“Reflections”

Rev Dennis Ryle - 08/03/2026

Call to Worship

Leader:
Come, all who are weary from the heat of the day,
all who carry questions too heavy to hold alone.

People:
We come to the well, seeking living water.

Leader:
Come, all who thirst for truth,
all who long for a word that restores dignity and hope.

People:
We come to meet the One who knows us fully and loves us still.

Leader:
Come, travellers in the wilderness,
those whose spirits are dry, whose journeys feel long.

People:
We come to the Source who renews, refreshes, and sends us out in grace.

Leader:
In this place, the Holy One waits for us -
not with judgment, but with welcome;
not with scarcity, but with abundance.

All:
Let us worship God,
who opens our eyes,
fills our cups,
and draws us into life that overflows for the world.

Hymn   TiS 111 “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”  (5 verses)

Prayer of  Thanksgiving

God of all life,
we give you thanks and praise for your goodness that surrounds us.
You breathe strength into weary bodies,
you steady us when the path is uneven,
and you gather us beneath the shelter of your wings.

As we have sung of your greatness,
let that song take root in us.
Make our gratitude more than words:
shape it into compassion,
into justice,
into lives that reflect your generous heart.

Praise and honour be yours,
now and always,
Holy One -
our strength, our healer, our joy.
Amen.

Exodus 17:1-7   Water from the rock

Reflection

The people have been walking for a long time.
Not just miles through the desert, but years through the inner landscape of fear and uncertainty.
They have left Egypt, but Egypt has not yet left them.
And when they arrive at Rephidim - thirsty, tired, unsure - something in them breaks open.

Their cry for water is not rebellion. It is the voice of a people who have never known safety.
A people who have learned to survive by anticipating danger.
A people who are still learning what freedom feels like in the body.

“Is the Lord among us or not?”
It is not a theological question.
It is the question of someone who has been hurt before.
Someone who wants to trust but cannot yet believe that the world is kind.

And Moses - faithful, weary Moses - feels the weight of it.
He hears their fear as accusation.
He feels their need as threat.
He cries out, “What shall I do with this people?”
It is the voice of a leader stretched thin, a shepherd who has run out of pasture.

But God does not shame the people for their fear.
And God does not shame Moses for his exhaustion.
Instead, God invites Moses to bring the elders -
to stop carrying the burden alone,
to let leadership become shared, communal, human.

And then God does something astonishing.
God says, “I will stand before you on the rock.”
Not above.
Not behind.
Before.
As if to say: I will place myself in the vulnerable position. I will go first. I will show you where life can be found.

Moses strikes the rock, and water flows.
Not because the people have earned it,
not because Moses has performed well,
but because God meets fear with refreshment,
and meets doubt with presence.

The tradition later imagines that a well followed them through the wilderness -
a quiet stream of grace that travelled with them,
even when they forgot to look for it.

So perhaps the question is not whether God is among us.
Perhaps the question is whether we can soften enough -
like the rock -
to let the hidden water rise.

Where are the places in our own life that feel hard, closed, unyielding?
Where are the places where fear speaks louder than trust?
Where do we feel the weight of responsibility, or the ache of uncertainty?

Reflect again on the story:
God does not wait for the people to be brave.
God does not wait for Moses to be strong.
God steps forward, stands before them,
and lets grace flow from the most unlikely place.

May we find, in our own wilderness,
that the water is nearer than we think.
May we affirm again that questioning is not a failure of faith,
but part of the journey toward trust.
And may we feel, even in the dry places,
the quiet presence of the One who goes before us.

John 4:5-42     The woman at the well

Video Clip   “Jesus Met a Woman at the Well” (Peter Paul & Mary)



Prayer of Re‑orientation

Holy One,
in the meeting at the well you show us a love that crosses boundaries,
a truth that does not shame,
and a grace that draws us back to life.
As the music fades, let its story settle in us.

Where we have been guarded, open us.
Where we have been thirsty for meaning, refresh us.
Where we have avoided the deeper questions, give us courage to face them.
Where we have forgotten the dignity of others - or our own - restore us. 

