 |
| Just like the woman at the well, Jesus meets us—not just where we are—but precisely in the places where we don’t want to be found. |
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
© The Rev. Seth Olson, 2026
This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday in Lent, at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video version of the sermon may be found here.
Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
There’s a particular kind of feeling that comes over you when you’re trying not to be seen. Not the kind of “I forgot to comb my hair” feeling. I mean that deeper instinct we all know—the one that says: If anyone really knew what’s going on in me… if anyone really saw what I’ve done, what I’ve left undone… if anyone saw what I’m afraid of… I might not survive the shame of it.
So, we learn to manage. We learn to hide in our own lives. We learn to show up at the well when nobody else is there.
And that’s why I love this story in John 4—because it tells the truth about us without humiliating us. Jesus is traveling. He’s tired. He sits down by Jacob’s well in Samaria. And a woman comes to draw water. Then, John gives us a detail that is easy to miss: it’s noon.
Noon is a strange time to draw water. That’s not usually when someone does their daily work. That’s done in the cooler hours—during the morning rush—when everyone else is there. When one would have the rest of the day to use the water. When you can blend in.
But she’s not there during the morning rush hour. She comes at noon. Which means—at the very least—this woman is alone.
And I’m going to say what the text invites us to wonder: maybe she likes it that way. Maybe noon is safer. Maybe noon is quieter. Maybe it’s the only time she can breathe without feeling eyes on her, without feeling the weight of whispers. She comes at noon because she doesn’t want to be found.
But, Jesus is already sitting there—where this woman probably did not expect him to be. This noon-time encounter has had me pondering a radical truth all week: God meets us—not just where we are—but precisely in the places where we don’t want to be found.
Not when we’re polished. Not when we’ve done enough penance. Not when we can finally explain ourselves. But right there. At noon. At the well. In the place we would rather avoid.
And the conversation begins so simply. In such a human way: Jesus says, “Give me a drink.” Which is already startling, because there are lines here—religious lines, ethnic lines, moral lines, gender lines—and Jesus steps right over all of them and shows us that love is more influential to him than the world’s categories.
She says, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” In other words: Do you know who I am? Do you know what group I belong to? Do you know the story you’ve been told about people like me?
And Jesus doesn’t answer by defending himself. There’s no lecture. He offers a gift: “If you knew the gift of God… you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Living water. Fresh water. Running water. Not stagnant. Not what sits too long in a jar and starts to taste like the container.
And at first—she doesn’t get it. You may recall from last week’s Gospel passage with Nicodemus that in John: people misunderstand Jesus, and Jesus uses the misunderstanding as a doorway. He doesn’t shame them for not being enlightened yet. He stays with them until they can receive what he’s actually offering.
Confused, she says, “Sir, you have no bucket.” Then—like so many of us—she tries to steer the conversation into a religious debate. Where is the right place to worship? Which tradition is correct? Who has the true lineage? Whose holy place counts?
And did you notice Jesus’ response? He meets her there. He doesn’t dismiss the question. He doesn’t say doctrine doesn’t matter. He goes with her theology.
But then Jesus takes it deeper. Because Jesus is not interested in winning an argument. Jesus is interested in freeing this woman from her bondage. And that’s where the turning point comes.
Jesus cuts to the heart of things: “Go call your husband and come back.” Friends, that is the moment when most of us would bolt. That is the moment where the conversation stops being interesting and starts being personal.
It’s one thing to talk about worship locations. It’s another thing to talk about your life. But, she doesn’t balk, responding: “I have no husband.”
So, Jesus continues, “You’re right. You’ve had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.” Now—this is important—Jesus does not say this to humiliate her. Jesus does not say this to punish her. Jesus says it because he is doing what love does: he is bringing her into the truth that can finally set her free.
And it’s complicated, right? We don’t know her whole story. We don’t know whether she’s been discarded, widowed, exploited, trapped, or surviving. John doesn’t give us a neat moral résumé.
What John gives us is this: whatever the story is, it’s heavy enough that she’s drawing water at noon. And Jesus looks straight at the place she would rather keep hidden.
And she does something brave. She doesn’t deny. She doesn’t spin. She doesn’t offer an excuse. She stays.
