Abiding in a Time of Pandemic

Audio Recording of “Abiding in a Time of Pandemic” recorded in worship (14:51)
3rd Sunday in Lent, Year A
Texts: Ex 17.1-7; Rom 5.1-11; Jn 4.5-42

“I have no husband.” For better or worse, we don’t know what feelings were behind those words as the woman spoke them. Was she ashamed? She’s been married 5 times and is now living with someone now who is not her husband. For centuries, that fact has gotten her labeled “promiscuous,” and “loose” and “sinner.” She’s there at the well in the blazing heat of noon, when all the other women of the village would have gathered water together at dawn or dusk. She is alone, both physically and socially.

But maybe it’s not shame she feels, maybe it’s hope. Maybe she’s at the well at noon because she’s been hanging out there all day, just waiting for Mr. Right to drop by. Wells are where men and women meet, after all; at this very well, Jacob met Rachel, the woman he loved so madly as to toil for 14 years to gain her hand in marriage. When Jesus asks her, “Go, call your husband,” maybe her heart skips a beat and she bats her eyes a little as she says, “I have no husband.”

However, it could just as easily be disappointment or bitterness she feels. She’s been married 5 times. She’s been left 5 times—maybe divorced, maybe widowed. The man she lives with now is probably her brother-in-law, performing his duty looking after his dead brother’s wife. Maybe she feels like she’s bad luck, like no one could ever want her. Maybe Jesus’ question stirs up in her all those feelings of abandonment all over again.