A few years ago, in my previous parish, I oversaw a young adult ministry that met in an abandoned church building in south Philadelphia. The building was in a dire state, and members of the group and I spent hours cleaning up the space, preparing it for ministry. We put on respiratory masks and cleaned up the sacristy, which looked like it had been ransacked. Drawers were left open, and the entire room was covered with dust from a damaged ceiling. We painted the adjoining fellowship space to use for meetings. It was hard work.
But one day, when we ventured into an upstairs room, I saw the strangest, most pitiful site. The room was nearly empty except for a bucket of dried paint, with a paintbrush stuck in it. It was like a piece of Dada art. As I stared at that half-used bucket of paint and abandoned paintbrush, I knew there was a story behind it. I didn’t know what had really happened, but I could imagine it. Some well-meaning group of people had decided to help that flailing parish by painting a room, but halfway through the project, they suddenly realized that this church wasn’t going to survive. Why waste their efforts? So, they left the paintbrush in the bucket and fled the scene.
My mind wanted to press the imagined story further. What was so desperate and hopeless about that church’s situation? Why would a painter simply give up halfway through the job and not even take the painting materials with them? I had a theological suspicion, too. Whoever was helping at that church thought that a few coats of paint would do the trick. Then, one day, they realized the problems were far deeper. That’s when the anxiety and scarcity mindset took over, because in the skeptical eyes of those well-meaning helpers, the parish had no future. Coats of paint would do nothing. So, they vanished into the night. The image of that abandoned paintbrush and bucket have stayed with me over the years as a reminder of how easily we can give up on God’s promises, of how easily the modern Church can persist in seeing the world through eyes of scarcity rather than through eyes of abundance.
But there is a powerful image in today’s Gospel reading that acts as a lovely foil to the abandoned paintbrush and bucket in that abandoned south Philadelphia church. I’m thinking of the Samaritan woman’s water jar. Chancing upon the scene after the woman’s encounter with Jesus, one would have seen a water jar left on the ground by a well under the blazing sun. Through the lens of our anxious world, we could conjecture that the owner of the jar had to flee the scene because something horrible had happened. Maybe someone in her family was ill, and she had to return home in haste. Maybe the well was simply dry, and there was no water.
But St. John gives us one of the most beautiful scenes in all the Bible, and we know the real story behind the abandoned water jar. We know that the Samaritan woman brings her jar to the well in the middle of the day to draw water. She is physically thirsty, but she is also spiritually thirsty, too. We know that, at first, the woman seems to be a product of a world that doesn’t yet know the full power of Christ’s love. She is possessed, as we so often are, of a scarcity mindset. She is skeptical of why Jesus, a Jew, would request a drink from her, a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jews. She questions how Jesus would receive the water he asks for, since he has no bucket with him. And the well is deep, too. The conditions are not auspicious for quenching Jesus’s thirst. But Jesus has met her where she is. She is thirsty, and he is, too.
As the woman talks with Jesus, as she stays with him and responds to his questions, as she takes him seriously, she is drawn into relationship. She moves from thinking about literal water to spiritual water. The longer she stays at the well, the more vulnerable she becomes, because Jesus knows everything about her, just as he knows everything about us, too. It’s only when the disciples come back and intrude on the intimate conversation between Jesus and the woman that she leaves, dropping her water jar. She doesn’t leave in fear. She leaves as an evangelist, to go and proclaim to the whole city that she has met the Messiah. She must be the first evangelist.
This is the story behind the water jar. The water jar, left by the well in the hot Middle Eastern sun, signifies so much. The jar is a symbol for the Samaritan woman’s longing. She is physically thirst, but she is thirsty for so much more. What is it? Is it an escape from loneliness? Is it a desire to be seen as something more than a chattel or piece of property in a world run by men? Is it a hope that her life in all its complexity and sadness can be taken seriously and seen as worthy of respect?
We, like that Samaritan woman, have our own water jars. And day after day, we bring them to the wells of life, hoping to fill them to the brim. What do our jars signify? Perhaps an aching loneliness that we try to quell through human companionship? Or an insatiable need for recognition? Maybe a ravenous desire for fame or success? Or painful memories that we try to ignore through mindless chatter? Or feelings of worthlessness that we paper over by overscheduling our lives with busy activities? These days, there are far too many heavy jars being lugged around, filled with things that will continue to leave us thirsty and wanting more. And that is the sadness of our age.
But there is such hope in this story of the Samaritan woman, who reminds us that our empty water jars can only be filled by God, who meets us in Christ and invites us into relationship. We would all benefit from meditating on that poignant image of an empty water jar abandoned by a well. It was never really about the water, was it?
And yet, along with the hope in this story, there is a challenge, because our Lord demands something from us. He invites us to emerge from our hiding places of fear, since we are prone to retreat into the shadows. We are afraid that what we long for really can’t be found. We gloss over the rocky histories of our lives, our painful moments, our losses, and our wounds. But Jesus is always waiting by the well in the middle of the day. There, we must go, in full view of everyone, in full vulnerability, in full humility, to bring our lives with all their brokenness to the One who loves us unconditionally and freely despite our past.
This is what the Samaritan woman learned. Jesus knew everything about her. We have no reason to judge her marital history, and we have no proof that she led a sordid life. But we can glean that her marital life must have been heavy, complicated, and constantly in flux. It wasn’t easy. Jesus knew whatever he knew about the woman at the well, and still, rather than judging her, he simply invited her to know and love him as Messiah. Jesus knew she was a Samaritan, and nevertheless, he stayed with her by the well in full view of the entire village so that he could draw her into the love he shared with the Father and the Spirit.
Only this recognition could have caused the Samaritan woman to leave her empty jar and tell the whole city about the man she met, the man who is perfect abundance, the man who loves and forgives perfectly. And only this recognition can cause us to abandon our empty jars and do the same. We must know the joy of Christ forgiving us in love by bringing our full humanity, warts and all, to the well to meet him.
I often wonder why more people in our day—why more people in the Church—aren’t able to speak of Christ to those they meet. Maybe they aren’t coming to the well. Maybe they come to the well by night rather than by day. Maybe they aren’t honest enough in their relationship with God to know the full extent of his forgiveness. Maybe they haven’t yet learned to trust that no matter what they’ve done, Christ will forgive them. Instead of staying in conversation with Christ at the well, they run away when life gets hard, they keep their distance because it’s safer that way.
But a full and honest relationship with Christ will prompt us to drop our water jars and run to tell the good news. We must meet Christ at the well in the heat of mid-day, unashamed of who sees us there, and trusting that no matter what we have done and no matter how disordered our lives may seem, Christ loves us unconditionally. Christ forgives. Christ longs to be in relationship. This is the living water we have longed for. And even a taste of this water will send us into the cities of our day with a timeless message of hope. Come and see the one who is always waiting for us at the well. Come and see the one who will quench our thirst forever. Come and see the one who loves us unconditionally, no matter who we are and what we’ve done, and this one will never walk away.
Father Kyle Babin
The Third Sunday in Lent
March 8, 2026