeans and Samaritans were not to share vessels for food or water, or any objects for that matter.
Jesus’ humanity is on display here. He is thirsty. He doesn’t have what he needs to meet his physical thirst and is reliant on this supposed enemy to get him a drink because she’s the one with the water jug. She has the means to meet Jesus’ needs, and she will soon find out that he has what she needs. She replies with incredulity, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” She doesn’t dance around the matter, either. She is not cowed by his presence and there’s even a hint of mockery in her reply. She knows the rules that are being broken here and she knows that Jesus knows those rules, too.
Jesus takes the practical request for water further by offering her living water. Now she’s not at all sure what he is talking about and points out the obvious– “you don’t have a bucket” assuming the Jewish man is NOT going to take a drink from a Samaritan woman’s water jug. She is guarded, but stays engaged in the conversation. Which alone reveals that she is astute and unafraid to debate with this man, even though she recognizes the societal barriers and boundaries that keep her in her place.
Like Nicodemus, she first interprets Jesus’ words on a literal level. She knows nothing about Jesus being a well-known teacher, about him having followers or disciples, he’s just a thirsty Jewish stranger asking her for a drink. Jesus’ request is daring because by speaking to her he crosses significant social boundaries of religion, ethnicity, and gender.2
While the religious, ethnic, and gender divide is greater between her and Jesus than it was between Nicodemus and Jesus, she holds her own in the conversation and eventually begins to realize that something far greater is being revealed to her. She begins to understand that Jesus isn’t talking about mere water in the well, but this is a conversation about thirst. It’s as if he’s moving her beyond the literal concept of water to think about what it means to be thirsty, and what it is we really thirst for. She goes from seeing a thirsty Jew who needs to learn some manners to someone that is offering her something she needs beyond a drink, what she longs for.
And then Jesus abruptly says to her, “Go get your husband.” Almost like he’s asking her, “Are you married?” Like what does that have to do with anything? But she is finding that what Jesus knows about her is not just general information about her life but the most painful reality in which she has lived and now tries to survive.3 She sees that Jesus is a prophet. Now, a prophet in the New Testament prophecy is not a prediction alone, but for the Israelites and in the Jewish scriptures, prophecy was history. To her, Jesus isn’t a prophet because he predicted something about her in the future, but because he named the truth about her life–why she finds herself alone at the well at the wrong time of day. For her to be able to recognize who Jesus really is, he not only reveals who he is but also who she is. Naming her need for him, naming our need for him, makes sense of the mutual dependency between believers and Jesus.
Jesus does not ask about her husbands to condemn her. There is no mention of judgment. Her story morphed into conclusions and blame her for her plight, but there is no textual or historical proof that she was a “five time loser” or a tramp. She lived at the mercy of societal and religious systems. To have been married five times in ancient Palestine would be evidence of circumstances beyond the control of any woman at that time. Widowed, divorced, barren (most likely), whatever the reason, it was a curse on her. Jesus, the Word made flesh, reveals to her that he doesn’t just know about her, he knows what it means to be her. That is the point of the incarnation.
Ok, I’m dealing with a prophet now, she must have thought. So, she turns to the heart of the theological dispute between Samaritans and Jews–where to worship God. Where is God? Today we might phrase it, who owns God? Jesus tells her that a time is coming when God is worshipped in Spirit and Truth–not on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The presence of God is here, now, right in front of you–God was literally there speaking with her on the edge of a well. In her conversation with Jesus, she slowly moves from unbelief to belief, from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, from ignorance to knowledge, from misunderstanding to understanding.
The fact that it was a woman from Samaria that first asked about the presence of God, not Nicodemus, nor the disciples, but someone outside nation, religion, gender, or propriety brings meaning to last week’s message of the world God so loved. Remarkably, Jesus reveals the entirety of who he is, in all of its intimacy, vulnerability, and awe, to her. 4If God is going to love her and accept her into the fold, then God will accept anyone and everyone with equal dignity, is the message here.
That she leaves her jar at the well is a whole sermon on its own, but for now suffice it to say that it represents what she left behind, what she let go of, in order to find her purpose and bring her village to the presence of the living God incarnate. She left behind her ostracism, the disrespect she has endured, her loneliness, all the baggage, and she belongs now. She belongs to the fold of Jesus. Her encounter with the Word made flesh brings about a complete transformation from shadow to light, outsider to acceptance. She is reborn in the way that Jesus had tried to explain to Nicodemus last week.
Jesus reveals her past, offers eternal life, the “living water” and declares himself the Messiah, prompting her to become a witness. She runs back to her village and tells them all, “Come and see!” Can he be the Messiah? “Come and see!” Could the Messiah reveal himself to Samaritans? “Come and see!”
The villagers respond to her testimony and invitation to “come and see” by believing her and going to Jesus themselves. And they invite him to stay. To stay here really means to abide with. The Samaritans are not asking Jesus to hang out for a few hours, they are inviting him into their homes and their hearts in a relationship of deep abiding.
The first persons beyond the first disciples to experience this relationship with Jesus are the Samaritans. Let that sink in. The doors of the heavenly Kingdom were flung wide open through her witness to reveal Jesus as Savior of all. That Jesus chose her to be the first evangelist was just as shocking to Jesus’ disciples and 1st century Judeans as it was in 1969 to share a swimming pool and a towel. But that is the lesson of hospitality we can adopt. How do we engage with our community? Come and see! No matter the ethnicity, gender, economic status, reputation, or religion there is no barrier to this deep abiding with Jesus. God chooses the nameless, the outcast, the struggling, the disrespected, and any open and willing heart to bear witness to God’s love. “Come and see!” The presence of God is among us. There is living water for us to share here.
- Sarah Kettler. https://www.biography.com/actors/mister-rogers-officer-clemmons-pool ↩︎
- George W. Stroup. Feasting on the Word, Year A. ↩︎
- Karoline M Lewis. John, Fortress Press. ↩︎
- ibid. ↩︎
Magdalena's Musings 