Worship
Service for March 8, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Come, let us celebrate the forgiving,
reconciling love of God.
P: For once we were lost and felt so far
away; now we have been found and welcomed home.
L: Know that God’s love is lavished upon you
forever.
P: We rejoice at the news of forgiveness and
hope!
L: Come, let us celebrate and praise the God
of love.
P: AMEN!
Opening Hymn – The
Old Rugged Cross #327 Brown Hymnal
Prayer of Confession
Patient and ever-faithful God,
we come to You this morning confessing that we can be a grumpy and unsatisfied
people. When things are not perfect in
our eyes, we murmur and complain, and grumble and doubt. We lose hope in the people around us and,
even worse, we love hope in You. We
challenge instead of accept. We put You
to the test rather than trust Your caring love.
Forgive our doubts and complaining.
Forgive our loss of hope. Let
Your healing, life-giving waters pour over us.
Restore our souls. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Our hope and assurance rest in God’s
unfailing love and forgiveness. Open our
hearts, minds, and souls that the healing waters of God’s never-ending love and
forgiveness may flow into and over you.
P: We know that in this love and forgiveness
we have encountered the living God. Thanks
be to God! AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Gracious and life-giving God, we
come before you this morning as people who are thirsty. Like the woman who came to the well at
midday, we arrive carrying the ordinary burdens of our lives—work and worry,
hope and disappointment, questions and quiet longings. Yet we trust that when
we come to the well of your presence, we do not meet judgment first, but grace. Lord Jesus, you who sat beside the well in
Samaria,
you who crossed boundaries of culture, religion, and suspicion,
meet us again in this sacred hour. Speak
to us the words you spoke that day: that you alone are the source of living
water. Pour into our dry places the
water that restores the soul. Let your
Spirit flow through the cracked places of our hearts—the places worn down by
fear, regret, exhaustion, or grief. You
know the stories we carry. You know the
histories that shape us, the mistakes that haunt us, and the hopes we barely
dare to speak aloud. And still, you call
us into conversation. Just as you
revealed yourself to the woman at the well, reveal yourself to us again—
not as a distant stranger, but as the One who knows us completely
and loves us still.
God of living water, we pray for a
world that thirsts. We pray for
communities where violence and fear run deep.
Shine your peace into our neighborhoods and cities. We pray for places of war and conflict across
the world. Where hatred divides and
suspicion grows, let your reconciling love break down the walls that keep
people apart.
We pray for those who thirst for
justice—for those whose voices are ignored, whose dignity is denied, whose
stories have been dismissed.
May your Spirit move through us and through your church so that living water
flows not only into our lives but out through us into the world.
And we lift before you those close
to our hearts— friends and family members who are struggling with illness,
grief, uncertainty, or loneliness.
Hold them in your mercy. Refresh them
with hope. Remind them that they are
never alone. Today we especially pray
for….
In the quiet of this moment, O God, we
bring to you the deepest prayers of our hearts… the concerns we cannot easily
speak, the burdens we carry silently. Hear
us now as we pray in silence.
And now, trusting in the One who
meets us at every well along life’s journey, we join our voices together in the
prayer Jesus taught us, saying: Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day,
our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.
AMEN.
Hymn – There is a Balm in Gilead #394
Blue Hymnal
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
95
Second Scripture Reading – John 4:5-42
Sermon
- “Living Water in Unexpected Places”
(based on John 4:5–42)
There are moments in life when the
most ordinary places become sacred. They can be a gas station on a long road
trip. Or in a long waiting line at the
grocery store, or even a kitchen table, late at night. And sometimes—according to the Gospel of
John—at a dusty well outside a small town in Samaria.
