Homilies
Living Water
Holy Spirit take my words and speak to each of us according to our need.
This morning’s Gospel reading told us that Jesus left Judea and set out for Galilee. At first, this it sounds like a simple travel note, the sort of detail we might skim past. But John is never casual with geography. Journeys in this Gospel are always more than movement; they have meaning and they are revelation unfolding step by step.
John tells us that Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Now geographically, that is not quite true. Travellers often avoided Samaria entirely. Many Jews would cross the Jordan, go up the eastern side, and cross back again just to avoid Samaritan territory. The long road was the preferred road because Samaritans and Jews had centuries of mistrust between them.
So when John says Jesus “had to” go through Samaria, he is not describing a map. He is describing a mission. Jesus did not take that road because it was shortest. He took it because he had a need to meet someone. And that someone was a woman at the well, known in some traditions as St Photine.
Already we can see something important about God. He doesn’t travel efficiently, but rather intentionally. Jesus moves not only towards destinations, but towards people and the place he needed to reach was not just Galilee but was a human heart waiting beside a well.
Jesus arrives at Jacob’s well, a place steeped with meaning, memory and ancestry, connected to Jacob, grandson of Abraham and son of Isaac. This well has a history you can touch and tradition you can drink from. It represents the Samaritan's heritage, identity, belonging. And then comes a small detail that is so easy to miss but is spiritually profound: Jesus is tired and thirsty. He sits down. The Son of God rests.
There is something comforting in that. Being divine didn’t exempt him from human limitation. Holiness is not the absence of weariness. So if you have ever felt exhausted and wondered whether that meant you were failing spiritually, this moment says otherwise. Jesus sat down because he was tired. Rest is not a lack of faith. Rest can be the very place where grace meets us.
John told us, it was noon, the brightest and hottest hour of the day. Most women came to draw water in the cool of morning or evening, and when others were present. But Photine came alone at midday. Some think she avoided people because she was ashamed of her past. Some scholars have looked at John’s use of symbolism: light representing revelation, and darkness for confusion and noted that Noon is when light is strongest, suggesting enlightenment or revelation.
Photine comes for water. She does not know she is about to encounter living water. Jesus speaks first: “Give me a drink.”
That simple request shatters social boundaries. A Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman. In that culture, either one of those barriers would have been enough to prevent conversation.
She is surprised. She asks how he, a Jew, can speak to her, a Samaritan and a woman. John adds quietly that Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Notice the direction of that sentence. The barrier is not presented as mutual hostility but as a wall maintained from one side. Yet Jesus steps across it without hesitation. He does not wait for permission.
He offers her something mysterious: living water.
She hears it in a literal way. She imagines a miraculous water source that would save her daily effort. She wants relief from the routine. And perhaps if we are honest, that is how many of us first hear God’s promises. We come asking for solutions, comfort, ease. We want living water because we are tired of carrying our own buckets.
But Jesus speaks of something deeper; water that becomes a spring within, welling up to eternal life. Not simply a drink, but a transformation. Not just a moment of refreshment, but ongoing, everlasting renewal.
Then comes a moment comes where Jesus reveals he knows her story: five husbands, and the man she lives with now is not her husband. We would naturally expect condemnation or at least a lecture for this culture, at this time. But, instead, he simply shows her that he sees her. He acknowledges her truth.
And she responds, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.”
In John’s Gospel, just as journeys are not always about geography, seeing is never just eyesight. Seeing is recognition. Seeing is awakening. Seeing is faith beginning to dawn. To be seen completely and still accepted is thought to be one of the deepest longings of the human soul. And here Photine experiences it. Instead of exposure that shames, she finds knowledge that heals.
She changes the subject, as many of us do when conversations get too close to our hearts. She asks about religion’s oldest argument: where is the proper place to worship? On this mountain, or in Jerusalem?
It is not a trivial question. Her people had their traditions; the Jews had theirs. Each believed they were right. But Jesus’ answer shifts the ground entirely. The hour is coming, he says when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Not tied to mountain or temple. Not confined to a building. Not restricted to a location.
Worship will no longer be about where it happens but instead will be about relationship. In other words, God is not contained in buildings. God will be encountered in the heart.
She goes on to speak of hope and the coming Messiah. And Jesus answers her with, “I am he.”
Those words echo the divine name revealed to Moses; I AM. This is no longer just a conversation. It is revelation. And notice where it happens: not in a temple court, not before religious leaders, not in a palace, but beside a well, in Samaria, spoken to a woman who believed she was, herself, outside the acceptance of religious life. Grace appearing where the world least expects it.
Then something beautiful happens. Photine leaves her water jar behind. The very reason she came to the well in the first place, is forgotten. She runs back to her town saying, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.”
The jar becomes a symbol. It represents what she came carrying; her daily burdens, her routines, her beliefs and her past. Meeting Christ rearranged her priorities so completely that what once seemed essential suddenly seemed unimportant. The disciples left nets. Tax collectors left booths. Photine leaves a jar. One encounter leading to transformation. Transformation leading to witness. And her witness works. The whole town comes out to meet Jesus. They don’t just hear her and believe, they come to see for themselves.
This is one of the quiet surprises of the Gospel: before the disciples preach to nations, before missions are organised, before the Church even exists, a Samaritan woman becomes an evangelist. She, a gentile woman is the first person in John’s Gospel to bring others to Christ through testimony. The widening of God’s family does not begin with strategy. It begins with conversation.
Which brings us back to that road through Samaria.
Jesus did not go there because it was efficient. He went because someone was waiting. The route was chosen not by geography but by grace. What looked like a detour was actually divine appointment.
And that truth speaks powerfully into our lives. We often think we are choosing our paths. Yet sometimes the road we thought was incidental turns out to be sacred. The interruption becomes the calling. The ordinary moment becomes the meeting place with God.
How many encounters have we dismissed as chance that were actually invitations from God?
Photine thought she was seeking water. In reality, God was seeking her. And, perhaps that is true for us as well. We imagine that it is us searching for meaning. And then we discover that all along it was Christ searching for us — arranging meetings, guiding steps, and sitting patiently at the wells of our lives waiting for us to arrive.
This story, one of my favourites in the Bible, tells us several things we need to hear and understand.
Firstly, no one is outside the reach of grace. Not because of background, history, or reputation. Jesus crossed ethnic, social, and moral boundaries without hesitation. Divine love does not recognise the barriers we build.
Secondly, God meets us in ordinary places. This was not a synagogue service or festival day. It was a routine chore in the heat of noon. Worship begins when God reveals himself and we respond. That can happen anywhere — in kitchens, on buses, at desks, beside hospital beds. Worship is not confined to Sunday; it is a way of living every day.
Thirdly, rest is not wasted time. Jesus sat down because he was tired, and while resting he changed a life and touched a town. The kingdom does not only grow through activity. Sometimes it grows through presence.
Finally, this story asks us gently: what jars are we still carrying that we might set down? Shame, fear, resentment, the need to prove ourselves, the belief that we are not worthy enough…whatever it is, Christ’s invitation is the same to us as it was to her.
Come. Drink. Live.
St Photine came to draw water. She left carrying good news. She came alone. She returned with a community. She came burdened. She left bearing joy.
And the reason it happened is simple: Jesus chose the road that led to her.
He still does. He still walks unexpected paths to reach human hearts. He still sits beside wells. He still begins conversations. He still offers living water.
And if we accept that gift, we may discover that the One we thought we were seeking has already been seeking us all along.
Amen.