"Keep Hope Alive" - Christ Episcopal Church

March 8, 2026: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.

Now, whenever this gospel text comes around, I always need to address some misconceptions about what is going on here, so that we can understand the original meaning, and then get to how that will help us today.

First, how many of you, when Jesus approached the well, thought “Awesome – I love a good rom-com!” You didn’t? Well, those who heard it told in the first century definitely would have thought that, because they had seen this story set up before. A man travels through a foreign country and encounters a woman at a well. They get married and have many children.

Why would they think that? Well, it’s the biblical equivalent of a scene where a smart city woman accidently bumps into a good looking guy in a flannel shirt on a Christmas tree farm in a Hallmark movie. You know what happens next – they date, they break up, they get back together and live happily ever after.

See, this scene had happened before with several other similar stories in our bible: Isaac & Rebekkah, Jacob & Rachel, Moses & Zipporah. This is what is called a “type scene” – where a literary motif is repeated in various ways creating predictable patterns for readers or listeners. In this case, the women at the well type scene creates such a pattern it can be laid out in a chiastic structure of ABCCBA. You may remember those from studying poetry in high school or something. And you thought your High School English class was a waste of time.

So, why is it important to know this? Well, Jesus is breaking a mold here – well, more than one.

Now, before we do a quick review of this passage, we will do what the community of John who wrote this story failed to do. We will not leave her unnamed. The church calls her Photini, and she is venerated as “the Enlightened One” and “Equal to the Apostles,” so we will too. Now on to the story itself.

So, last week on the Jesus channel, member what we heard last week from the previous chapter Nicodemus visited Jesus, hears that he must be born from above, and that God sent the Son– not to condemn, but because God loved all of the world. And this week, we hear the next chapter of this same gospel, where Jesus makes that clear by leaving Jerusalem – the seat of power of the Jewish faith, and going into Samaria – the place where those hated by the Jewish people lived. Think of it like Nick being a Yankee fan talking with Jesus in NY only to find out that the very next day Jesus heads up to Boston and talks to a Red Sox fan! I mean – what the heck Jesus – I thought you were OUR guy.

And here’s the thing – it was not just a little chit chat – it was one of the most in-depth theological discussions we have in our bible. So, what did they talk about? The new pitch clock? No, that’s a heresy. Let’s find out.

Jesus, in the foreign land of the Samaritans, is walking along sans disciples (they headed to town to pick up some groceries). He mosies up to the well and asks Photini for a drink.

She gives him the once over and says “Seriously? You want a drink from me, a Samaritan? Don’t you’all have some sort of ban on even talking with us, much less to a woman?”

Jesus says “Well, if you knew who I was, this would make more sense, and really – you’d be asking for a drink from me.”

Photini said “Dude, the well is deep and you don’t even have a bucket.”

Jesus tells her that he is the living water, and anyone who drinks will never be thirsty again, so Photini asks him to give her that drink.

Then there was a back and forth about her going to get her husband, and she say she doesn’t have one, and he says she has had 4 and is now dating a guy she met on a dating app, and then adds “that’s cool – you are being honest with me.” Now, let’s do a cleanup on aisle John 4 right now.

If you think this is a story about forgiveness of Photini’s “sins” for having had 4 husbands and living now with a man who is not her husband, you have been misled by the sexism of the church. Even for a biblical literalist, it doesn’t make sense, because nowhere in this story is condemnation or forgiveness even mentioned. That interpretation is infusing our own misogyny into the text. Scripture is patriarchal enough, we don’t need to make it worse. That is why we use this as one of the texts we talk about in our required diocesan Anti-Sexism training, which I co-led yesterday. Besides, it may have been metaphor for the country of Samaria and alliances with other nations.

Now, back to the story…

Jesus then says “Here’s the thing Photini – this whole Jerusalem vs. Samaria stuff will be in the past, because I am for the whole world, and location doesn’t matter – only spirit and truth.

Photini says she knows that the Messiah will one day come who will do this, and Jesus says “I am he.”

The disciples come back and see him talking to her and their jaws drop. Photini, ignoring their gaping mouths, goes to her village to tell everyone about Jesus – inviting them to “come and see.” They do, they believe, and that’s the end of the story.

Cool – right?

We just got two back to back stories about people encountering Jesus, asking questions, and entering into a deep theological dialog with him. Nick and Photini. Each responded to him differently. Nick went back and likely pondered everything, Photini went and told everyone she knew. Both are ways of responding to an encounter with God – introspection and evangelism. And most importantly, Jesus makes it clear in both word and action that God loves the world – the whole world.

He says it plainly to Nick, then he walks the talk – going to the land of the Samaritans, where he tells Photini that God isn’t bound to a geographic landmark like a sacred well, but “is spirit, and those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.”

So what does that mean for us today?

Preachers should always be asking that question, and I was pondering it all this past week as I listened to a young seminarian and state representative running for the US Senate in Texas, and to the eulogies for an old preacher and civil rights leader who died.

