A Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie

Exodus 17:1-7
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-26(27-38)39-42
Psalm 95 or 95:6-11

(Put on Via Media shirt, point to questioning hand. Turn challengingly toward altar. Raise hand and ask:) Okay, Rabbi, "Where do you get that living water? How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Sir, I see that you are a prophet. So, just where are we supposed to worship?"

The Samaritan woman at the well had a lot of good questions. The questions well up in her like living water. And Jesus answers her. This is the longest theological dialogue Jesus has anywhere in Scripture. He doesn't engage the learned pharisees and scribes or his beloved disciples in this lengthy conversation. He debates theology with the least likely person around. No good Jew would have anything to do with a foreign Samaritan. No respectable rabbi talks with a woman, much less one with five "husbands." But this brazen hussy knows her theology and she isn't afraid to ask her questions. She knows Jews and Samaritans disagree about the right place to worship. She knows about the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. He is the one who will come and bring the truth to God's people.

And Jesus says to her simply, "I am he." It is an answer to take anyone's breath away. And the disciples show up before she can catch her breath and ask another question.

The disciples have questions, too. They wonder why Jesus is speaking with a woman. But, unlike the scandalous foreign woman, they don't dare ask him. They're probably worried that she fed him some kind of non-kosher lunch.

She has fed him with her questions. And instead of turning her away, he has encouraged her. That kid in Sunday School with all the questions is the one who is going to grow in faith. Our Via Media program is on the right track in encouraging our questions. Our Anglican tradition embraces the questions even when the questions are as hard and painful as the ones our bishops are asking today about sexuality. The questioners, like the woman at the well, are often the ones who reach out to the world. Because the world is full of questions The disciples in today's story have a lot to learn. They are still holding on to their questions and are only beginning to enter into the labor of the harvest that Jesus talks about.

Meanwhile our questioning woman is already at work gathering the harvest, spreading the good news about Jesus.

She has dropped her water jug and run back into town. She is full of questions and full of good news: "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

Many people came to faith because of her questions. People are thirsty. People have questions. The fields were ripe for harvest and she gathered people for Jesus. Jesus, the Messiah, the one who has the living water of eternal life. And you only have to ask.

The fields are still ripe for harvesting, even right here on the iron range. People are thirsty for the living water. People are looking to live lives full of ‘spirit and truth.' People are full of unasked questions.

So maybe you've got your share of questions still. That's reason enough to invite another questioner to "come and see" Jesus. "He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"