Third Sunday in Lent -- Year A - Worship Service - 11:00 AM Service -- Pastor Naomi Carriker

We are a small church, but big on Grace. We gather each Sunday at 11:00 am for worship by singing hymns, hearing readings from the bible, praying together and a celebration of Holy Communion. Communion is the spiritual bread our bodies need to live. All are invited to join us at the Lord's table to be fed by his heavenly food, There are no strangers in God’s house, and if you choose to worship with us, we would be honored by your presence.

Introduction

 

In today’s gospel the Samaritan woman asks Jesus for water, an image of our thirst for God. Jesus offers living water, a sign of God’s grace flowing from the waters of baptism. The early church used this gospel and those of the next two Sundays to deepen baptismal reflection during the final days of preparation before baptism at Easter. As we journey to the resurrection feast, Christ comes among us in word, bath, and meal—offering us the life-giving water of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

 

Prayer of the Day

Merciful God, the fountain of living water, you quench our thirst and wash away our sin. Give us this water always. Bring us to drink from the well that flows with the beauty of your truth through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

 

First Reading: Exodus 17:1-7

Because the thirsty Israelites quarreled with Moses and put God to the test, Moses cried out in desperation to God. God commanded Moses to strike the rock to provide water for the people. The doubt-filled question—“Is the Lord among us or not?”—received a very positive answer./p>

 

Psalm: 95

Let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation. (Ps. 95:1)/p>

 

Second Reading:  

Romans 5:1-11

Though we often hear that God helps those who help themselves, here Paul tells us that through Jesus’ death God helps utterly helpless sinners. Since we who had been enemies are reconciled to God in the cross, we now live in hope for our final salvation.

 

Gospel:  

John 4:5-42

Jesus defies convention to engage a Samaritan woman in conversation. Her testimony, in turn, leads many others to faith.

5  [Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

6  Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.  

7  A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

8  (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 

9  The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

10  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

11  The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

12  Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

13  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

14  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.”

15  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.”  

16  Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”

17  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’

18  for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

19  The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

20  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

22  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

 23  But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.

24  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

25  The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

26  Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”  

 27  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?”

28  Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,

29  “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

30  They left the city and were on their way to him.  

31  Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32  But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

33  So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”

34  Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

35  Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.

36  The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

37  For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’

38  I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”  

39  Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”

40  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.

41  And many more believed because of his word.

42  They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

 

After the Sermon, Holy Communion will be offered. Come as you are, the gift of the Table of the Lord has been prepared as Jesus has requested and now we are invited to the meal. Come to the table like Peter, with m ore enthusiasm than resolve and like James and John, disappointed and the priorities of God’s reign. Come to the table like Martha, hosting and leading with confidence like Mary, full of love and grief. Come to the table like Judas, disillusioned and rebellious and like Mary Magdalene, faithful till the end. Come to the table, because it is God who invites us and it’s God’s will that those who want to should meet God here.

Blessing for the day (Our blessing is an adaptation of a Franciscan Prayer)

May God bless us with discomfort at a Easy answers, half truths and superficial leaderships so that we may live out God’s will deep in our heartland in our world.

May god bless with anger at injustice, oppression and exploration and the environments that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, hunger and war so that we may reach out with hands and hearts to help them, walk with them and turn their pain into hope and joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. To bring justice, peace, hope and love to all children, the poor and all others in any need.

God be your comfort, your strength;

God be your hope and support;

God be your light and your way; and the blessing of God Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life, remain with you now and forever.