Weekly Sermon: 06-28-2026 - Grounded in Creation - Water

The Holy Gospel according to John,

So he 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 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 into the city to buy food.

Then the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew,

ask to 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 was 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?' And 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.

Then Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come back.

The woman answered him, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her,

You are right in saying and 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.

And the woman said to him, Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where

people must worship is in Jerusalem.

And Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship

the Father neither on this mountain or 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 that 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.

And the woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will proclaim all these things to us.

And Jesus said to her, I am he, the one who is speaking to you.

And 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 that I have ever done.

He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

And they left the city and were on their way to him, the gospel of the Lord.

You may be seated.

So a few weeks ago james and i were scrolling through hulu looking for something

to watch and we came across a documentary for richard simmons,

and if you don't know who richard simmons is he was a fitness icon throughout

the 80s and 90s and he wore exotic workout clothes

and the thing that i remember most about him was that he always found a way

to merge both body positivity and health in a way that was energetic and fun,

he made you want to work out and always found a way to make you feel good regardless of your body type.

He was a household name and universally loved but in the late 2010s he just

disappears this is after his

appearances became less and less frequent throughout the years and around,

2014-2015 it was like poof and he was gone,

and there was a lot of speculation about why he left the public eye and that

documentary that James and I watched spelled out all those rumors there was

speculation that he was transgender and he transitioned there was some speculation,

saying that he was estranged from his family,

and other rumors that stated that he was going through a depression so deep,

that kept him from going outside.

And probably the most silly theory was, and probably my favorite because it's

just how asinine it was, was that he was being held hostage by his house staff.

Well, after watching the documentary, I can tell you with absolute certainty

that the reason he started isolating was unclear.

Yep. We don't know the answer. It doesn't answer the question.

It kind of just leaves it out there.

And the truth is we don't really know. It may never know since he just passed away a few years ago.

But that show stuck with me because it reminded me how quickly we can make assumptions

and build stories about others.

We see a face, a hairstyle, political sign, a neighborhood.

And before we actually know somebody's story, we have decided who they are.

And there's this pool i think sometimes because we really want to get to know

people to fill in the blanks,

and their lives in order to explain their behavior or to understand them a little

more but i actually filling in those place we miss opportunities to get to know them more,

and then there are those people who've actually had their stories filled in for them,

And they know exactly what this feels like,

how it feels to be misunderstood, and have assumptions of the stories made before

anybody has taken the time to listen to them.

And I think that's kind of what is happening in today's gospel reading.

Because when we meet the Samaritan woman, we are never given her name.

But instead, we are given her labels, and they'll already start filling out her story for us.

We know that she's Samaritan and she's a woman and those come with story points

already attached but on top of those story points.

For nearly 2,000 years we've added more details on our own,

some of those stories have become so common that we don't even question them

anymore you might have heard that not only is she a woman but in fact that she

is a sinful, promiscuous, ashamed woman, and is a problem.

And according to those same stories made up about her, her redemption comes

after Jesus points out her failures, where she then feels convicted and she

goes back to tell everybody about him

because Jesus gave her a holy guilt trip and she was saved from that.

It's a familiar reading and a simple one because it doesn't require much for

us. It answers all the questions and fills in all those gaps for her.

But the problem with this story that we just told about her is that the text

as it's presented to us doesn't actually say these things about her.

The text never tells us that he calls her immoral or ashamed.

And Jesus, after saying that, well, you've had five husbands and the man you're

living with right now is not your husband. He doesn't condemn her.

That shameless, that immorality, that condemnation, that's parts of her story that we have filled in.

But rather after he tells about her about her life he continues actually in his

riveting theological conversation with her they talk about worship and where

it should be done, God and messianic hopes for their community,

he sees her as a theological conversation partner and.

So pause with that for a moment. She's not somebody who's sinful,

full of shame, but instead is seen as somebody able to have a conversation with

Jesus about things pertaining to God.

So this story may not be about a sinful woman being put in her place,

but in actuality it may be about a woman who has been put in a box in a story

that we have just seen a glimpse of and filled the rest of the blanks on her own.

And when you look deeper into the context, those blanks that we have filled

in actually start to break down.

