Lent 3A
March 8, 2026
John 3:3-42
INTRODUCTION
We have been talking this Lent about hunger, but today’s readings are all about thirst. We start with the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, and they are thirsty. They beg Moses for something to drink, remembering the good ol’ days of slavery in Egypt when they had plenty to drink. Remarkably, by God’s power, Moses will bring forth water from a rock and everyone will get plenty to drink.
The Gospel also begins with thirst – this time, it is Jesus who thirsts in body, and an unnamed woman at a well who thirsts in spirit. Jesus’ talk of “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” brings to mind that water gushing from a rock in the wilderness – but this water of which Jesus speaks is eternally quenching.
A few things to notice about this encounter with the woman at the well. First, remember that Samaria is not a place Jews would voluntarily go because they hated Samaritans. Yet John tells us they “had to” go through Samaria – this is a theological need, not a geographical one – he’s showing the disciples what belief in him implies. Second, this story comes right after Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus that we heard last week, and that’s by design. This woman is everything Nicodemus is not: he is a named, educated, important man; she is a nameless, uneducated, nobody woman. He’s a respected Pharisee; she’s a despised Samaritan. Nicodemus encounters Jesus by night; the woman at high noon. All of these details matter – and spoiler, it is the woman, not Nicodemus who comes out the rockstar of faith! (By the way, happy International Women’s Day!)
As you listen, notice where you yourself are thirsting today: where in your spirit are you craving a drink of living water? The spiritual hunger I’ll be addressing in my sermon today is a hunger (or maybe, a thirst!) for connection and belonging. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Scholars have troubled over this woman’s story for generations. What is her deal? Why is she coming to the well by herself at the hottest part of the day? Why has she had five husbands? Did these guys all divorce her? Why? Could it be because she was baren? Or did they die? And who is this current guy she is living with?
I, too, am so curious about her story. As I try to imagine it, my heart only breaks for her. If her previous husbands divorced her (which could be done for any reason from burning her husband’s morning toast to being unable to bear children), then she is seen as damaged goods by her community. If she can’t keep a husband, or can’t have children in a society that sees this as women’s primary role, then she is shrouded in shame. If her husbands have died, then she is living with the grief of that, not to mention the fear that she is somehow cursed, and has no one to care for her. It’s no wonder she comes to the well when no one else will be there – she is riddled with shame, grief, pain, fear, and who knows what else. Imagine that feeling of disconnection from her community. She must be hungering to belong, hungering for connection.
That hunger for belonging and connection is not unfamiliar to us. Already in our Lenten devotional we have read two stories from current St. Paul’s members who moved to Rochester and felt at first a sense of disconnection and grief, as they searched for a new place to belong. I have felt that hunger myself at various times and for various reasons, and I’m sure you have as well. Even in our most intimate relationships – in marriage, with kids or parents – we sometimes crave connection and belonging.
So, how does Jesus meet this woman in her hunger, and how can this story help us to be fed as well?
First is exactly what I just said: he meets her there. Jesus did not have to go through Samaria, but he chose to. He approached her at the well and asked for a drink, though John makes a point to say that this was not customary behavior for a Jewish man with a Samaritan woman. So this is significant: Jesus goes to and meets the woman exactly where and how she is.
Second, he truly sees her, the real her. He leaves space for her and her questions and her complicated past, he sees her exactly where and how she is, without asking her to be anything other than she is. In fact, he sees the parts of her that cause her the most pain –her doomed marriages, her current and potentially scandalous living situation, the things that bring her the most shame. He sees all of that, and stays with her. Engages with her in a lengthy dialogue. This clearly has extraordinary impact on the woman, because when she goes to witness, to testify to the town about this amazing man, that is what she says: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” He saw me, my darkest corners, the things I would want to keep hidden, the things that bring me shame – and he didn’t leave me alone in them. He can’t be the Messiah… can he?
I have been enjoying reading the book, Theo of Golden. Anyone read it? I’m about halfway through, and it’s lovely. The premise is that an elderly man, Theo, moves to the southern town of Golden. He sees some beautiful portraits of some townspeople, drawn by a local artist, displayed in a coffee shop. He is touched by how well they capture each person, and he resolves to buy them all, and gift them to their subjects. He invites these strangers, one by one, with a letter to meet him at a certain bench. They are understandably skeptical at first, but soon enough, Theo has these individuals talking, telling him about their lives, opening up in ways they never have before. He truly sees them, and this forges life-changing connections, not only between him and these townspeople, but between these people and the other people in their lives. They find both emotional and physical healing from that connection Theo makes possible, simply by allowing them to be seen. That’s what happens when we are seen. (I don’t think it is an accident, by the way, that the author, who has said his Christian faith influences his writing, named this charming protagonist Theo, a name that means, “God”!)
One more thing Jesus does that feeds this woman’s hunger for belonging is he creates a space of mutuality. He comes with a need – a physical thirst – that he asks her to meet, before he offers to meet her spiritual need. She’s got the bucket and the well; he’s got the Living Water.
This is not unlike our Lutheran understanding of mission, which assumes that everyone has something to give. When we serve, we don’t come in with an agenda, ready to impart our gifts on someone in need. We come with an intention to walk with one another, to both give and receive. We are not here to save someone else, but rather, we belong to one another, and need one another. Jesus models that here. Even he, the Savior of the world, makes space for the one seeking belonging and connection to contribute what she has to give.
So, what difference does all that make for us today, for those of us who do still hunger for belonging and connection?
First, it is knowing that just as Jesus met the woman where she was, in all her shame and grief and harbored secrets – Jesus meets us where we are. He knows everything we have ever done, and loves and values us still. More than that, he makes space in his love for our pain to exist, without judgment. Let me say this again, because it is so important: God sees you and meets you exactly where and how you are, making space for your pain, and loves you in that place, just as you are. And by that connection, that relationship, he makes healing possible. He makes transformation possible.
Second, when we have experienced that belonging, and we are, like the woman, transformed by it, we are then equipped to offer and create that life-changing space of belonging and connection for someone else. Like Jesus, we can go to the people in pain, and listen. Like Theo of Golden, we can make space for stories to be shared. By making space and bearing witness to one another’s stories, full of pain and questions and curiosity, life-changing connections are forged. And from there, belonging is created. Souls and longings are fed. Spiritual thirst is quenched, and we become a part of God’s work of quenching the thirst of a world in need of transformation.
Let us pray… God of living water, we hunger and thirst to belong, to connect with you and with one another. Meet us where we are, so that we would be sustained by the space your love creates for us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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