My microphone was on the fritz again on Sunday, so I re-recorded the homily from home for you. Do enjoy the good news.
Christ Lutheran Church in Aptos, CA
Assigned Lectionary Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7 | Romans 5:1-11 | John 4:5-42
Itâs hot. No shade. Noonday sun beating down on parched skin. Not the ideal time to come to the well. The other women come together in the morning. Itâs social hour for them. A life-giving ritual of refreshment and sustenance and gossip and ministering to each other. Balm for the soul. Mind you, even they were considered riffraff by the Hebrew establishment. But at least they had each other.
But this Samaritan woman... The one who comes alone... Sheâs not just in the outsider group. Sheâs an outsider to the outsider group. Who knows what the details are. I know a lot of men who look like me and have stood at pulpits that look like this one have taken the fact that sheâd been married several times and called her a prostitute or a harlot. But any Bible scholar worth their salt has moved away from that story. Being a woman in antiquity was different than here in Aptos in the year of our Lord 2026. Women had basically no power to initiate divorce. Only men could. So her five husbands likely left her, or died. Either way, her alienation loomed heavy. Canât go to the well with the others. So she goes in the heat of the day when absolutely no one else would be bonkers enough to go.
Well, no one, that is, but a certain itinerant Jewish rabbi; her sworn adversary in her mind. But weâll get to that...
A quick word on why this encounter is so charged. Jews and Samaritans had carried centuries of mutual contempt. The Samaritans were seen as a mixed people, descendants of Israelites whoâd intermarried with foreign settlers after the Assyrian conquest. To a devout Jew, they were religiously impure, ethnically compromised, and best avoided entirely.
Thereâs something intentional about the noonday detail. Full sun, no shadows. Whatever else John is doing, heâs putting this woman in a place where nothing can be concealed.
So this scene is about exposure...
And when people are exposed nowadays, there seem to be only two moves for the rest of us: (1) condemnation or (2) justification. Some get their pitchforks and torches out. While the other camp coddles, âDonât worry. You didnât do anything wrong. Itâs all good. You do you. Live your truth.â
Condemnation or justification. We do this to others and we do it to ourselves. But I donât know if either way actually helps.
So is there a third way? A ânarrowâ way, perhaps? Letâs cut back to our little scene at the well...
Showdown. High noon. The Samaritan woman and the rabbi. Cue the Clint Eastwood movie music. Itâs like the best spaghetti western ever. In her mind, sheâs already on the outs with this guy. Especially if he were to find out about her story. Hopefully it wonât get to that point. Hopefully she can get her water, not make eye contact, go through self-checkout, and be on her way.
But, no... Not so fast.
Itâs easy to skim over just how shocking this is. This Jewish rabbi asks her for a drink. Sheâs blown away. She canât believe it. And Jesus cuts to the chase. He describes the weight of her situation like a master diagnostician. Sheâs had five husbands, not counting the one keeping her around now.
He doesnât pat her on the back with one of those hang-dog expressions of sympathy. He doesnât patronize her. And he doesnât shame her out of the village. He sees her in the totality of her situation. And he stays.
Sheâs waiting for the moment it turns. It always turns. But it doesnât this time. The loving gaze from this rabbi never falters.
He knows how to hold her Sin. Sin is real. Itâs not just a naughty no-no. It costs us our natural liberty. Sin isnât a thing in itself so much as a corruption of something good.
Sin freezes our freedom to say yes to what weâre most deeply, naturally oriented toward â which is love. The only sane response to that freezing isnât more shame. Itâs a non-anxious gaze and presence that calls the malady by name but wonât budge. This is what true forgiveness looks like. And nothing heals the human soul better than true forgiveness meeting an honest heart.
As the Apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans today: âTherefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.â
Note that Paul uses the word justify there. In secular terms, to justify is to minimize, to coddle, to say itâs fine, donât worry about it. But when Paul says we are justified by faith, he means something has been set right. Not swept under the rug. Or explained away... Set right. Coddling leaves you exactly where you are. Justification by faith â the kind Jesus embodies at the well â sees you completely and restores you. Your right action isnât what justifies you. Itâs the loving gaze and unwavering presence in the midst of your âwrongâ action that changes you.
He doesnât say, âThis is how you get peace.â He says: it is already so. Godâs love has been poured into your heart before you ever hear about it from a preacher like me. (But you need me to remind you, so thatâs why youâre paying me to stand up here.) Rowan Williams, the ex Archbishop of Canterbury has an amazing line: âWe are because God is.â
In other words, if it werenât for Godâs love given for us, we would not exist. But we do. That love is the entirety of what animates us. Sure, Sin distorts it. Sin turns love into possession, work into oppression, community into a hierarchy of whoâs in and whoâs out (and has to come to the well at noon). But Godâs love is the melody your whole being dances to, whether you understand the dynamics of it or not.
God doesnât withhold love for the improved version of you. God loves the version of you that showed up here today. Noon-day light. Full exposure. No shadows.
Jesus didnât hang on a cross to change Godâs mind about you. He did it to show you Godâs mind about you... and to take everything, the Sin, the shame, the alienation, all of it, all the way through death and out the other side. The resurrection is the announcement that nothing gets the last word. Not even death.
This is why the suffering Paul describes lands differently with all of this in mind. This chain â suffering, endurance, character, hope â itâs not a self-improvement program. Itâs what happens when you let yourself be seen at noon and donât run. You endure the exposure not because suffering is good, but because youâre not alone in it. The gaze of Jesus doesnât leave. And something gets built in you. You are loved as you are, but that love changes you. It un-distorts you. Aligns you with the love that keeps this whole beautiful but broken world from flying apart.
It grows hope in you; the deep-rooted confidence of someone who has been fully seen and not abandoned.
The desert teachers would say: register whatâs there. Face it. And then... donât dramatize it, donât build a whole identity around the wound. Let the light cauterize it. Hand it over.
And then go do the laundry.
Walk the dog.
Touch some grass.
Take the next step of your life.
Which brings us back to the woman. Sheâs just been seen all the way down. And she leaves her water jar at the well. She forgets what she came for. And she runs back into the town sheâd been avoiding. She doesnât come back with a new rĂ©sumĂ© as a changed woman, begging to be let back in. No self-justifying. She doesnât kneel down and confess. She doesnât promise to do better. Grace didnât wait for any of that. It arrived before she had a single word of apology ready. What she comes back with... is good news and an inviting question:
I just met a man who told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Messiah?!
Her story isnât her shame anymore. Itâs the very thing sheâs leading with.
Thereâs a well, and itâs noon, and Jesus is already there.
Whatever youâre carrying into this third week of Lent, she came expecting what sheâd always gotten. People who, once they really saw her, left. Thatâs what you learn after enough of it. You stop expecting anyone to stay.
But Jesus stays.
Thereâs nothing in your life that could make him leave. And the water heâs offering? Itâs a spring. Itâs already in you. Already moving.
She left her jar and ran to tell everyone. In a few moments weâll do something similar (but walk, please): weâll come forward with empty hands and receive what we didnât earn. Thatâs what this table is. Grace made edible.
And so it is. Amen.