Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2026

March 8, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



John 4:5-42


This week, we move from the shadows where we met Nicodemus, into the bright midday light where we meet the Samaritan woman at the well. This conversation with the Samaritan woman is the longest one that Jesus has—with anyone, across all of the Gospels. This encounter comes shortly after the one with Nicodemus, and taken together, they both point towards ways that people will react to Jesus.


Both Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman ask questions, and Jesus answers them, although not with a straight forward answer that they might have been expecting or hoping to hear. In both encounters, Jesus shows that he has an understanding of the questioner that is deeper than surface level. In both encounters, Jesus takes time out of his increasingly busy schedule to listen and to have a conversation—not a conversation where he’s hoping to win converts but a conversation that invites the listener to a deeper relationship.


On another level, these two people, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, couldn’t be more different. Nicodemus is a man, a Pharisee, which means he has spent more time than the average man reading and studying the Law and the Prophets. Nicodemus has social status—he’s a leader of the Jews. The Samaritan woman comes to Jesus from a very different place.


For one thing, she’s a Samaritan, which means that she is part of a Jewish community that isn’t in conversation with the Jewish community of Nicodemus—in part because of geographical divisions, a split about the proper geographical place to worship God. We may hear the word Samaritan and attach it to the idea of the Good Samaritan, who stops and tends to the wounded traveler. People in the time of Jesus or the slightly later time of John’s Gospel would not have had these associations. Samaritans would have been seen as the outcast tribe of Judea that worshipped wrong and lived wrong because they embraced wrong beliefs.


Some have interpreted the fact that the Samaritan woman has had five husbands to mean that she’s a woman of looser morals than most. But there’s nothing in the text that asserts our modern claim. She would not have been allowed to divorce her husbands; it’s more likely that she has been a widow five times, which might soften our hearts towards her. It’s also possible that she’s been divorced a time or two or five, but again, this would have been done to her, not done by her.


Similarly, some interpreters have seen her appearance at the well at midday to mean that she’s so slutty that the women of the town have shunned her, and she has to come to the well by herself in the heat of the day. Women customarily came to the well at sunrise; they came in groups both for safety and for community. What is this Samaritan woman doing at the well all by herself? We might be tempted to jump to the conclusion that she’s an outcast many times over.


Scholar Laura Holmes cautions us about this traditional reading of the woman at the well, as a woman ostracized by her society. Look at the way the Gospel for today ends. The woman goes back to town and tells everyone what she’s experienced. If she was truly an outcast from her Samaritan society, no one would have given her the time of day. Instead, they listen to her and come out to verify for themselves. We’re told that many believed in him BECAUSE of her testimony. Once again, one of the earliest evangelists was female.


In last week’s Gospel, Nicodemus goes away puzzled. In today’s Gospel, the Samaritan woman also goes away puzzled. But instead of staying in the shadows, the way Nicodemus seems to, the Samaritan woman invites others to help her discern the truth. It’s a very Lutheran approach, isn’t it? In the end, they all have opened eyes and a deeper understanding.


They invite Jesus to stay with them, and he does, for two days. A better translation of the verb would be “abide.” We’ve seen this word before, and it means more than just to stay. It is more akin to making a home in a place—it’s a word that connotes settling in, getting grounded, creating and sharing community.


I assume that something similar happens to Nicodemus along the way, but we don’t see it in the same way that we do here, with a whole community doing the work of discipleship. Some come to believe in Jesus because of the testimony of the woman. Some may decide on the strength of their own encounter with Jesus, but it’s an encounter they wouldn’t have had without the woman at the well.


I assume that there are others in the Samaritan community who will be more like Nicodemus: hearing and questioning and remaining baffled as they go away. Will they come back? Has Jesus planted a seed that will lead to later flowering? We don’t know.


We also see the disciples in action. Here are men who have been with Jesus, and yet they still don’t understand. They have an encounter with Jesus that is similar to the encounters that Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well have. They ask questions about reality as they understand it. Jesus answers questions that they don’t even know they have or can’t articulate yet. Jesus shows the same patience with the disciples that he shows with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman. He understands that they are asking a different question, but he wants to show them a different way of perception. God is in their midst, and he wants to guide them to a deeper communion.


We see a similar dynamic today. Some will hear the words of Jesus and go away puzzled. Some will come back. Some will be curious. Some will be cautious. Some will witness to the whole community early on. It may take time for others. Some will live with Jesus for years at a time and still have questions.


The throughline is Jesus, who takes time to move the listener to a deeper understanding—an understanding of who Jesus is, and who the listener is in relationship to Jesus. Jesus offers living water, and like the Samaritan woman, we may be stuck on a literal level, wondering about how to get water with no dipper. It may take us time to realize that Jesus offers something much more profound.


Jesus is there, the drinking gourd, offering water for our parched souls. As he tells the disciples, he is the food that nourishes, the food we yearn for, even if we’re not always aware of our hunger.


When Jesus nourishes us and gives us living water, we can leave refreshed, replenished and renewed. We can go into the larger community, ready for the harvest that someone else began, generations of disciples before us, nourishing the earth, planting the seeds, watering the soil.