Third Sunday of Lent
Mar 23, 2025: Unexpected Connections in the Wilderness
John 4: 5-42
Rev. Dr. Leslie Taylor, preaching
Whatever the causes, we can be sure of this: this Samaritan woman has been through some very difficult things. Anyone who has experienced the loss of a spouse - by death or divorce - knows how difficult it is under even the best of circumstances. This - not once, not twice, but five times - and all under an oppressive gender economy that ties her worth and survival to her marital status. She has suffered so much. She has also survived so much. How much community does she have to hold her pain with her? Wilderness.
How many judgments are made upon her by friends and strangers alike? Is she seen for who she is or for how society defines her? Does she have people in her life who know what it's like to be in her shoes? Does she hear leaders in the community speaking of women in her circumstances - speaking against them or advocating for religious and societal change on their behalf?
Wilderness.
Then, in the heat of the day, she connects with Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus does not speak words of condemnation or offer easy answers. He validates her words and experience, saying "What you have said is quite true." Jesus sees her in the fullness of her experience as if he knows "everything that has ever happened to her." She need not even defend herself. This is why the text says she came to believe in the gospel.
It's no small thing to be met in that way. It's an embodiment of the good news - to bring to the surface that which is too often forced to stay hidden within us. When vulnerability unveils the things that are so difficult to share, Love affirms truth.
Jesus restored her to the community after too many days, years, and lifetimes of isolation, of coming to the well alone, of feeling too misunderstood, neglected, or forgotten. Jesus was her connection in the wilderness.
Based on John 4:5-42
Music this week:
Better is One Day
Everyday
Living Water
Eagle’s Wings
Fill My Cup, Lord
River of Mercy