Turn us again toward the path you set before us:
a path of compassion,
of listening without fear,
of speaking truth with gentleness,
of offering living water in a world that is parched.

Meet us here as you met her -
seeing us clearly,
loving us wholly,
calling us into a wider, freer life.
In that hope we rise and continue our worship.
Amen.

Hymn  TiS 703 “As The Deer Pants For The Water”  (once only)

Reflection

This is the third Sunday in Lent. We have stepped away from Matthew’s narrative until Palm Sunday. For these middle weeks, we wade into John’s gospel -  stories that slow us down, draw us inward, and take us deep into the faith we are trying to understand and live. John gives us characters who awaken something in us: last week Nicodemus, this week the Samaritan woman at the well. Their encounters with Jesus lift us beyond the mistaken Lenten instinct toward grimness. Even in Lent, every Sunday is a resurrection day. We do not bury the Hallelujahs.

John sets the scene at Jacob’s well at noon - the hour when shadows disappear and everything is exposed. It is a time when most women would not come to draw water. The Samaritan woman arrives alone, carrying whatever story has pushed her to the margins of her own community. And Jesus, tired from the journey, sits waiting.

The encounter begins not with a sermon but with a request: “Give me a drink.”
It is a moment of vulnerability. Jesus is thirsty. He needs her. And in that simple request, the walls between Jew and Samaritan, man and woman, insider and outsider, begin to soften.

Progressive Jewish and Christian interpreters often notice how this mirrors the dynamic in Exodus 17: the Holy One meets human need not from above but from within the shared experience of thirst.  

God stands on the rock; Jesus sits at the well. Both moments reveal a God who chooses proximity over power.

The Samaritan woman does not accept Jesus’ words at face value. She questions, challenges, and pushes back. Her input is lively, intelligent, and unafraid. She becomes a model of spiritual agency rather than a symbol of sin.

Her questions echo the Israelites’ cry: “Is the Lord among us or not?”
But here, the question becomes a conversation.
Her scepticism becomes the doorway to revelation.

Jesus does not silence her doubts. He honours them.
He meets her where she is, and then gently leads her deeper.

When Jesus speaks of “living water,” he is not offering escape from her life but a new way of inhabiting it. The water he promises is not a commodity but a presence - something that wells up from within, something that restores dignity and renews courage.

This is the water that flows from the rock.
This is the water that follows the people through the wilderness.
This is the water that becomes, in her, a spring of truth and joy.

Is this moment the healing of internalised shame? Jesus names her story not to expose her but to free her from the weight of secrecy. She becomes known - and in being known, she becomes whole.

The woman leaves her jar behind.
The very object that brought her to the well becomes unnecessary.
She runs back to the town she has avoided, and her voice - once silenced - becomes the catalyst for communal transformation.

Her testimony is not polished.
It is not doctrinal.
It is simply: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.”

In that sentence is the heart of the gospel:
To be fully seen and not rejected.
To be fully known and not diminished.
To be met in the heat of the day and offered living water.

John tells a story of boundaries crossed:

Jew and Samaritan

Man and woman

Holy and ordinary

Shame and dignity

Isolation and community

Jesus does not dismantle these boundaries with force but with presence.
He sits.
He asks.
He listens.
He reveals.
And in doing so, he opens a space where transformation becomes possible.

Read alongside Exodus 17, the story becomes even richer:

In the wilderness, the people ask, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

At the well, the woman discovers the One who is among us - thirsty, present, and offering life.

Both stories teach that God meets us in our thirst, not after we have resolved it.
Both stories reveal that questioning is not a barrier to faith but a path into deeper encounter.
Both stories show that grace often flows from the most unexpected places - rocks, wells, strangers, noon-day conversations.

For John, Jesus’ arrival marks the dawn of a new era - an intimacy with God no longer tied to a building but embodied in a person. “The temple” is now encountered in spirit and truth, in God’s Word made flesh. The old sacrificial system has reached its end: no more animals, no more money changers, no more rival sacred sites. These structures of the former age have become obstacles to the new day breaking open in Jesus.

