March 8, 2026
Lent 3
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
If you were listening to this story as I just read it but were a 1st century Jewish listener, in just the first two sentences, you might have thought that you knew what was coming.
First is the Samaritan city of Sychar, which is modern-day Nablus on the West Bank. It was not uncommon for Jews to skirt around this region when traveling from north to south or vice versa. Samaritans and Jews were at odds with one another for many reasons, not least because Samaritans, while descended from the same patriarchs and matriarchs as Israeli Jews, had long intermarried and absorbed the culture of a litany of occupiers over the centuries. They did not worship the “right” way or in the “right” place. They were all Jews, just different kinds of Jews. So that Jesus was traveling through Samaria might have made you ears perk up just a bit.
Then, Jesus is sitting by a well. The listeners know that important events transpire at wells. And right on cue, along comes a woman. People meet their future wives at wells. Moses did. So did Isaac and Jacob. Even Abraham met his second wife, Keturah, at a well. What’s going on here with Jesus and this Samaritan woman? He’s asking her for waterand is even going to drink from the same vessel that she would have used? It’s like that Mr. Rogers episode when he and Officer Clemmons put their feet in the same wading pool to cool off on a hot summer day. Black and white feet simply did not mingle in the same pool in those days, nor did Samaritan and Jewish lips touch the same cup back in Jesus’ day.
And next unfolds the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the gospels, and it is not what these early listeners thought they were going to get. Not a marriage, but an encounter and a conversion, all while the disciples are off grocery shopping.
Some scholars point to this as a mirror image of the one we heard last week with Nicodemus.
- Nicodemus comes at night; this one happens at noonday.
- Nicodemus gets a confusing take on spirit; here, it’s water.
- Nicodemus is set off on a journey of conversion that takes 16 chapters; this Samaritan woman’s conversion takes place in a matter of 23 verses in a single chapter.
As Andrew McGowan of Berkeley Divinity School writes
We can see the woman’s developing perspective on Jesus through the changing language she uses for him: first he is “a Jew” (v.5), then “sir” (11) then (surely not) “greater than our father Jacob” (12) then a prophet (19), and then (surely not, again) the Messiah (29). The last point in this progression is not just hers but the affirmation of her townsfolk that he is “savior of the world” (42).[1]
And again, if you are listening to this story for the first time, and you think you know the trope, what the trajectory is going to be, this would be mind-blowing. If that were not enough, when Jesus says, “I am he,” he is making the first of the “I am” statements that are yet to come: I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35, ff); I am the Light of the World (8:12), I am the Good Shepherd (10:11, ff). The listeners know, and this woman knows, that the great I Am hearkens back to Exodus. I Am is God’s self-identification, self-naming to Moses (Exodus 3:6, etc.).
Early here in this season of Lent, we are hearing stories of conversion of the unlikeliest of people. Nicodemus the Pharisee and this unnamed Samaritan woman (although later traditions call her Photini). Jesus did not shame them or call them out. He did not avoid them or critique them. Even pointing out that the woman had five husbands may not have come with the snark with which it is sometimes read; maybe it’s a tone if compassion for a woman who has experienced much sorrow.
Either way, avoiding those we have learned to hate or come to despise is not the way of Jesus. Proclaiming that “we” are right and “they” are wrong so we don’t have to have anything to do with them is not the way of Jesus. To Nicodemus, Jesus offered salvation, not condemnation, because God so loved the world. To this Samaritan woman, Jesus offered living water. Not the kind that gets pulled out of a well, but the kind that can sustain through a lifetime and beyond.
As Madeline L’Engle wrote:
We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want will all their hearts of know the source of it.[2]
Perhaps this is how our conversion unfolds in this introspective season. Whether it happens over a period of time or in the space of one chapter, the living water that is on offer here is our salvation. And it isn’t only for us.
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. (4:14)
[1] https://abmcg.substack.com/p/savior-of-the-world
[2] Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook, 2011)