Third Sunday in Lent – Year A
March 8, 2026
Gospel Lectionary Text
John 4:5-42
4:5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
4:6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
4:7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
4:8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)
4:9 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.)
4:10 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."
4:11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
4:12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"
4:13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
4:14 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."
4:15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."
4:16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back."
4:17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband';
4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"
4:19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet.
4:20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."
4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
4:22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
4:23 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.
4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
4:25 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."
4:26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
4:27 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?"
4:28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,
4:29 "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"
4:30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
4:31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something."
4:32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."
4:33 So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?"
4:34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
4:35 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.
4:36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.
4:37 For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.'
4:38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
4:39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done."
4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.
4:41 And many more believed because of his word.
4:42 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."
Context
Welcome to the Third Sunday in Lent. Last week, Jesus met Nicodemus under the cover of night, teasing him with the metaphor of new birth, something that would unfold slowly for him. This week, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at a well in the noonday sun. Together they uncover her story as he offers her “living water.” And unlike Nicodemus, the impact is immediate. She leaves her empty water jar at the well and becomes an evangelist. The disciples are confused.
The empty water jar is the sign that the woman has received the “gift of God.” It’s a gift that can’t be contained by a clay pot — the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the living water Jesus wants to give. No more coercive, need-based love that leaves one used, abused and discarded. Just living water that becomes an ever-present spring “gushing up to eternal life.” Empowered by this gift, she leaves the empty vessel behind and evangelizes her community.
What gives depth to the story is the “five husbands.” This is a woman who has acquired a reputation, less for her own sins than for the sins of those who used and discarded her. (Women in her world could not initiate divorce; only husbands could.) She lives at the edge of her own community, held in contempt for circumstances beyond her control. Vulnerable. Precarious. Forced to bear the sins of others as well as her own.
Her story mirrors the story of Samaria itself. In 2 Kings 17, five foreign nations invaded and colonized the region. Intermarriage followed. Samaria was given the reputation of being unfaithful and idolatrous. The Samaritan woman’s marital history becomes a living parable of a wounded people.
What we are witnessing is the story of a vulnerable woman being given a new story, and by extension, so is her community. It’s a beautifully layered narrative.
- A vulnerable woman is engaged by yet another foreigner who comes to town.
- This encounter becomes a metaphor for the complicated history of Samaria, a region that had been repeatedly colonized.
- Jesus gives the woman “the gift of God” (i.e. the living water of the Spirit).
- Enlivened by the gift, she becomes the first evangelist in the Gospels.
- This confuses the disciples who, like Nicodemus, will take time to receive the same gift.
- Some stories take longer to unfold than others.
Question
In this week’s text, Jesus re-narrates the Samaritan woman’s story, telling her “everything she has ever done.” His retelling frees her. When our story is spoken through the eyes of love, fear and shame begin to loosen their grip. What remains is a story worth telling. The Samaritan woman becomes an evangelist, and her witness sparks belief among a hated group of outcasts.
How is your life being re-narrated in Christ? And how might that new telling be setting you, and others, free?
Reflections
The Gift of Unbounded Identity
By Esau Oreso |
In today’s text John introduces us to a remarkable story of Jesus encountering a Samaritan woman by the well. Jesus crosses socio-cultural and religious boundaries and there, establishes a relationship with the Samaritan woman, a relationship that eventually leads to plentiful harvest.
Desire is Viral
By Kris Rocke |
Faith, hope and love are the antidotes to social chaos. But let’s be honest, they take a bit longer to spread than fear and anxiety. That is why in times like these, as the body of Christ, we are invited to get clear about what we want and whose desires we are borrowing.
Why are you talking to me?
By Lina Thompson |
This is what I thirst for-bold proclamation that Jesus’ interaction with those who are marginalized, including women, is on the front edge of God’s Kingdom work. Worshiping God in Spirit and in truth includes telling the whole truth about a God whose conversations begin in the margins. Jesus empowered a Samaritan Woman to do this...
Formed Among Thorns
By Scott Dewey |
Spiritual purgation cleanses and clarifies the true identity into which we are being called and into which we are formed.
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
The Samaritan woman in this week’s gospel text “gets it.” She snaps up an insight from Jesus that Nicodemus and the disciples are still chewing through. Yet Jesus isn’t in a hurry; he’s content that his words work on different hearts at different speeds.
In the poem below, Levertov describes a swimmer who dares to stop striving and simply lie back, trusting the "deep embrace" of a current unseen. The very element that could be overwhelming is the thing that holds the swimmer up, that holds the hawk in the air.
What might it mean, in this Lenten season, to start floating — to discover that the living water has been holding us all along, waiting for us to let go?
The Avowal
by Denise Levertov
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.
Prayer
This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Prayer of Discernment:
Lord and giver of life, giver of all good gifts, we recognize that your presence is the substance of all we hope for. Therefore, the deepest gratitude we can offer is our own joy, even when clothed in sorrow.