Historically speaking, in first century Palestine, women had very little power

when it came to marriage and divorce.

And those decisions overwhelmingly belong to men.

Which means her having five husbands tells us probably nothing about her character.

But rather what I think it definitely tells us is that this is a woman who's

been through a lot and is definitely very strong.

What we do know is as anyone who's been through a separation,

a divorce, a difficult breakup, or any kind of loss of a loved one is that five

marriages would have certainly required a lot of loss.

She has lost relationships in her life, security, and stability.

And perhaps even has even suffered through loss and death of her loved ones.

There are so many possibilities. And as I read this story, I don't think it's

a story of a scandalous woman, but rather a strong woman who continues to survive

despite all the hardship that surrounds her.

This is a woman carrying wounds that everyone around her assumes that they understand.

Everyone reading about her assumes they understand.

But that is what happens when we fill in the blanks about somebody's life.

When we take one little fact about them, whether that's their divorce or an

immigrant or transgender or they're homeless.

From that one word, we can build an entire person. But in our story today,

Jesus actually refuses to do that.

Jesus knows her story deeply down

to the minute details and sees the possibilities of who she can become.

And this is what Jesus, I think, means by living water.

Living water isn't just about life after death. Living water is God's life flowing

through us and changing the way we see ourselves and changing the way that we see one another.

The woman isn't changed because Jesus shamed her. She is changed because she

is finally seen and known.

And in doing so, Jesus gives her the world so often refuses to give all of us.

It's the dignity is being treated as a whole person.

And through the act of being seen, she receives the living water for Jesus and

becomes an evangelist for him.

And so the question for us in this story is, where do you see yourself? Are you the story maker?

Are you feeling gaps for other people trying to explain their behavior?

Or are you feeling like the Samaritan woman today?

I think, honestly, as we look at this, I think for most of us,

we kind of feel in both places, right?

There are times where we're trying to understand people because we want to get

to know them, and we feel in those blanks, but in doing so, we fail to get to know them.

But also, there are times where we feel isolated and alone.

And because of this we exist in this liminal space between being both the accused and the accuser,

but the good news is today is that Jesus actually meets us in both of these places in this story,

so that means that first that discipleship begins with curiosity instead of

filling in blanks we can be curious about others.

Instead of assuming stories, we can ask questions, get to know them,

because there's always chapters in somebody's life that we do not know.

That's what Jesus does at the well. And so when you start to notice yourself

making assumptions about somebody's behavior or prejudice is coming up in your

mind or through your mouth,

take a moment and think about the bigger picture and either get to know them

or at least give them the grace that Jesus gives the woman at the well.

And another lesson here is for those moments when we feel like the Samaritan

woman, where we feel misunderstood and isolated.

This story reminds us that the same God who created us and holds all the creation

and divine hands is the same God who knows us intimately.

Who knows every chapter of your story, whether it's the joyful ones or the ones full of heartbreak.

And God meets us there in those stories, but doesn't meet us with shame, but rather with grace.

And so just as he invites her into conversation and trusts her to take the good

news and move forward, Jesus, because he knows us and trusts us with the good news also.

And so we get to go knowing that we are known and loved and given grace by God.

And we get to go out and share that with others.

We get to say, come and see.

And we get to spread the testimony of our lives and God's interaction with us,

and God's love for us and share that with others.

We get to be the voice where others get to encounter Christ and get to be known,

to know that they are known by the loving God.

So whatever chapter you find yourself in today, know that it's not the full story.

It's your whole story. You are fully known. You are fully loved and invited

to drink deeply from the living water that reminds you that God is still at work in your life.

And we get to continue to build a world where all our welcome get to partake of the living water.

Where everybody who walks through our doors feels known.

And that nobody needs to feel isolated and alone because not only are they deeply

known by a loving God, but they get to experience that loving God through our own lives.

And so let's go and be like the first evangelist in John and spread God's loving

and living water to all the people in our lives.

Amen. Go now, grounded in the goodness of God's creation, earth beneath you

air around you water within you fire to guide you plants and creatures beside you

and galaxies above you declaring god's wonder

honor creation share her gifts walk gently for the sake of your neighbors and generations to come

go in peace as you love serve and welcome all,

thanks to god and we if you were inspired by this week's.