In this new series, "The Cost of Connection," we explore the dual meaning of connection: the cost of choosing community and the cost Jesus paid to restore our connection with God. As we enter the Lent season, a time of preparation for Easter, we are reminded of the importance of spiritual reflection and fasting. Fasting is not limited to food; it can be any habit or behavior that distracts us from focusing on God. This series encourages us to examine our lives and consider what we might set aside to deepen our spiritual connection.

Today's focus is on the concept of thirst, both physical and spiritual. We often seek to quench our immediate physical thirst with various drinks, but true satisfaction comes from addressing our deeper spiritual thirst. We delve into John 4, where Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. This encounter highlights Jesus' intentionality in breaking social norms to offer living water, a metaphor for eternal life and spiritual fulfillment. The Samaritan woman, an outcast, is seen and valued by Jesus, who offers her hope and transformation.

Jesus' interaction with the woman demonstrates that helping others is not just an action but an integral part of who He is. He sees beyond her immediate needs and addresses her deeper spiritual thirst. This story challenges us to look beyond our immediate desires and recognize the deeper longings that only God can satisfy. As we journey through Lent, we are invited to reflect on our own lives, identify areas where we seek temporary satisfaction, and turn to God for lasting fulfillment.

**Key Takeaways:**

- **The Dual Cost of Connection:** Lent reminds us of the cost of choosing community and the sacrifice Jesus made to restore our connection with God. This season invites us to reflect on what we might set aside to deepen our spiritual connection. [00:00]

- **Quenching Spiritual Thirst:** Just as physical thirst requires water, our spiritual thirst requires living water, which only Jesus can provide. We often seek temporary solutions for our deeper longings, but true satisfaction comes from a relationship with God. [34:43]

- **Breaking Social Norms for Love:** Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman shows His willingness to break social barriers to offer love and acceptance. He sees beyond societal labels and offers hope and transformation to those who feel marginalized. [42:04]

- **Living with Help and Hope:** Jesus' life exemplifies that helping others is not just an action but an integral part of His identity. He offers hope to those living with hurt, showing that our deepest needs can be met in Him. [48:59]

- **Reflecting on Our Spiritual Journey:** As we engage in Ignatian contemplation, we are encouraged to place ourselves in the biblical narrative, experiencing the story with all our senses. This practice helps us connect with Jesus' compassion and consider what we might surrender to deepen our spiritual hunger. [48:59]

**Youtube Chapters:**

- [00:00] - Welcome
- [00:45] - Introduction to Lent and Series
- [02:30] - The Cost of Connection
- [04:15] - Fasting and Spiritual Reflection
- [06:00] - Prayer and Preparation
- [07:30] - Exploring Thirst
- [10:00] - Physical vs. Spiritual Thirst
- [12:00] - Encounter at the Well
- [15:00] - Breaking Social Norms
- [18:00] - Jesus' Offer of Living Water
- [21:00] - The Woman's Transformation
- [24:00] - Living with Help and Hope
- [27:00] - Reflecting on Our Spiritual Journey
- [30:00] - Ignatian Contemplation Practice
- [33:00] - Closing Prayer and Communion Preparation

**Bible Study Discussion Guide: The Cost of Connection**

**Bible Reading:**
- John 4:1-42

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**Observation Questions:**

1. What cultural and social barriers did Jesus break by speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well? [18:00]

2. How does Jesus describe the "living water" He offers to the Samaritan woman, and what is her initial reaction to this offer? [34:43]

3. What is the significance of the Samaritan woman leaving her water jar behind after her encounter with Jesus? [42:04]

4. How did the townspeople react to the Samaritan woman's testimony about Jesus, and what was the outcome of her sharing? [48:59]

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**Interpretation Questions:**

1. Why might Jesus have chosen to reveal His identity as the Messiah to the Samaritan woman, and what does this reveal about His mission? [42:04]

2. In what ways does the story of the Samaritan woman challenge societal norms and expectations, both in the context of the story and in today's world? [18:00]

3. How does the concept of "living water" relate to the deeper spiritual thirst that Jesus addresses in the Samaritan woman and in us? [34:43]

4. What does the transformation of the Samaritan woman suggest about the power of personal testimony in sharing the message of Jesus? [48:59]

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**Application Questions:**

1. Reflect on a time when you felt like an outsider or marginalized. How can Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman encourage you to see your value and worth in God's eyes? [18:00]

2. Consider the "water jars" in your life—habits or distractions that you rely on for temporary satisfaction. What might you need to leave behind to pursue a deeper relationship with God? [42:04]