The story begins simply enough. Jesus is traveling. The journey has been long, and the text tells
us that: “Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.” It is about noon, during the hottest part of
the day and his disciples have gone into town to buy food. It’s then that a woman arrives. She comes alone, carrying a jar, walking the
familiar path to Jacob’s well. This is
the same well that for hundreds of years have seen women come and go. It is on or near the plot of land that Jacob
gave to his son Joseph. This current
woman from Samaria is expecting nothing more than water for the day. She certainly is not expecting a conversation
that will change her life. But that is
often how grace works. It meets us in
the middle of ordinary routines.
Immediately, we notice that this
encounter crosses boundaries. Jesus is a
Jew. She is a Samaritan. Jesus is a man. And she is a woman. In that time and place, those lines mattered
deeply. For generations Jews and
Samaritans had lived with suspicion and hostility toward one another. Their
histories were tangled with conflict, their religious practices different
enough to create deep distrust. It isn’t
any different today. There is deep distrust
among the various communities, ethnicities, and cultures in the Middle
East.
Yet Jesus ignores those lines. He doesn’t begin their conversation with a
sermon. He doesn’t begin it with a
theological debate. He begins with a simple
request: “Give me a drink.” If you think about it, it’s kind of an
astonishing moment. The Son of God, the
Messiah, the Savior of the World begins this conversation not from knowledge or
power, but from being vulnerable. He
asks the woman for help. Now, of course,
this Samaritan woman immediately notices the crossing of boundaries. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of
me, a woman of Samaria?” In other
words: Why are you even talking to me; let alone asking me for help?
Believe it or not, but this
astonishment, this shock of being spoken to and asked for help is a feeling
that many people in our society know. Thos
people who have been ignored. People who
have been judged. People who have been
told they don’t belong. They’ve learned
to move in the shadows, to not seek recognition or notice. People who just want to move along with their
daily tasks without trouble. This woman
carries the weight of those experiences.
We later learn that her life story
is complicated. She has known broken
relationships, perhaps loss, perhaps social stigma. Coming to the well alone at noon suggests she
has learned to avoid the crowds. But
Jesus sees her. Not her reputation. Not her past.
No, he sees Her.
And Jesus answers her question of
him in a curious way. “If you knew
the gift of God… you would have asked him, and he would have given you living
water.” As anyone might be with that
answer, she is a bit confused. The well
is deep. Jesus has no bucket. How could he possibly give her water? But, of course, Jesus is speaking of
something deeper. “Everyone who
drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water
that I will give them will never be thirsty.”
Jesus, instead, is talking about the
deep thirst of the human soul. Not just
physical thirst—but the thirst for meaning/understanding. The thirst for belonging. The thirst for hope. And you know what? We live in a world that is thirsty. People search for fulfillment in careers, in
possessions, in recognition, in endless distractions. And yet the thirst remains. The ancient prophet Jeremiah once spoke God’s
lament: “My people have forsaken the fountain of living water and dug out
cisterns for themselves.” We’ll try
anything to quench that thirst. And we
keep trying to satisfy our thirst with things that cannot truly sustain us. This is where Jesus offers something
different. He offers a living water,
instead, a water, a life connected to God that flows from within through God’s
grace to us.
The conversation turns unexpectedly
when Jesus speaks about her life. “Go
call your husband and come back.” She
answers honestly: “I have no husband.”
And Jesus responds with a startling insight for her: he knows that she
has had five husbands, and the man she is currently with is not her husband. For many years, this part of the story has
been interpreted and told as if Jesus were exposing her shame. Exposing her sin, her unique need for this
living water, God’s grace. But the tone
of the text suggests something even deeper than simply naming sin or exposing
shame, because Jesus doesn’t condemn her.
He doesn’t say another word about it, in fact. He is simply telling the truth for the
purpose for her to fully realize who He is.
And the remarkable thing is this: she gets it and doesn’t run away. Instead, she stays.
Somehow she senses that this truth
is not spoken with cruelty but rather with compassion. We all know that there is a kind of truth
that wounds and shames people. But there
is also a kind of truth that sets people free. And Jesus
speaks this second kind. He acknowledges
the reality of her life, yet he continues the conversation as if her dignity is
unquestioned. For someone used to being
dismissed, that must have been astonishing.