The young man in Texas is State Representative James Talarico. You may have watched his interview on the Stephen Colbert Show. If you did, it had to be on YouTube because the FCC threatened CBS if he tried to air it on broadcast TV. That kinda backfired because Colbert told his audience what happened, and so the streamed version exploded. It now has over 10 million views. You can’t make this stuff up.

Anyway, Talarico is running a different kind of campaign. One of signs you’ll see at his rallies says, “Love Thy Neighbor.” Now, that might seem like Christian Nationalism, but he is absolutely steadfast against it calling it “un-American” and “un-Christian,” claiming it uses faith as a tool for power and political control, rather than for loving one’s neighbor. That’s the truth, to be sure.

But, Talarico said something in his primary victory speech that caught my attention. He said, “There’s something broken in America. Our economy is broken. Our politics are broken. Even our relationships with each other feel broken. That’s because the most powerful people in the world want it that way. The biggest divide in this country is not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom. Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them. The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided because our unity is a threat to their wealth and power.

“So,” Talarico continued, “their cable news networks and their social media algorithms tear us apart. They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion so we don’t notice they’re defunding our schools, gutting our healthcare, and cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends. It’s the oldest strategy in the world: divide and conquer. But we will not be conquered.”

This young man, this seminarian, is right, and certainly understands the teachings of Jesus. We do need to stop allowing ourselves to be divided. We need to recognize the image of God in the ones most unlike us. This is especially true for anyone who is part of the Jesus Movement. It’s like a social media meme I saw floating around the past few weeks, which read “Never trust a religious movement that acts as though the world is full of enemies to be destroyed rather than full of neighbors to be loved.” Yup – that there is a sermon in a sentence.

Folks, if there is one thing Jesus is making clear to us in these passages with Nick and Photini is that if you follow him, there are in this world of ours only neighbors to be loved.

Which brings me to that preacher and civil rights leader eulogized this week – and I am sure you’all know who I am talking about – the iconic Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Rev. Jackson, the founder of the Rainbow Coalition – that movement of unity across division with its amazing flag of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple – changed the world through his leadership and prophetic witness in the name of Jesus Christ. That flag also became a symbol for the Gay Pride movement – a far more positive one than what we had to that point, which was the upside-down pink triangle forced on gay men and women in Nazi concentration camps.

Anyway, Jackson saw the world the way Jesus did. He spoke about hope and love for all people. He said “America is not like a blanket – one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt – many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.” Jesus would just tweak what Rev. Jackson said to be “All of God’s creation is like a quilt – from Jerusalem to Samaria and beyond.”

What Jesus is teaching, and what Jackson and Talarico are bearing witness to, is that God loves the world – the whole world – people of every tribe and nation, language and culture, gender, ways of loving, economic class, and more. God loves the earth and all its inhabitants too. Talarico talked about this very thing when he said, “My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. He taught me that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments: love God and love neighbor. Because there is no love of God without love of neighbor. Every single person bears the image of the sacred; every single person is holy — not just the neighbors who look like me or pray like me or vote like me.”

That’ll preach, my brother. That’ll preach.

Of course, this whole loving your neighbor thing, especially in this time in our nation and the world, where, as Talarico rightly points out, the powerful do all they can to divide us, we all know this is not easy to do. It is not easy to love your neighbor, when your neighbor spews vile and hateful things at you and about you. It is not easy to love your neighbor when your neighbor ignores you, or doesn’t even see you. It is hard to break free of the cycle of hate and division that social media algorithms shove down our throats too. Hard, but not impossible.

Nobody ever said that following Jesus was easy. Christianity isn’t easy, but you know what? It is life giving. And, if we try to live as Christ teaches us, make no mistake about it – we will change the world. But to be clear, God isn’t asking you to love what your neighbor does – just love them.

Christianity isn’t complicated either, it’s simple – love God, love your neighbor. But, don’t be fooled. It may be simple, but it is more powerful than anything on earth, and there is no billionaire or politician, dictator or general who can stop us.

Oh, they tried once, more than 2,000 years ago, didn’t they?

They tried to crucify Jesus.

They tried to execute love.

They tried to extinguish hope.

They didn’t succeed then, and they won’t succeed now, because there is nothing more powerful than love, and nothing more dangerous to those in power than hope.

The Rev. Jessie Jackson knew this well. It was a mantra that he reinforced whenever crowds gathered to hear him. He would say “We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.”

It really is that simple and that powerful. We know the love of God in Christ Jesus, and that gives us hope. We share that love with all people – from the proverbial Jerusalem to Samaria – and that spreads hope that changes the world.

So may “we never surrender” to the hate and division, but keep hope alive, remembering that “Every single person bears the image of the sacred; every single person is holy” and we will love them as Christ loves us.

Because if we do that, if we commit to that, then by the power of that love, by the strength of that hope, make no mistake about it – the world will get better and better.

Amen.

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