Third Sunday in Lent, 2026
EXODUS 17:1-7; PSALM 95; ROMANS 5:1-11; JOHN 4:5-42
may we always thirst for you
I can’t help but hear, between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, a bit of banter. When I worked in a chapel with a choir that sang together six days a week—that choir had a highly developed appreciation and practice of banter. I probably shouldn’t share the content of all that banter— they were undergrads—but the moment of being included in that banter was a moment of going a bit more deeply into the common life shared by that choir, oddly building a greater sense of mutuality.
It’s the same sort of thing that develops with teammates in sport—made up in equal parts at its at its best of gentle teasing, social negotiation and boundary setting. At its worst this sort of banter can be cruel and work to exclude others, rather than include them. But at its best it’s a way of bringing a sort of relational richness, and a way to thicken community.
I can’t help but hear a bit of this kind of banter between the Samaritan woman at the well and Jesus. I can’t help but hear a bit of sarcasm, a bit of teasing, and a bit of social negotiation. Because Jesus does make a rather preposterous sounding proposition, that if she “… knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ [she] would have asked him, and he would have given [her] living water.”
Can we detect a bit of sarcrasm here? A bit of banter, when she says, roughly, who do you think you are? You don’t even have a bucket, dude, “and the well is deep … Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well … ?” And when Jesus says, almost earnestly, “Everyone who drinks of this [living] water will be thirsty again, but 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.”
Can we hear a bit of sarcasm at the ludicrousness of the idea that somewhere there’s water that quenches thirst permanently: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
It makes me wonder at the depth of what is happening here, in terms of the depth of relationship that is being built, and the comfort these two have with each other. Despite their differences—Jew and Samaritan, a man and a woman, the relative difference in social standing, speaking across religious cultures and gender difference—there’s a relationships genuine enough to sustain what looks like it could be a bit of gentle teasing and making fun.
But things do go a bit deeper yet, don’t they. It goes from the Samaritan woman pointing out the incredulousness of Jesus’s claim to offer living water, a water that “gushes up to eternal life,” to her coming to believe that this was no ordinary man overly confident in his own abilities, but the Messiah, because Jesus had a mysteriously deep of knowledge of her life and relationships. To the point that she goes home to tell her whole town about Jesus—no longer with a teasing sense of sarcastic incredulity—but with the proclamation that Jesus is the one who is to come, the “Saviour of the world.”
What’s happening here though is not just a conversation between Jesus and someone else. It is at least that—and part of a series of three encounters Jesus has with individuals, each of them growing in faith and understanding—last week it was Jesus with Nicodemus, growing in faith and understanding about who Jesus is, who the Holy Spirit is, and God’s concern for the whole of the world.
This week, it’s the woman at the well, growing in faith in the messiah. And there are others in Johns Gospel too—individuals who encounter Jesus, growing in faith and understanding. We are meant to find ourselves here—also growing in faith and understanding. Maybe we find ourselves in Nicodemus—not quite able to grasp what Jesus is saying, but realizing that even in our seeking, we are finding someone to whom we are increasingly drawn towards. And here, we might find ourselves in the Samaritan’s woman’s incredulousness, in her sarcasm, in her “who do you think you are exactly?” Only in the end to come closer in faith, and to grow in understanding, about who this Jesus person is.
It doesn’t stop there, though, either, with these encounters. Because there are gaps in understanding too. Today, the woman at the well is convinced in Jesus as the Messiah because of something not that different from what a fortune-teller might do: Jesus tells her something about her life she didn’t think he could know. But this could be a trick, right? Besides, even if Jesus could tell me, or you, something about our lives like this, what does it really say about who Jesus is? Enough for her to grow in faith and understanding; but is this all? Is her growth in faith and understanding complete?
I can’t imagine it is. In reading this story, and as we encounter Jesus here—as the man willing to banter with a woman, and a Samaritan—we too have a lot of room to grow in the ways we might imagine Jesus as the one who gives us the water of life. The lectionary encourages to imagine this life-giving water as somehow connected to the wandering and thirsty Israelites, who are given water from a rock. This might encourage in us a bit of humility—after all, that story is partly about the lack of faith, and the complaining of the people of of Israel. We could find other connections too, in the prophets, for whom water is a symbol of the restoration of a people, and part of a story of God’s desire for all nations to receive good things from Israel.
Even as we recognise this story of the Samaritan woman, even as it sounds familiar to us, we are given an opportunity to grow in faith and understanding. This is the way Scripture works—especially so in John’s Gospel—there is always room, always an opportunity, to grow more and more deeply in faith and understanding.
Partly we know where this is heading: we are heading eventually to Jerusalem, to the cross, and to the empty tomb. We know that a relationship with the Jesus who gives to us the water that gives life is about far more than a trick of knowledge, but about suffering, too, and death; and that through that, as Paul says, in going under the water with Jesus in baptism we die with Jesus, only to rise again with him—again,invited into eternal life now, and not simply in some distant future. That following this Jesus into the waters of baptism, the water that gushes up into an eternal life that we can begin to know now—in a life soaked in trust, soaked in the promise and the desire of the nations, a life in which faith and understanding emerges like from a hidden spring, where desert dryness can come to bloom with crocuses, and even in time, to be planted with cedars.
When the Messiah comes, “he will proclaim all things to us,” says the woman at the well. We are that “us,” too; Jesus, the Messiah, is proclaiming all things to us. As we listen, as we grow in faith and understanding, God surprises us with possibilities that not only the woman at the well clearly cannot see as yet—the cross, and the empty tomb—but so do we grow in more possibilities for us yet, as we grow too in the Spirit, and in the truth.
Indulge me in ending again today in praying the collect of the day, that summarises all this so beautifully:
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life,
may we always thirst for you,
the spring of life and source of goodness;
through him who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.