3. Jesus intentionally broke social norms to offer love and acceptance. Are there social barriers in your life that you feel called to challenge in order to show Christ's love to others? [18:00]

4. The Samaritan woman's testimony led many to believe in Jesus. How can you share your own story of faith with others, even if you feel unqualified or hesitant? [48:59]

5. During Lent, many choose to fast from certain habits to focus on God. Is there a specific habit or behavior you feel led to set aside during this season to deepen your spiritual connection? [42:04]

6. Jesus' life exemplifies helping others as an integral part of His identity. How can you incorporate acts of service into your daily life as a reflection of your faith? [48:59]

7. Reflect on the deeper spiritual thirst in your life. What steps can you take this week to seek fulfillment in your relationship with God rather than temporary solutions? [34:43]

Day 1: The Cost of Choosing Community
In the season of Lent, we are reminded of the dual cost of connection: the cost of choosing community and the sacrifice Jesus made to restore our connection with God. Lent invites us to reflect on what we might set aside to deepen our spiritual connection. This is a time to consider the distractions in our lives that pull us away from God and community. By choosing to engage with others and prioritize our spiritual growth, we acknowledge the sacrifices required to build meaningful relationships and a deeper connection with God. [00:00]

Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV): "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."

Reflection: What is one distraction in your life that you can set aside this week to focus more on your relationship with God and your community?


Day 2: True Satisfaction in Spiritual Thirst
Just as physical thirst requires water, our spiritual thirst requires living water, which only Jesus can provide. We often seek temporary solutions for our deeper longings, but true satisfaction comes from a relationship with God. In John 4, Jesus offers the Samaritan woman living water, symbolizing eternal life and spiritual fulfillment. This encounter challenges us to look beyond our immediate desires and recognize the deeper longings that only God can satisfy. [34:43]

Isaiah 55:1-2 (ESV): "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?"

Reflection: Identify one area in your life where you seek temporary satisfaction. How can you turn to God for lasting fulfillment in this area today?


Day 3: Breaking Barriers with Love
Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman shows His willingness to break social barriers to offer love and acceptance. He sees beyond societal labels and offers hope and transformation to those who feel marginalized. This story encourages us to look beyond societal norms and reach out to those who may feel excluded or undervalued, offering them the love and acceptance that Jesus exemplified. [42:04]

Galatians 3:28 (ESV): "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Reflection: Think of someone in your life who may feel marginalized or excluded. How can you reach out to them this week to show them love and acceptance?


Day 4: Living with Help and Hope
Jesus' life exemplifies that helping others is not just an action but an integral part of His identity. He offers hope to those living with hurt, showing that our deepest needs can be met in Him. As followers of Christ, we are called to embody this same spirit of help and hope, recognizing that our actions can be a source of healing and encouragement to others. [48:59]

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (ESV): "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

Reflection: Who in your life is in need of comfort or help? How can you be a source of hope and support for them today?


Day 5: Reflecting on Our Spiritual Journey
As we engage in Ignatian contemplation, we are encouraged to place ourselves in the biblical narrative, experiencing the story with all our senses. This practice helps us connect with Jesus' compassion and consider what we might surrender to deepen our spiritual hunger. By immersing ourselves in the story, we gain a deeper understanding of Jesus' love and are invited to reflect on our own spiritual journey. [48:59]

Psalm 119:18 (ESV): "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law."

Reflection: As you read a passage of Scripture today, imagine yourself in the story. What do you see, hear, and feel? How does this experience deepen your understanding of Jesus' love and your own spiritual journey?

Well, good morning, Menlo Church, and welcome to a brand new series that we're kicking off today as a part of Lent. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. Last week, we finished our series, The Formation Machine, and Brett helped us to understand the importance of community to our spiritual formation. If you missed that, it was fantastic. Well worth your time to go back and catch up online. Today, we begin a new series called The Cost of Connection, and it will take us all the way up to Easter with this idea that's kind of a double meaning between the cost of connection when we choose community, there's a weight and a cost to it, as well as the cost that Jesus was willing to pay to restore connection to mankind with God. [00:20:12] (45 seconds) Edit Clip


Now, some people are going to choose as a part of celebrating Lent something to fast from over the course of the next 40 days. Maybe you've heard of that before. And if you're thinking about doing that, it actually does not have to be a food thing. It could be a habit or a numbing behavior that you want to fast from so that you can use that time, that focus, that interest as a reminder to prepare your own heart to celebrate Easter this season, or maybe to be able to tune your heart to what God may be trying to impress upon you or speak specifically to you in this unique time of the year. [00:21:52] (34 seconds) Edit Clip