And this “old system,” as John sees it, is built from more than bricks, mortar, money, and sacrifice. It is also made of the social walls that divide people - men from women, Jews from Samaritans, friends from enemies, insiders from outsiders, the ever‑shrinking circle of “us” over against “them.” Jesus announces that these boundaries, too, belong to the former age. The new era he inaugurates is one of reconciliation: barriers dismantled, divides bridged, dignity restored. “The hour is coming - and is now here” (John 4:23), when worship and belonging are no longer policed by old hostilities but opened wide by the Spirit.

What drives Jesus through all of this is the ancient fire of the prophets - a sacred zeal that refuses to let worship collapse into ritual, transaction, or the management of holy spaces. Their cry was always the same: God desires mercy, justice, steadfast love, and a heart turned toward the Holy One. Jesus stands squarely in that lineage. His movement pushes past the sacrificial system of dead animals and toward a living, unadorned intimacy with God - prayer, spirit, and truth unbound by any particular mountain, temple, or economic arrangement. In him, the prophetic longing for a worship rooted in authenticity rather than architecture finally comes into view.

This is also the ancient passion for God’s Jubilee - the longing for a new exodus from every form of bondage, a new freedom in which we abide in God and God abides in us, a world soaked in divine presence and beauty. The prophets carried this hope in their bones. Jeremiah thundered it in his temple sermon and envisioned it in the promise of a new covenant written on the heart. Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos exposed the emptiness of sacrifice without justice. Micah distilled it all into that unforgettable triad: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly.

Jesus steps directly into this prophetic stream. His mission presses through every barrier - religious, social, economic - that keeps people from God and from one another. At its core, his work is reconciliation: God and humanity dwelling together, humanity restored to one another, life shaped by justice, kindness, humility, and mutual indwelling. “Abide in me, as I abide in you is not a mystical aside; it is the heartbeat of the new world he is bringing to birth.

The question that lingers is simple and searching:
Where, in my own life, might the living water be rising just beneath the surface, waiting to be noticed?

Hymn  TiS 585 “I heard the voice of Jesus Say”   (3 verses)

 
Intercessions

For a world that thirsts

God of living water, we pray for all places where people thirst for peace, for safety, for justice, and for daily bread. Quench the fires of conflict, soften hardened hearts, and let your mercy flow through the nations.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For communities seeking truth

We pray for communities divided by fear, suspicion, and  old wounds. Where truth has been hidden or distorted, bring clarity; where shame has silenced voices, bring courage; where dignity has been denied, restore it.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the church at the well

We pray for your church in every place. Make us people who listen deeply, who cross boundaries with grace, who offer welcome without condition, and who speak truth with gentleness. May our life together be a sign of your living water.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For those who feel unseen

We remember all who come to the well at noon: those carrying private burdens, those who feel judged or excluded, those whose stories are misunderstood. Meet them with the same compassion Jesus showed the Samaritan woman.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For the weary and the unwell

We pray for all who are sick, grieving, anxious, or exhausted. Refresh them with your presence, surround them with care, and renew their strength for the days ahead.
Lord, hear our prayer.

For ourselves

Draw us again to the well, O God. Where our spirits are dry, pour out your grace; where our hearts are guarded, open us; where our lives are fragmented, make us whole.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Gathering all our prayers

God of the well and the wilderness, receive the prayers we have spoken and the longings we hold in silence. Let your living water flow through us and out into the world you love.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Hymn TiS 531 – “Sent Forth by God’s Blessing”  (4 verses)

Blessing/Benediction

May the God who meets us at the well

see us with a gaze that restores dignity,

speak to us with a truth that frees our hearts,

and refresh us with a grace that never runs dry.

May Christ, the giver of living water,

quench our deepest thirst,

steady our steps in the heat of the day,

and lead us into conversations that heal and reconcile.

May the Spirit, flowing where she will,

open our eyes to the ones who wait at the margins,

open our hands to offer welcome without fear,

and open our lives to become a spring of hope for others.

Let us go in peace, held in mercy, sent in love. Amen.

Sing Amen