Lent 3A Two Days in Samaria St. Mark’s, March 8, 2026
John 4:5-42
Without question, the best word to describe our life in community is “polarized.” Every night on the news, we see Red and Blue states. More churches remain divided into groups with little understanding of the issues of sexuality and biblical authority. Our country remains polarized over immigration, the social responsibility of states versus national governments, and our relationship with the rest of the world. The rights of illegal immigrants and the rights of Muslims fill every weekly newscast. Family life and friendships have more elephants in the room, protected by the fence that says, “Don’t go there.” The list of topics we dare not or do not discuss is growing/ as the reality of community is shrinking.
In today’s gospel, there is an often-overlooked passage of great significance for us who live in this polarized world. The text is not only a model for Christian behavior./ It constitutes marching orders for us who take the idea of following Jesus seriously./ The passage is: “So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.” /
You all know about the relationship in Jesus’ time between Jews in Samaria,/ the part of Palestine between Judea and Galilee,/ and the rest of the country. Some 700 years before Jesus’ day, the Northern Jewish kingdom, including its capital of Samaria is destroyed by the Assyrians. The Southern Jewish Kingdom is not conquered at that time. The Southern Judeans teach their children that the Jews left in the region around Samaria are lower class who intermarried with the Assyrians and are therefore religiously impure. Later in the sixth century BC, the southern kingdom is now taken into captivity by Babylon. When the southern Jews return from Babylon in 538 BC, they continue to consider the Samaritan Jews left behind as unclean. Soon, both southern Judean Jewish leaders/ and northern Samaritan religious leaders teach that it is wrong to have any contact with the opposite group,/ and neither is to enter each other’s territories or even to speak to one another.//
The Gospel today begins with: “Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar (sI ker).”/ The gospel ends by telling us that Jesus stays for two days. There is a gap,/ an unimaginable gap in the story. Jesus ventures across this gap/ and stays for two days. What does this begin to tell us about following Jesus?
A popular question today is: What would Jesus do? Looking at these two days in Samaria, the question is, “What did Jesus do?” Obviously, no one knows because it is not in the text,/ but we can speculate by remembering how Jesus interacts with the unnamed Samaritan woman that noonday at the well. First, he talks to her. Jesus neither attacks the woman nor judges her. Jesus never calls her a sinner because she has had five husbands and now lives with a man who is not her husband./ In her culture, divorce is almost always only an option for men.2 Five men pass this woman around. One takes her and gives her a divorce; another takes her, divorces her, and again and again. She does not choose to take five husbands and another man./ Jesus applauds her honesty and allows the Samaritan woman to see who she is by telling her who he is. In fact, the woman is the first man or woman in John’s gospel whom Jesus reveals himself as the Christ!/ Jesus crosses all boundaries, breaks all rules, drops all disguise, and speaks to this woman as if he has known her all her life. He empowers her to become an evangelist, to return to people she thought she could never face again, speaking to them as boldly as he speaks to her. ///
Today we hear about a conversation, the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and anyone else in the Bible!1//
A conversation occurs between people when certain elements are in place: First, people must recognize that they may have differing backgrounds and traditions, different families, and different values, and that they come from different parts of the world. Second, people in conversation must first find common ground. Third, people in conversation must be open to the possibility that either or both may change as a result of the exchange. Often, we say, “Oh, we had a great conversation,” when what we really mean/ is that the other person sat there for 30 minutes listening to us talk.2 Jesus, on the other hand, begins by listening/ because Jesus is so good at loving people,/ and listening is one of the best ways to love. Unfortunately, listening has become a rare art. We cannot completely listen to our neighbor if we are preoccupied with our own appearance, or focusing on how we are going to impress them/ or deciding what we are going to say when our neighbor stops talking/ or debating whether what is being said is true, relevant, or agreeable.
Listening/ is an active act of love/ when we concentrate on what our neighbor is saying, becoming accessible and vulnerable to what they are telling us./ After Jesus listens, he speaks in ways that prove he has heard what has been said, not only in words, but also in the person’s body language.// That is why the Samaritans can hear what Jesus says and why many come to believe.////
Notice that Jesus’ two-day visit does not fix the Samaritan problem. He does not convince them of the Southern Jewish ways. Our faith does not call us to be right nearly as often as it calls us to be righteous, just,;// not so much to have the “right” idea as to do the next right thing. We are called to be faithful, not necessarily successful./ Going to Samaria for two days of listening and talking is the right thing to do, no matter the outcome.///
What does that begin to tell us about following Jesus?
Ponder this together: Where is our Samaria?/ Where is the gap wide and the chasm deep in our lives? Is Samaria that incomprehensible political position, red or blue? That view of sexuality or biblical authority that is so offensive? That race-tinted view that makes our world look so different from the world of another? That history or memory that leaves us struggling in a life of fear? The person we cannot forgive? That place where demons of addiction or fear pounce on us? Or is our Samaria the living room full of elephants, with manicured barriers for conversation?// Samaria is every one of these and a thousand more.
And dare we speculate what it would mean to follow Jesus into our Samaria?/ Frank Wade3, former rector of Saint Albans in Washington, describes going to Samaria as “ Not like a propaganda flight where we drop leaflets from a thousand feet./ Not a local raid where we count success by simply touching the enemy./ Not as a safari where we view them in their natural habitat./ Not a photo op where we pose. Instead, we are asked to follow Jesus as disciples, as people more interested in justice or righteousness/ than in being “right,”/ who can love by listening /and then speak as if we have really heard what has been said in our Samaria.” /////
Jesus went to Samaria and stayed there two days. What does that tell us/ about following /Jesus?
1Barbara Brown Taylor, “Identity Confirmation: John 4:5-42,” Faith Matters, Christian Century, February 12, 2008, p. 19.
2Fred Craddock, “Talking Religion Defensively,” Cherry Log Sermons, pp. 48-53.
3Frank Wade, “Two Days in Samaria”, St. Alban’s Parish, Washington, DC, February 27, 2005.