Now, today we're going to talk about thirst. And I want to acknowledge a cultural challenge to this topic because of the question, are you thirsty, means something way different in 2025. And I mean literally physical and spiritual thirst. That's all I'm talking about. I want to make that very clear. There has never been a time in history probably where there are so many different potential solutions to solve our physical thirst, right? How many of you are Diet Coke people? It's okay. No shame. Raise your hands. I see some of you. One of you's in the front row and I'm married to you. [00:25:12] (35 seconds) Edit Clip


I have actually thought to myself on days where I've not drank water, I've thought, yeah, but they use water to make coffee, so who's really getting ahead here, right? Now, we know that the best way to satisfy our physical thirst actually is water, even if we're not regularly drinking as much of it as we need to. Recently, I was with a friend at a pretty unique restaurant, and this restaurant, one of the things they're known for is that they have a water menu where you can order waters from all around the world. They're bottled waters from all around the world, and they have flavor profiles in each one and all that stuff, and you order, you're like, this is going to be amazing. I think the one we selected specifically was Russian sewer water. That's what my palate was telling me. [00:25:48] (44 seconds) Edit Clip


We're going to move through John 4 in our time today, and you may be familiar with the passage as we get started in it, but I would encourage you not to allow your familiarity with the passage to rob you of the discoveries that God may have for you in our study of it together. Sometimes, actually, our familiarity, if we allow it to, can be a foundation to look even deeper to discover something that we've never noticed before. There are three scenes that we're going to look at together, and the first one shows us in Jesus what it looks like when you and me are living with help. See, helping people for Jesus was not something that he did. Helping people was actually who he was and who he still is today. [00:27:17] (42 seconds) Edit Clip


Even though this request for a drink might seem unkind to us, it was actually probably considered an honoring request by this woman, but she was also confused. See, Jesus had asked for water, but he was really trying to start a conversation. He didn't even bring a cup with him. He was using that topic to segue to something that was even deeper. And he explained to her that even though the water that you're pulling from this is helpful, you're going to need water again. But I have water, even though I'm asking you for water and don't have a cup, I have water that can satisfy your deepest longings, that once you have it, you'll never thirst again. [00:32:53] (37 seconds) Edit Clip


And once this back and forth has concluded, she asks for the water that he's describing so that she would no longer have to continue this potentially embarrassing errand every day. Now, this immediate help, it would have been incredible to her. See, the heat of the day with a clay or stone jar with three to five gallons of water totaling upwards of 50 pounds, she had to carry it every day, at least once a day. For as much as a couple of miles, she was motivated. If there was some ancient water source that she didn't know about that could help her, she really wanted it. And Jesus, let's be fair, could have done that. He could have made this water always last. But he offers her something even better. Even permanent physical care wouldn't satisfy the deeper thirst that she was experiencing, the deeper thirst that you and I experience. [00:33:56] (56 seconds) Edit Clip


explain their situation in a way that made himself feel better but rather show them that he saw them as image bearers of god himself regardless of their circumstances people that he would literally die for after explaining that worshiping the god of israel would soon be available to everyone including gentiles even samaritans jesus does something remarkable says the woman said to him i know that he who is called Christ when he comes he will tell us all things Jesus said to her I who speak to you am he now imagine this for a moment that even after everything that she has experienced in her life she still has a personal faith to think about anticipate and trust the promised rescuer of the world the Messiah to come and Jesus uses this moment with a Samaritan woman of low to be the first time and the first place that he shares explicitly that he is the Messiah in his life and ministry. [00:38:46] (68 seconds) Edit Clip


The passage tells us that the woman left her jar behind and it's possible that she left her jar behind just because she was so overwhelmed, she didn't think about it. I think actually it's more likely that it's because she knew she was coming back and she trusted Jesus with what was likely Valuable Earthly Possessions. [00:40:58] (20 seconds) Edit Clip


Earlier we talked about Lent as a time when people fast from something. Maybe for you that is some type of food, or maybe for you that is a habit. There's some appetite in you and me that sometimes when we satisfy it, what it does is it dulls our deeper hunger for God. And during this season, sometimes what Lent can do when we fast something from it is remind us of our deeper hunger, our deeper thirst, our deeper longing for God. [00:41:29] (30 seconds) Edit Clip