For a moment, she is fully seen. And somehow—mysteriously—the weight shifts. Because this is what happens when you are seen with mercy: you don’t collapse under the truth; you rise inside it. This is the holiness of Jesus: he knows the truth about you, and he stays at the well anyway.
I know some of us grew up with the picture of a God who is angry, vengeful, and waiting for us to slip so we can be punished. But this story will not allow that portrait of God to stand. Because Jesus already knows. Jesus already sees. And what does he offer?
Living water. Not shame-water. Not “try harder” water. Not “come back when you’re fixed” water. Living water!
And the result is not that she becomes small and silent. The result is that she becomes a witness. She leaves her water jar—the very thing she came for—and she runs back to the village and says, “Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.”
That phrase—“come and see”—matters in John’s Gospel. It shows up at the beginning when disciples are first invited into relationship. It shows up when someone is skeptical and needs an invitation, not an argument. And here it shows up again on the lips of this woman.
In John’s Good News she’s not explicitly “sent,” and yet she becomes a prototype of apostleship: a person who has encountered Jesus and cannot keep it to herself. She doesn’t say, “Come and see the perfect doctrine I’ve mastered.” She doesn’t say, “Come and see how I cleaned up my life.” She says, in essence: Come and see what mercy feels like.
And that means, Church, we do not only admire her. We are meant to emulate her. So, what would it look like for us—at Holy Apostles—to emulate her?
It might look like this:
It might look like telling the truth to God in prayer instead of managing God with religious language. Not “Lord, I’m fine,” but “Lord, I’m thirsty. I’m lonely. I’m angry. I’m scared. I’m exhausted.”
It might look like letting a trusted friend or spouse or counselor see what we usually keep hidden—because secrecy is where shame breeds, and mercy is what shame cannot survive.
It might look like naming the “noon places” in our own lives—those patterns we return to when we don’t want to be found: the doomscrolling, the numbing, the drinking, the controlling, the overworking, the sarcasm, the emotional shutdown, the quiet resentment.
And it might look like a different kind of witness: not loud, not performative, not “holier-than-thou”—but honest.
“Come and see. I met Jesus in the place I didn’t want to be found, and somehow, I’m still standing.”
Now—let me speak carefully, but plainly. From my pastoral perspective—which aims to see the world through the lens of Christ’s love—from my view as a pastor, we have seemed lost as a country over the last several years. We are at odds with one another. We are cynical. We are quick to disdain. We are more practiced at outrage than repair.
And whatever your politics, we are living with the consequences of forces bigger than any one of us—violence in the world, fear in the air, an addiction to domination, a cheapening of truth, and a hardening of our hearts.
And I wonder if what this story does for us in Lent is lead us—not into political debate—but into spiritual honesty. Because the question isn’t, “Can we find someone else to blame?” The question is: Will we let ourselves be seen? Will we tell the truth about our complicity—about how easy it is to want the world to change without wanting our own hearts to change?
Will we tell the truth about the ways prejudice still lives in us and among us? Will we tell the truth about the ways we can spend our lives trying not to be found—by God, by one another, by our own conscience?
Because here is the best news: Jesus already knows everything we’ve ever done.
He knows the broken relationships we’ve been part of.
He knows the ways we’ve harmed and the ways we’ve been harmed.
He knows the ways we’ve tried to quench our thirst with stagnant water—domination, consumerism, addiction, gluttony, greed, lust, revenge, the need to be right, the need to win, and all those other versions of tainted water.
And still—Christ sits at the well. Still—he speaks. Still—he offers living water.
Christ’s living water is not a religious product. It’s not something we earn. It is the life of God poured into the dry places of the human heart. And Jesus says: “The water I will give will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Not from the ground. Not from the empire. Not from the market. Not from the powers and principalities of this world. From within you. From your inmost being—the seat of your soul—where Christ is meant to reign.
So, in this season of Lent, I wonder:
When Christ finds you hiding at the well… will you run and hide?
Or will you do what this brave Samaritan woman did?
Will you stay?
Will you let him see you?
Will you receive the mercy that tells the truth and still loves you?
And then—will you become a witness?
Not because you have it all figured out.
But because you’ve tasted living water.
Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done, he can’t be the Messiah, can he?
Amen.
