I was privileged to give this sermon Epiphany Sunday ( March 8th, 2026 ) at the Episcopal churches, Saint John’s, Lancaster, OH and Saint Paul’s, Logan, OH.

Listen to this sermon here.

There is nothing like a drink of water when we are thirsty. Everything alive on Earth requires some water every day to survive.  Each one of us requires around a gallon of water every day for good health.

In our first lesson from Exodus, the people are thirsty. They receive manna from Heaven every morning, and quail swarm over their encampments providing both bread and meat. But they have traveled to an area with no source of water for themselves and their animals. The people are thirsty and desperate. Moses is in fear of his life. God again provides, this time a miracle of a spring of water from a stone to give His people what they need.

I believe that the people were not only thirsty for water but suffered from a spiritual thirst. It’s like when we are on a long car trip and we keep asking the driver, “Are we there yet?”. The people are asking Moses, “When are we going to get to this promised land?” And as things turned out, the promised land is 40 years away. Just about everyone who left Egypt dies including Moses, before the people finally arrive at their promised land. People freed from slavery entered the wilderness, and after 40 years of wandering, the descendants of those people because of the hardships they endured, developed a spirit of discernment, of waiting and watching, waiting and watching for their eventual arrival at their promised land.

We today, are also suffering from a spiritual thirst. Many of us have wandered, and many of us still wander in a spiritual wilderness. This is a good thing. It is a very good for us to understand, to be aware, that there is something missing in our lives, and that we are seeking, looking, and searching for our promised land.

In our gospel lesson, Jesus is thirsty. Jesus is tired. Jesus is traveling back home to Galilee passing through Samaria after celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem. It is high noon, the sun is overhead, he sits down by the well of Jacob to rest but there is no bucket, no clay jar or rope to draw water from this well. The disciples go into the nearby city of Sychar to buy food. A Samaritan woman comes out to the well with her clay jar and rope to draw water and Jesus asks for a drink of water. The woman seems to be startled, asking Jesus how can he, as a Jew, can ask a Samaritan woman for a drink? In all the stories of Jesus in the gospels, Jesus is often talking to people he should not talk to, and most of the time someone is criticizing him for doing so!

Jesus ignores her question to him, instead telling her that if she knew who he was she would ask him for living water. Water that after you drink it becomes a boundless spring within you such that you never thirst again. The woman is very interested in this living water. I don’t think we can truly understand how hard it was in those days to get the water everyone needed every day. We just turn on a fauct, in our kitchen or bathroom, and the water just flows – life giving water for drinking or washing. The woman in our lesson had to not only lift the water up from a deep well, but then to carry it a mile or two back to her home.

Jesus asks the woman to bring her husband to him, but she states that she is not married. Jesus reveals that he knows her domestic situation, information that he as a stranger cannot possibly know. She recognizes Jesus as a prophet of the Lord. Now the woman has a problem, a complaint for God.  She is a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – she claims Jacob as an ancestor. Just as the people complained to Moses in our first lesson about their lack of water, the Samaritan woman lodges her complaint with Jesus the prophet of the living God.

Identifying Jesus as a religious leader she tells Jesus that her people used to worship God on the nearby mountain, but you say that people must worship in Jerusalem. What she does not ask is where is She supposed to worship. She does not have to ask. As a Samaritan, the woman is not allowed to worship in Jerusalem. The religious authorities had decided that the people of Samaria, a people descended from Jacob can not worship in their temple in Jerusalem. Jesus answers her unspoken question that the time has come when people everywhere will worship God in spirit and truth. She in turn replies that she knows the Messiah is coming. Jesus tells her that he is that Messiah.

Jesus and this woman are not talking about water now. They are talking about the prophesy of Isaiah – when all the peoples of the world will worship the living God in spirit and in truth. They are talking about the Messiah sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Both Jesus and the woman were physically and spiritually thirsty that day at the well. Jesus the man and the Woman of Sychar drank some water from the well of Jacob their famous ancestor which sated their physical thirst. They drank from living water in their conversation; the woman, one of the many at that time waiting and watching for the Messiah to come. Jesus the Christ, for people to hear and believe in God’s Good News that all people are forgiven and can worship the living God in spirit and truth, wherever they are, whoever they are, just as they are.

I can picture this woman running back to her city, asking the people there, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”.

The Jesus that the disciples left at the well is not the same man they find on their return. Jesus is now overflowing with energy and purpose. He announces to the disciples that the time of the harvest has arrived! He is no longer tired, or hungry; his encounter with the Woman at the well has revealed to him that the Samaritan people of Sychar are ready for God’s message of redemption. These people know and understand the prophesies of Isaiah. They understand that God would send the Messiah, and they have been waiting and watching for this Messiah to arrive.

In her haste to hurry back into the city to spread the word about Jesus, the Woman left her rope, and her jar by the well.
She came back to the well with many people from the city, to hear the Good News from the Savior of the World.

There are many people around us, spiritually thirsty just like those people in the city of Sychar. Although we face different challenges in spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. We live and work in a very different world; our modern world is full of options and choices. The world marketplace of ideas and products is constantly making sales pitches to us, whenever we listen or watch any sort of media.

We’ve got Christian churches everywhere here in town, and yet many people don’t attend any church. Many people here, do not participate in any regular spiritual or religious practice, and moreover many have bad feelings and associations about religion in general and Christianity in particular. Maybe like me, the church they were raised in changed over time, becoming more rigid in belief so they stopped going. Maybe there were personality conflicts at their church; they were just not comfortable attending anymore and stopped going to church, and not just their church but any church. Maybe this experience happened to one or both of their parents, so that as children, they were raised to avoid those ‘religious’ people and are still doing so as adults.

And yet. And yet, we are creatures, created beings, created in spirit and truth by the living God. If we don’t drink from living water we are spiritually thirsty, and must continually try to fill that spiritual void in our lives. I believe that here and now the fields are ripe for harvesting. I believe there are a great many people seeking to quench that spiritual thirst, searching for living water. Searching for truth, for meaning, and for salvation.

As Christians, we represent Christ to our friends and neighbors. Like Jesus did at the well, we need to talk about living water, with the people around us, in our daily life and work. Especially to people like the Woman at the well. She was spiritually thirsty, wandering in a spritual wilderness, ready to hear the Good News of God. We should welcome opportunities to have those deep conversations with people, to be bold, and also sensitive to the nature of our souls which are as timid and elusive as wild deer in a deep forest.

It may simply be enough to let our friends know that we go to church, and if they’d like, to come and see for themselves.

Then they will hear, what we believe, and who we worship, and they will know that there is truly a Savior of the world.

Amen.

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Psalm 95

Venite, exultemus

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.

5 The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

8 Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the wilderness, *
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,
when they tempted me.

9 They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.

10 Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *
“This people are wayward in their hearts;
they do not know my ways.”

11 So I swore in my wrath, *
“They shall not enter into my rest.”

Romans 5:1-11

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person– though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.) 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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.” 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.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

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?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 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. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. 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.”