The disciples are now back and they're trying to get Jesus to eat, which the disciples, that's a regular pattern for them. They're, they're sort of looking out for Jesus. And even they could get distracted by the immediate needs, longings, and desires with the best of intentions. And they would miss something bigger that Jesus wanted to show them. And so here, Jesus points it out this way, but he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? [00:42:42] (31 seconds) Edit Clip


Jesus knew his time was short and he wanted to make the most of every single moment of every single day of his earthly ministry. He was watching the religious leaders around him settle for cultural comfort from lower longings while quieting the deeper ones in themselves and not calling other people to the same. [00:44:05] (20 seconds) Edit Clip

Well, good morning, Menlo Church, and welcome to a brand new series that we're kicking off today as a part of Lent. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. Last week, we finished our series, The Formation Machine, and Brett helped us to understand the importance of community to our spiritual formation. If you missed that, it was fantastic. Well worth your time to go back and catch up online.

Today, we begin a new series called The Cost of Connection, and it will take us all the way up to Easter with this idea that's kind of a double meaning between the cost of connection when we choose community—there's a weight and a cost to it—as well as the cost that Jesus was willing to pay to restore connection to mankind with God. It's also a season that the church has celebrated for about 1,800 years that marks the 40 days leading up to Easter. It's this annual reminder of our preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

We all kind of know when Advent is coming up because there are all these cultural reminders and cues all around us. As a matter of fact, in retail, generally, you know Christmas is coming up in about July, so there's a lot. You can't miss that one. But Easter, if we're not careful, can kind of sneak up on us, and that's why we're jumping into this series. I'm so glad to be back with you. Last weekend, while Brett was preaching, I actually had a chance to visit every one of our campuses, which was so fun. It was a little hurtful how many of you let me know that I looked better and taller on camera than in person, but it's okay.

Now, some people are going to choose as a part of celebrating Lent something to fast from over the course of the next 40 days. Maybe you've heard of that before. And if you're thinking about doing that, it actually does not have to be a food thing. It could be a habit or a numbing behavior that you want to fast from so that you can use that time, that focus, that interest as a reminder to prepare your own heart to celebrate Easter this season, or maybe to be able to tune your heart to what God may be trying to impress upon you or speak specifically to you in this unique time of the year.

Now, if you're thinking about fasting from your kids, coworkers, or classmates, I want to make sure you know that's not what we're talking about. This is about specific habits or practices that we think, you know what, these maybe are not the most healthy for me. What does it look like for me to set aside those or even good things that I've let become ultimate in my life?

At Menlo, we work hard to provide practical tools for you to take the idea of spiritual formation or the things that we're working on together and bring it into your everyday life. And so we do that on a regular kind of habit throughout the year. One of those that we're doing in this season is a daily devotional for Lent that you can find through the YouVersion Bible app. You can find it very easily by going to menlo.church/connect. It's linked right there.

The devotional tool inside the YouVersion Bible app is a devotional that you can do by yourself or you can do it with friends or family. You could even do it with your life group, and you can interact when you do it with other people, like right within the app. We hope that it helps you have a richer experience of celebrating and remembering in the midst of so many other things that can pull for our attention this year. So be sure to check that out.

Before we dive in today, I'm going to pray for us. And if you've never been here before or never heard me speak, before I speak, I pray kneeling. And part of the reason that I do that is to prepare my heart to hear whatever God might want to say to it as we open up the scriptures together. So maybe for you, regardless of where you would describe yourself spiritually today, would you humble yourself with me as we approach God and ask him to speak to us?

God, thank you so much. Thank you for the incredible kindness that no matter what parts of our day or week or priority list have slipped and where maybe, God, we've forgotten about you. Would you help us to be reminded today? God, would you help us to remember your kindness that we're about to see in the pages of your word and help whatever it is that you want to do in our lives today to be something that lingers and sticks with us in the days to come, that we would not be able to leave this conversation, leave this place, leave our time together the same. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.

Now, today we're going to talk about thirst. And I want to acknowledge a cultural challenge to this topic because of the question, "Are you thirsty?" means something way different in 2025. And I mean literally physical and spiritual thirst. That's all I'm talking about. I want to make that very clear. There has never been a time in history probably where there are so many different potential solutions to solve our physical thirst, right?

How many of you are Diet Coke people? It's okay. No shame. Raise your hands. I see some of you. One of you's in the front row, and I'm married to you. It's great. We love you. We're so glad that you're here. We have prayer available after all of our services at all of our campuses. How many of you are coffee people? There we go. That's my people right there. Some good coffee-drinking people. Heaven will be filled with milk and honey for your coffee.

