What Will We Choose - Third Sunday in Lent

What Will We Choose - Third Sunday in Lent

Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
March 08, 2026

At the beginning of our gospel lesson, John tells us that Jesus had to pass through Samaria to get where he was going. But he didn’t actually. To travel from Judea to Galilee, the usual route was NOT through Samaria. It wasn’t customary or necessary at all. There is this tiny little word, “dei” in Greek which means “necessary,” but it is a very specific kind of necessity. It’s when something is necessary for what God is up to. And when God is up to something it is not just business as usual. So, for example, it is “dei” for John the Baptist to decrease so Jesus’ ministry could increase. It is “dei” for Jesus to do the work God sent him to do while he can. It is “dei” that Jesus be the shepherd who brings all the sheep back together as one flock. And so, it is “dei” that Jesus pass through Samaria and sit down at this well. It is necessary for what God is up to.

There is a long and bitter history between two groups of people who were once one but have become so bitterly divided and polarized over culture and religion and every aspect of existence. This is life for the Samaritans and Jews then. It is “dei” that Jesus comes to bring living water something that restores places where ways of living have left people just as parched and hungering as ever. Because even though the divisions are as deep as well and even though people have been feeding their grievances, their lives feel empty.

Jesus sends his disciples to go get food, which is a practical necessity but also probably an essential thing because he knows that a Samaritan woman will be coming to the well. He knows that to do what he is about to do, he needs to be there in the least threatening way possible. It will be one thing for her to see one tired rabbi at the well. It would be something completely different to see 13 men who you have been told might be harmful. Because the differences have not just been mouth battles, land and places of worship have been violently harmed in the past and trauma runs deep.

When the woman arrives, her first very understandable response is “why are you talking to ME?” Of course, Jesus steers the conversation deeper and it becomes transformational for her. Instead of being offered insults she is offered respect and hope that hangs in the air for just a moment.

Then Jesus’ disciples return.

They are astonished Jesus is talking freely to HER. Their conversation is lively. I imagine their being astonished is too light a term because John says that that they don’t ask Jesus “why are you talking to HER?” Which of course means they thought it.

“Why are you talking this way Jesus? Why are you talking to her? Why are we even here? We don’t need to be here.” Now let’s stop.
In our time and our reality, who makes us say “why are you talking to them?” Who makes us wonder, “Why are you talking to me?” For you personally, in your heart, whose presence makes you feel that way and why? We all have something.

Maybe a family rift comes to mind. Maybe it’s the fact that sometimes we don’t know who we are because culture war issues divide even the most measured of us. Maybe we are the ones who cannot imagine bridging a divide over something that feels important to both of us but seems irreconcilable. Maybe so many large issues take up so much in our head that smaller things right in front of us are hard to see. Who do you not want to see Jesus talking to like everything could be fine?

Let this gospel go as deep as that well and then ask, “Can I be surprised by Jesus too?”

What if it is “dei”, a divine necessity for me, you, us, to be open to what Jesus is up to with people or places we find challenging?
Now, here is the moment that the gospel of John comes to often. We can choose what we will believe and embody. And in today’s gospel it plays out like this:

For the disciples, they try to carry on the same old way. They managed to go find food in this place they would rather not be. They think the worst the whole time. Thank God, they made it and they don’t know what Jesus was up to but thank God that woman left. They try to change the topic with “Rabbi, eat!” as if the only thing that will then astonish them is that he says he has food they did not bring. They are ready to continue on as if the woman never happened. If it was not for the “dei” that Jesus decided to pursue, if there was no divine necessity, it sure was not a necessity for the disciples to see this place or these people any differently.
If Jesus had not decided to use this space and moment to reveal a new vision, Samaritans and Jews would just keep on feeding their anger and mistrust and deepening the well-worn rut of the road of pain and division.

God’s heart for God’s people desires more, for them and for us.

For the woman at the well, she leaves and bears this small but vital word back to her people as she simply must tell them what seems almost impossible to believe. A leader from among our enemies spoke to me with respect, offered me a new way he sees life and invited me to see it too. He didn’t treat me like I expected at all. And he told me things he couldn’t possibly know about me. Could he be the savior we have prayed for?

Others believe enough to decide they simply must travel to see for themselves if their hope is reality. They too are completely reborn and instead of continuing to refuse to share anything with his people, they invite him in. Her word may have been the first, but his word is the ultimate. Jesus embraces them and they embrace this new unexpected and liberating way to be after all this time. Restoration and wholeness in this small way makes you think of all the best prophetic language. A stream flows in the desert. All people shall gather. Those who sow tears reap with rejoicing. Only God could mend this way. And God desires it.

So now imagine again any people or places you are sure are anything from wrong to evil. How we see them and how God does is exactly the dynamic in this well-loved gospel story. So let it feel real because the kingdom is.

When we believe, there will be places that burst forth with glimpses of “no more hungering and thirsting for a better world.” There will be times when wherever we have sowed tears we can reap a harvest of rejoicing. It won’t be universal, but it also is not “NEVER EVER.”

It is possible and it is a necessity we work for in how we speak and act and and pray share and live. Remember this new vision in this place in Samaria grew when what Jesus started took hold and people allowed themselves to be surprised and renewed. And so, the question for us as we ponder this good word in our time and hear God’s “dei” for our divisions and hurts is this:
Will we stay wondering why he spoke to them or to us and leave emptyhanded?

Or will we look for Jesus to show up, and then join in carrying out his divine heart for a world to be mended however we can?
Friends, there’s never been a better time to believe.

Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2026 All rights reserved.  May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

Sermon Text: John 4:3-42
³ (Jesus) left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴ But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)[b] ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir,[c] you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ 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.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir,[d] give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir,[e] I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you[f] say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you[g] will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You[h] worship what you[i] do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I am he,[j] the one who is speaking to you.”
²⁷ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,[k] can he?” ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to him.
³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving[l] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

 

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