It is actually the woman from
Samaria who shifts the conversation to religion. She asks about the great argument between
Jews and Samaritans: where is the right place to worship? On Mount Gerizim or
in Jerusalem? And Jesus lifts that
conversation beyond just geography. “The
hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem… true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth.” In other words, God cannot be confined to
sacred locations. God is not limited to
temples, churches, or holy sites. God
meets people wherever they are, wherever hearts are open or, at least, wherever
people are who are willing to listening and hear. At a well in Samaria. At a long waiting line. At a kitchen table.
Then comes one of the most beautiful
moments in the Gospel. The woman says, “I
know that Messiah is coming.” She
knows the story, the expectation, the long awaited for Messiah. Jesus answers: “I am he.” This is the first time in the gospel of that
Jesus reveals his identity so directly. And
to whom does he reveal it? It’s not to a
powerful religious leaders or authorities.
It’s not even to his own disciples.
But instead, it’s to a Samaritan woman with a complicated past.
Grace always moves in surprising
directions. And what happens next is even
more surprising. The woman leaves her
water jar behind—almost as if the original reason for coming has become
secondary—and runs back into town. She
tells the people: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever
done! Could he be the Messiah?”
Notice what she doesn’t say to those
who listen to her. She doesn’t claim
certainty. She doesn’t present a
polished argument about who this man is.
She simply shares her experience.
And begins to ask the foundational question. Could this really be true? Could he be the one?
They can’t truly believe that this
might be, in fact, the Messiah. They
must come and see for themselves. But it’s
because of her testimony, that many people from the town come to meet Jesus. A woman who had likely been marginalized
becomes the first evangelist to her community.
Meanwhile the disciples return,
confused to find Jesus talking with her.
They urge him to eat, but Jesus says something mysterious and strange: “I
have food to eat that you do not know about.”
Then he speaks about the harvest.
“Look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”
God is already at work all the time in
places we don’t expect. The disciples
may not have imagined that Samaritans—people they had long regarded as
outsiders—could be part of God’s movement.
Yet here they are, coming toward Jesus in a growing crowd. The fields are ripe and ready. We automatically assume that certain people
don’t want to hear or aren’t approachable.
However, Jesus proves otherwise.
Look and see. Come and hear. By the end of the story, many Samaritans
believe. At first because of the woman’s
testimony. Then because they encounter
Jesus themselves.
Faith often begins with someone
else’s invitation, a friend, a parent, a neighbor, maybe even a stranger at a
well.
This story reminds us of three
things.
First, God’s grace crosses
boundaries—social, cultural, religious. The people we least expect may be the ones God
is already reaching.
Second, living water is offered
to every thirsty soul. No past
disqualifies us from grace.
And third, ordinary people can become
witnesses.
Not because they have perfect
theology. But because they have
encountered something real. The woman at
the well did not have a seminary degree.
She simply said: Come and see.
And that invitation changed an entire town.
Friends, we live in a thirsty world. People all around us are searching for hope,
for belonging, for meaning.
What if the living water of Christ
is already flowing within us?
What if the most powerful thing we
can say is simply:
Come and see.
Come and see the grace that meets us
in unexpected places.
Come and see the love that tells the truth without condemnation.
Come and see the living water that never runs dry.
Amen.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Life-giving God, we offer You ourselves and
our resources. Use us and our gifts,
that we may be water bearers to a world thirsty for love, for meaning, for
justice, and for hope. May all Your
people encounter fullness of life through the love of Christ, which lives
within us. AMEN
Closing
Hymn – When I Survey the Wonderous Cross #101/324
Benediction –
We have
encountered the living God through the love of the living Christ. We have been refreshed by living water. Go now to live in the hope this encounter
inspires. Be water bearers to a dry and
parched world, knowing that the God of love and hope goes before you and with
you always. AMEN.
Postlude