How many of you are the kind of people who walk around with a gallon-sized jug of water like you're training for the Hydration Olympics? Yeah, I see a few of you. I actually saw you rolling in your water bottle today. The rest of us, I just want you to know, we're hoping that we remember to drink something other than coffee today. I have actually thought to myself on days where I've not drank water, I've thought, yeah, but they use water to make coffee, so who's really getting ahead here, right?

Now, we know that the best way to satisfy our physical thirst actually is water, even if we're not regularly drinking as much of it as we need to. Recently, I was with a friend at a pretty unique restaurant, and this restaurant, one of the things they're known for is that they have a water menu where you can order waters from all around the world. They're bottled waters from all around the world, and they have flavor profiles in each one and all that stuff, and you order, you're like, this is going to be amazing. I think the one we selected specifically was Russian sewer water. That's what my palate was telling me.

Anyway, water is a resource that we largely take for granted in our context, and that's unique to when we live and where we live, even kind of the context that you and I are in right now. But we're going to study a passage of Scripture from the life of Jesus when he meets a woman whose entire schedule revolves around getting water. Now, that might seem pretty far removed from your everyday life, but you'll see that quenching what's immediate can conceal what's permanent. Sometimes even getting what you want keeps you from understanding what you really need, and that's why we keep reaching for drinks, desires, and destructive habits that numb us and don't always notice that they leave us numb, but they don't leave us satisfied.

We're going to move through John 4 in our time today, and you may be familiar with the passage as we get started in it, but I would encourage you not to allow your familiarity with the passage to rob you of the discoveries that God may have for you in our study of it together. Sometimes, actually, our familiarity, if we allow it to, can be a foundation to look even deeper to discover something that we've never noticed before.

There are three scenes that we're going to look at together, and the first one shows us in Jesus what it looks like when you and me are living with hurt. See, helping people for Jesus was not something that he did. Helping people was actually who he was and who he still is today. Even when his disciples are sort of off the clock going and doing some other thing, Jesus was intentional with his time and his energy.

As a matter of fact, to better understand where we find Jesus and the route that he's on, John shares the path to where he gets this way. He says, "left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and he had to pass through Samaria." So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. John says that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.

Now, if you don't understand the geography of this, Jesus actually could have done what many other Jews did at the time, which is go around Samaria. Their normal pattern was to avoid it entirely. Instead, Jesus went through Samaria on purpose to a little well in a little town where he sat and rested because the creator of the universe was tired. I don't know about you, but sometimes my underlying operating system of the way that I can think about Jesus, I think, oh, he's fully God, but is he really fully man?

Notes about the humanity of Jesus, where he's tired, where he has to rest, they really jump off the page to me that he really is fully God and fully man. Even here in his humanity, where he was tired and needed to rest, he still found a way to bring help while he was resting because helping isn't something he did; it's who he actually was. Simply sitting by this well to rest would have been controversial enough because of who he was and where this well was.

Well, his disciples were looking for food, but Jesus actually gets even edgier with what happens next. It says that a woman from Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink," for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" For Jews had no dealings with Samaritans.

Now, there's plenty to get into in this passage, but I want to give you a few things that make this a kind of startling moment, right? Where you and I look at this and go, wow, this stands out. There are some clues for us. First is that he's talking to a Samaritan woman, but most people looked at and judged. See, the Samaritan aspect of this stands out. Jewish people at the time considered Samaritans to be less than human. They would sometimes refer to them as half-breeds. They were half Jewish by blood and they were half Gentile or non-Jewish, and so they would avoid interacting with them at all costs, walking around this region when possible.

Second, this Samaritan was a woman. As unthinkable as it is now in this culture, women and men generally didn't speak to one another in public, certainly not if they weren't related to one another. And if you were a rabbi, you would really almost never speak to a stranger and definitely never have spoken to a woman about theology. It just didn't happen. If you can believe it, some rabbis at the time would thank God in their daily prayers for not being born a woman. Isn't that wild? Some of you ladies are like, I have the opposite prayer right now.

As heartbreaking as it is to consider the way that women lived in this culture, Jesus was intentionally disrupting this social norm in the way that he saw, heard, and cared for women among other people that would have been considered the least and the last of these in their culture. Jesus would regularly esteem that the kingdom of heaven took the least and the last and moved them to the front of the line, that the kingdom of heaven saw people differently, and Jesus wanted people to know he saw them with those eyes.

