Third Sunday of Lent - 2026
Reflection on John 4:4-29 March 7, 2026
This is a story of someone who is seeking but doesn’t know what –
– and of an ordinary lay woman finding faith.
Give me a drink: Today this simple request has assumed a dangerous nuance: Jesus might be an undocumented immigrant who asks me or you for a little water. What will I do? What will we do? Suddenly faced with this request do we fear that ICE will come and fault us for being neighbors to an “alien”?
Jesus asks out of the blue. The Samaritan woman is annoyed and reminds him of the exclusionary laws that “Jews have nothing in common with Samaritans.” (Jn 4:9) They even see Samaritan women as “ritually impure” and so is any vessel they use.
Unconcerned Jesus addresses her again: “if you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (Jn 4:10) This changes the thirsty man into a mysterious giver of living water.
She counters with realism: “you do not even have a bucket….are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this cistern…?” (4:11-12) But when he claims that his water will never leave her thirsty and will “well up to eternal life,” (4:14), she wants this kind of water “so that I may not have to come here to draw water.” For what is she looking in this ‘living water’?
Pope Francis in “The Joy of the Gospel” says that the “doors of the Church should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door.” (n. 47).
Jesus opens the doors of God’s love for her: he reveals himself to her as the Messiah: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” (4:26)
Rather than criticizing her Jesus honors her truthfulness and sees her as one who is ready” to worship the Father in Spirit and Truth…. and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.” (4:23)
His disciples appear – and she runs to tell her people about this man “who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Messiah?”
No longer an ordinary woman with an ambiguous past she tells the people what happened to her. They look at their own experiences – and believe her that this Jew is “truly the savior of the world.” (4:42)
This story moves in leaps and bounds, leaps over all the laws that separate Jews and Samaritans, all the laws of realistic calculations. Pope Francis says: “with a pastoral goal and missionary style the message is simplified…. and thus becomes all the more forceful and convincing.” (n. 35) Moreover, God’s word is “unpredictable in its power … [it] accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and our ways of thinking.” (n. 22) Beyond her own calculations and our ways of thinking the woman has found faith and is ready to share it!
Francis also quotes St. Thomas Aquinas: “in itself mercy is the greatest of the virtues … and makes up for [human] deficiencies. … it is mercy….which above all seeks the good of one’s neighbor.’” (n. 37 and St. Thomas, II-II, q. 30, a. 4, ad 1)
Here as elsewhere Jesus stresses the “good of neighbors” – he is neighbor to the woman, and she loses her doubts and fearlessly walks into the world of truth and faith.
Here are some points to consider:
Have you ever been intrigued by someone who had a living faith and living water that feeds the soul? How did you come to believe?
Or have you ever been the person who let someone else see your faith and how it gave sustenance to your ordinary life?
Sr. Marianne Burkhard, OSB