Sermon Sunday March 8, 2026
On this third Sunday of Lent, the church gives us a profound encounter. An encounter that we know so well, but an encounter that is worthy of us to really reflect on over and over again. And I know I’ve said this before about well last just last Sunday when Jesus encountered Nicodemus and today we hear about Jesus encountering a Samaritan woman at the well. But the two are somewhat connected if you think about it because we are presented here not just with actions of Jesus or with miracles of Jesus or with proofs that Jesus is the Messiah. No, this is even more profound because we here are presented with an encounter with Jesus. encounters with Jesus that have the potential of being life changing.
Nicodemus, a very well to-do religious leader, is the one that we talked about last week that Jesus sits down with. And today we hear about almost the opposite kind of person, a person who is on the outskirts, not a religious leader, but actually someone that Jesus had no business speaking with because Jews made it very clear that you do not cross certain boundaries, certain lines. When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman, he’s breaking all kinds of social and religious norms. She is the least likely person to get what he’s saying. She’s the least likely to accept his message. She’s the least likely to become a disciple and to tell others about Jesus. It was Nicodemus we were counting on. It was Nicodemus who had the greatest pedigree to be able to succeed as a follower of Jesus, as an evangelist, as the witness. And yet everything’s reversed.
This is the puzzlement of the gospels that the ones who were supposed to get it and accept Jesus rejected him. And the ones who had no business being even near Jesus were the ones who embraced him. The reversal of which the gospels speak so often. The reversal, the surprise, what we expect is not what God expects. And that’s the interesting part. The Samaritan woman, well, she was the wrong race. Samaritans were looked down upon by the Jewish people mainly because they intermarried with other nations. They were not seen as pure enough. They were tainted in some way by non-Jewish nations that intermarried after the Assyrian invasion of the north of the northern kingdom. And so really they lived on the outskirts. They didn’t even go to Jerusalem to worship at the temple because they weren’t allowed. And so they had to create their own place of worship. They followed the same teachings. They followed the same revelation. They rejected the prophets. And they themselves were rejected by the Jewish people. Jewish people were not allowed to speak to Samaritans. Jesus speaks to a Samaritan woman.
Jewish people, Jewish males were not allowed to speak to non relative female members of the Jewish people. In other words, unless you were in company of other people on your own, you were not supposed to meet with a female as a man by yourself unaccompanied. Jesus breaks that cultural norm. And lastly, a divorced five times married and living with a man without marriage woman was not supposed to be embraced and embraced by the Messiah. She was by all accounts considered a sinner, a failure, living in shame. So we have this encounter that surprises us all. It’s supposed to surprise us. Why? Because she succeeds where all the right people failed.
She’s able to be honest with Jesus. And Jesus is able not only to promise her his lifegiving water of which he speaks to Nicodemus. And now he repeats to her, but he’s also able to go out of his way to drop everything and stay with her and her people two extra days. You know, sometimes I think of my heroes in this world and I think how wonderful it would be to meet someone who’s my hero and for that person to have even five minutes of his or her time to spend with me so I could ask questions so I could get to know them. Think how surprising it was that Jesus lets go of the religious leaders and powerful people of his day and spends two full days ministering and encountering the rejects, you could say, of society, the ones who were not supposed to be worthy of anything.
You know, we just finished watching this Mini-series on TV on the learning channel called Suddenly Amish. I think I mentioned that before where a number of young people were trying to join this Amish community. And it was more interesting and more enjoyable than I originally expected it to be. But because it had a religious element in it, I was intrigued and it had a cultural element in it. How do you enter into a community that is so different from everything you know? And how does a community who sees itself as so pure allow people who are considered sinners in their according to their dogma to come in? And how does that relationship work? But what was most surprising to me was the ending. And in the end, the one who stays and the one who is accepted is the least likely person. The wrong race, the wrong gender, the wrong sexuality. And you can see how their engagement with each other, getting to know each other, crosses all kinds of boundaries. It challenges the Amish people to accept him for who he is. And it challenges this young man to accept them for who they are and to continue to journey together in love. Fascinating.
I think this encounter of Jesus with so many different people is a wakeup call for me whenever I read it because it tells me that I need to challenge myself to see opportunities where I least expect them, to see Christ where I least expect him. and to
reach out in areas and with people that perhaps I am least comfortable. And so here’s a little challenge for us as we continue in this Lenten journey. And this is a very practical challenge. I hope you will ponder it a little bit. Are there people in your life? Are there people in my life that I see as outsiders? That I see as so different from me and from my politics and from my culture and from my religion that I try to avoid them or maybe write
them off. Am I able to have just a normal conversation like Jesus at the well? just a friendly conversation with the person I perhaps avoid most. Am I able to show grace? Am I able to allow the person to encounter Christ or to be in the presence of God’s grace? How about this? Am I able to invite that person to
church? Am I able to invite that person into the most sacred part of my life?
Do I have the courage to say something that may be rejected? And if it is, am I okay with it? Am I willing to take a risk?
Listen, if we were able to just speak and encounter people in the most gentle and beautiful and non-judgmental way, who knows? We may be able to bring everyone brings one person to church with them. Imagine what could happen. And not just for our benefit, but for their benefit. There are so many people out there who feel hurt, who feel judged, and perhaps who feel unworthy. Unworthy of an encounter, unworthy of Jesus, unworthy of religion, unworthy of anything that we see as worthy. And yet in God’s eyes through the example of Jesus, we see in reaching the ones who are perceived as unworthy, God says very clearly, everyone is worthy of God’s love. Everyone is worthy of Christ’s time. Everyone is worthy of being encountered, of being seen as a human being, of being invited as the Samaritan woman was invited to receive the living water, the presence of God, the gift of faith. I invite you to join me in this challenge.
And who knows, maybe we too will encounter people in the midst of this broken world that desperately need a listening ear, a kind word, and a blessing from God himself
through us.
Amen.
Father Wojtek Kuzma