In addition, the text tells us that this is the sixth hour, which is marked by sunrise. So this is likely around noon or the point in which during the day, the sun is at its highest and most intense place in the sky. This is not the time that you would have thought, man, I'm going to get a giant jug of water, and I'm going to carry it home. That's not normally the time you would do it. The woman was a social outcast, even among other Samaritan women, never thinking that she would have a chance to speak to a Jewish person, let alone a Jewish rabbi, and needed to come to this well at this time at least once a day because she was carefully avoiding other women.

She was trying to do this in a way that would cause the least ridicule from people around her. This woman had planned her entire daily routine to avoid people. And here she was being noticed by Jesus. Even though this request for a drink might seem unkind to us, it was actually probably considered an honoring request by this woman, but she was also confused. See, Jesus had asked for water, but he was really trying to start a conversation. He didn't even bring a cup with him. He was using that topic to segue to something that was even deeper.

And he explained to her that even though the water that you're pulling from this is helpful, you're going to need water again. But I have water, even though I'm asking you for water and don't have a cup, I have water that can satisfy your deepest longings, that once you have it, you'll never thirst again. And once this back and forth has concluded, she asks for the water that he's describing so that she would no longer have to continue this potentially embarrassing errand every day.

Now, this immediate help would have been incredible to her. See, the heat of the day with a clay or stone jar with three to five gallons of water totaling upwards of 50 pounds, she had to carry it every day, at least once a day. For as much as a couple of miles, she was motivated. If there was some ancient water source that she didn't know about that could help her, she really wanted it. And Jesus, let's be fair, could have done that. He could have made this water always last. But he offers her something even better. Even permanent physical care wouldn't satisfy the deeper thirst that she was experiencing, the deeper thirst that you and I experience.

It would have been easy for Jesus to wrap up the conversation, to give her what she wanted. But he knew that quenching what's immediate can conceal what's permanent. Have you ever gotten caught in something and tried to only admit the minimum you knew you needed to admit because it's what they already knew? And you're trying to avoid them learning everything? Maybe it's that project at work or the school assignment that you haven't been honest about the kind of progress you've made. Or it's the damage you did to your house, your little kid. You're like, I hope they didn't notice. I moved that bin in front of the hole in the wall. They're going to notice at some point, just so you know.

This woman, she had secrets that she was carrying. Some things she was hoping that wouldn't come up in her conversation with this Jewish rabbi named Jesus. Jesus could have avoided this difficult conversation. He could have stopped quickly; he could have just kept talking and finished. But the thing is he wanted to make sure that she didn't go unnoticed. He saw that she was living with hurt between how she carried herself, the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes. Hurt was hard to miss.

This is one of those passages where the printed words are an incredible gift, but they leave us without the tone of Jesus' voice or the posture of his body. He says something that would normally shut down a conversation. It would have normally felt extremely difficult, but how he says it actually extends kindness and continues the conversation. John records the moment this way: it says Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here." And the woman answered, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You're right in saying, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and the one you live with now is not your husband. What you have said is true."

Again, there is a way to read this passage that just pours shame on this woman, but what we know to be true of Jesus is that he never led with shame. As a matter of fact, even when Jesus had a difficult truth that he was going to bring, he always led with grace and kindness. Always. Jesus never led with shame; he always met sinners, people just like you and me, with grace and kindness even in the midst of telling the truth. He wanted to show her that he knew the worst thing about her and that he still cared about her and there was still hope available to her.

We should also be careful not to make the shame cultural assumptions that others would have made, that like, okay, this is what they think this is what she must have done. See, in their society, women basically had no rights in marriage. To end a marriage, they couldn't initiate a divorce. On the flip side, men could so easily initiate a divorce that if they literally didn't like the cooking of their wives, it was cause for divorce. Now, that situation probably meant that she had been married now multiple times with multiple men who had abandoned her, discarded her.

In addition, the choice to live with someone who wasn't her husband, it was scandalous even in Samaria. Still, it likely beat the alternative because it was dangerous financially, socially, and physically to live as a single woman at this time. She was desperate, and she was waiting for the other shoe to drop in her life all the time. And Jesus wasn't saying, "Hey, all that stuff is good and healthy and helpful." He was saying, "I see you. I love you. There's still a path for you."

