Sunday, March 15, 2020 Third Sunday in Lent, Year A
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
1From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” 4So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Psalm: Psalm 95
1Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation. 2Let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to the Lord with psalms. 3For you, Lord, are a great God, and a great ruler above all gods. 4In your hand are the caverns of the earth; the heights of the hills are also yours. 5The sea is yours, for you made it, and your hands have molded the dry land. 6Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker.7For the Lord is our God, and we are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand. Oh, that today you would hear God’s voice! 8“Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the desert. 9There your ancestors tested me, they put me to the test, though they had seen my works. 10Forty years I loathed that generation, saying, ‘The heart of this people goes astray; they do not know my ways.’ 11Indeed I swore in my anger, ‘They shall never come to my rest.’ ”
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-11
1Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Gospel: John 4:5-42
5[Jesus] came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7A
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.) 9The 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.) 10Jesus 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.” 11The
woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you
get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor
Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from
it?” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water
will be thirsty again, 14but 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.” 15The
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.”
16Jesus
said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17The
woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in
saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands,
and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is
true!” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a
prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you
say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus
said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the
Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You worship
what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the
Jews. 23But 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. 24God is spirit, and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said
to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes,
he will proclaim all things to us.” 26Jesus said to her, “I am
he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27Just
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?” 28Then 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?” 30They
left the city and were on their way to him.
31Meanwhile
the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32But he
said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33So
the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to
eat?” 34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him
who sent me and to complete his work. 35Do 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. 36The reaper is already
receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and
reaper may rejoice together. 37For here the saying holds true,
‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38I sent you to reap that for
which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their
labor.”
39Many
Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He
told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans
came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two
days. 41And many more believed because of his word. 42They
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.”