Sunday readings and prayers

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Psalm 95

Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the caverns of the earth, and the heights of the hills are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands have moulded the dry land.

Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

Harden not your hearts, as your forebears did in the wilderness, at Meribah, and on that day at Massah, when they tempted me.

They put me to the test, though they had seen my works.

Forty years long I detested that generation and said, "This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways."

So I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter into my rest."  “C”antate:  British Library

Gospel Reading: St. John 4:5 – 42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
 

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The 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.) Jesus 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.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘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. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The 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.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

Just 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?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do 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. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They 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 Saviour of the world.’                                                                                                                                     At the well: Duccio

The Samaritans were despised by the Jews. While several thousand Israelites were carried away into captivity at the time of the Assyrian invasion, the few that remained intermarried with people of other tribes who subsequently moved into the area. The Samaritan Jews were thereafter regarded as being racially impure and were held in contempt by the Jerusalem Jews.

The account of Jesus’s meeting with the Samaritan woman is a long and detailed one and it clearly had great importance for St. John, the Gospel writer, as it brought him closer to knowing Jesus. A Jewish Rabbi associating with a Samaritan?? Unthinkable! … and a woman , let alone a woman with five husbands! She was clearly an outcast and knew it as why else would she have been carrying heavy jars of water in the heat of the midday sun when most people would have been taking advantage of the shade inside?

Where others look with the eyes of condemnation and see sin, Jesus looks with the eyes of compassion and recognises this woman as a child of God.  By telling the woman at the well who she is, Jesus shows her who He is. By confirming her true identity, He reveals his own, even though He has to cross boundaries and break a few rules to do so.

The story of the encounter with the woman at the well is a foretaste of the drama that will be realised on the cross, a foretaste of the living water and the Holy Spirit being poured out as the Spirit which He offers the woman is given for all people.

Lord, grant us simplicity of faith and a generosity of service, that gives without counting cost.

A life overflowing with Grace, poured out from the One who gave everything, that we might show

the power of love to a broken world, and share the truth from a living Word.

Lord, grant us simplicity of faith, and a yearning to share it.  www.faithandworship.com

• We pray that war may cease and that peace and justice may reign. We pray for the peoples of the Middle East and  for Ukraine,
• We pray for the victims of discrimination, whether due to race, gender, disability or belief
• We pray for the many who do not have enough: enough food to eat, or water to drink: enough shelter to keep warm or shade to keep cool; enough money to pay their bills; enough medical care for their health.
• We also pray for those who have more than enough, but who still struggle to find meaning and purpose in life. 
• We pray for those known to us who are in poor health, thinking of ..........................................................
• We pray for the repose of the souls of those who have recently departed this life, thinking especially of ………………..  We ask you, loving Father, to be with the bereaved, wherever they are, that they may be comforted by your constant presence.