Jesus wasn't asking these questions with a bunch of people around to try to make a spectacle of her. He was asking in the quiet of a remote well in the middle of the day. He wanted to know that the Spirit of God was in him and that there was nothing that could change his care for her in her story. Jesus offered such tender care to people on the margins, the people that other people had excused and forgotten about. He wasn't looking for reasons to shoo them away or explain their situation in a way that made himself feel better, but rather show them that he saw them as image bearers of God himself, regardless of their circumstances—people that he would literally die for.

After explaining that worshiping the God of Israel would soon be available to everyone, including Gentiles, even Samaritans, Jesus does something remarkable. The woman said to him, "I know that he who is called Christ, when he comes, he will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

Now imagine this for a moment: that even after everything that she has experienced in her life, she still has a personal faith to think about, anticipate, and trust the promised rescuer of the world, the Messiah to come. And Jesus uses this moment with a Samaritan woman of low status to be the first time and the first place that he shares explicitly that he is the Messiah in his life and ministry. What a statement about the way Jesus sees people and the power he places in them.

My mom was Jewish by blood, but this passage makes me think of my mom as a young adult who grew up in abuse and then married into more, meeting Jesus personally as her Messiah as a young adult. That she missed it, decades not being exposed to him, all of a sudden her life could change forever. Jesus has always extended kindness to people that others overlook. He never gives up on them, and he still doesn't today.

The disciples, they return at this point in the scene, and they're shocked that Jesus is talking to the woman. They assume that she must have asked Jesus for something. That's the only explanation they can think of in their culture for Jesus talking to this woman. But she leaves, and she goes back to her town. Everyone that she's been avoiding, she's carefully crafted her schedule to not be around, and she's telling all of them about Jesus, who she was just around.

The passage tells us that the woman left her jar behind, and it's possible that she left her jar behind just because she was so overwhelmed she didn't think about it. I think actually it's more likely that it's because she knew she was coming back and she trusted Jesus with what was likely valuable earthly possessions. This was probably her only jar for water collection, and the deeper thirst being quenched in Jesus made her, at least momentarily, forget about her physical thirst.

Earlier we talked about Lent as a time when people fast from something. Maybe for you that is some type of food, or maybe for you that is a habit. There's some appetite in you and me that sometimes when we satisfy it, what it does is it dulls our deeper hunger for God. And during this season, sometimes what Lent can do when we fast something from it is remind us of our deeper hunger, our deeper thirst, our deeper longing for God. That's what I think God can do uniquely if we allow Him.

Here we have a woman in the earliest stages of her faith in Jesus, and she's willing to give up her physical longings for spiritual pursuits. It's not just about leaving that jug behind. It's about what, who, or how you are running to in the weeks ahead to say, "God, what are the things you want me to be reminded of about what you've done for me? What types of relationships are you asking me to shift or pivot? What habits or rhythms have I let take over in my life that I know are not good and healthy for me?" That's the example that Jesus wants to change for us.

Our final scene moves from living with hurt to living with hope. The disciples are now back, and they're trying to get Jesus to eat, which the disciples—that's a regular pattern for them. They're sort of looking out for Jesus. And even they could get distracted by the immediate needs, longings, and desires with the best of intentions, and they would miss something bigger that Jesus wanted to show them.

And so here, Jesus points it out this way, but he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."

I love the thought that the disciples so missed the point of what Jesus was saying that they look at each other and like, "Wait a second, did one of you guys give him like a secret stash of snacks? Like, what are you guys holding out on me?" Instead, Jesus is trying to show them that this deeper appetite is more central to his life than even his physical hunger. Think about that statement for a minute.

Jesus knew his time was short, and he wanted to make the most of every single moment of every single day of his earthly ministry. He was watching the religious leaders around him settle for cultural comfort from lower longings while quieting the deeper ones in themselves and not calling other people to the same. I can find myself quickly judging the disciples for not understanding, but those immediate appetites, they are so hard to quiet.

Author and theologian Dallas Willard puts it this way: he says, "Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs." Eggs in 2025 hits a little bit different, right? Like it would be a great single-origin pour-over cup of coffee for me personally, right? That's like, it's on my mind. Maybe for you when you wake up in the morning, the thing that you are most hungry for is a quick scroll of social media or the productivity surge of hammering out some email.

We have to be so careful that we don't live consumed by satisfying little appetites so much that we squelch the deeper appetites that God wants to cultivate in us because it's only by satisfying those that real contentment flows. Some of us are out here thinking that if we just got that promotion, if we just found that right relationship, or if you just got that six-pack of abs—not beer—then you would finally be satisfied, right? But the problem is we get those things all the time, and they've never satisfied us. You're still hungry. You're still thirsting for something deeper than the world can offer you. Jesus is simply saying, "I have something better than I'm trying to offer to you."

Remember, quenching what's immediate can conceal what's permanent. Let's get deeper than that. So Jesus, he is explaining this distinction to his disciples while this woman, who has left an incredibly important earthly possession behind in the care of Jesus, is telling everyone about who Jesus is and what he had done. John continues it this way: "Many Samaritans from the town believed in him because of the woman's testimony: 'He told me all that I ever did.' So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. 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 indeed is the Savior of the world.'"

This year we've been focusing as a community on being a storytelling community. This is such an important aspect of what it is for us to live and let people know about who it is Jesus is in our life, and this woman puts on a master class of that. She has no degree; she has no formal training of any kind in this, and she is simply sharing her own story of what Jesus has just done to help her be seen and cared for as one of the least and last of these, being seen as the first in this kingdom of heaven. What an amazing picture her story was.

It was like the training wheels of the faith of this group of Samaritans as they listened and learned from Jesus over the next two days. They recognized that Jesus was the Savior of the world. They figured out in two days what the disciples struggled to learn in three years. Imagine that! They had a hunger for acceptance and for this kingdom from God that had been uniquely prepared in them to connect with the love and message of Jesus. Jesus didn't win them over with miracles. We don't have any indication that his ministry was signs and wonders while he was with them. It says that the word he preached was enough; he just described to them who they really were and what God had done for them.

In one small passage of scripture, Jesus upends the social paradigm that kept men and women from one another, that kept Jews and Gentiles from pursuing God together, that kept the socially elite and the social outcasts from community, and brought people hiding in their shame a hope that they thought had long passed them by. Imagine if he could still do that today.

Now, before we finish our time today, I want to share a spiritual practice with you that we're actually going to do together in the room right now. It's a practice that we get from Saint Ignatius of Loyola. It's called Ignatian contemplation. Usually, you would read a passage of scripture, and then you place yourself in your imagination in the scene of the moment in scripture. You think about experiencing it with all of your senses. You think about what it would have smelled like, what something might have tasted like, what you would be hearing, what the temperature felt like. You look around and see all the people in the scene.

In this passage, I want you to consider which character you might relate to most. Is it the woman trying to hide something that she hopes no one will ever discover that's finally seen in Jesus, but her worst fears were not actually revealed—that he knew that and still cared about her? Are you in the place of a disciple, so busy and hurried with very good things that you've forgotten the best thing, that working for God has replaced knowing God? Is it the Samaritans coming in from the town, people that maybe they didn't even realize today? You thought, you know what, I walked into a room I wasn't even sure what I was coming to or what I was about to experience, and Jesus met you here.

As you think over the next few moments, I want you to just place yourself into one of those characters in the story and ask the Spirit of God to show you what is the look that you catch in Jesus' eyes? What are the words that you hear him say? What are the things that God might show you in even just a few moments of holy spirit imagination that you might take with you this week?

Now, if this is new to you—and I suspect that it will be for many of you—it's totally normal for your mind to drift. It's okay. I would just say be gracious to yourself and bring yourself back to that spot. It's also totally normal for the 60 seconds that I give you to feel like 60 minutes. That's okay too. It might be helpful actually for you to simply rest your hands with your palms up on your legs just like this, just in a place of relaxation where you're not holding something or potentially distracted by something.

And for the next few seconds, just ask the Lord to put you in this scene and to experience it as one of those people 2,000 years ago. And in the end, I'll pray for us.

Thank you.

God, even as the distractions flow back in, even as we think about what's waiting for us or what's coming this week, would you help whatever that moment is to just linger in our hearts and in our minds this week as we glanced over at you in this scene to see your eyes of compassion and care and hope, that those are still eyes that look to us that same way today. God, that no matter which person we thought of ourselves in the scene as, God, by your Spirit, I pray that you would just reveal in us the things, God, that you're asking us to surrender to you, even the way that we might think about or practice Lent in this season, what we might surrender to you as an act of fasting to wake back up a deeper sense of appetite or hunger in you.

And in just a few minutes, God, as we celebrate communion together, would you remind us that those same eyes we connected to, that that same voice they heard in this scene, God, that it was all a setup to reveal the lengths to which you would go to win us back, the price you would pay with your own life. God, help us to live in light of that today in this season. God, thank you. Thank you that the kingdom you revealed to this woman is still the same kingdom you're revealing today. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.