John 4:1-15
Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS
February 1, 2026
There are so many ways of showing up in the world. As we’ve watched the horrors unfold in Minneapolis this past month, have you learned anything about how you want to show up? I hope so. I know I have. I’ve watched countless videos from our neighbors to the north and asked myself, “What would I do in a situation like this? What kind of energy would I want to bring?”
This past week I became acquainted with the Singing Resistance in Minneapolis. Maybe you have, too. The first video I saw was a big group of bundled up people walking slowly down a residential street, singing. They chose this neighborhood because they knew that a lot of the people there were scared to come out of their homes. And so they walked through smiling, waving, and singing:
Every one, every one, oh, every one of these people are ours
Just like we are theirs
We belong to them
And they belong to us [1]
These everyday folks gather in affected neighborhoods and they also gather in churches to learn songs of hope and resistance and to sing together. When they first gathered, a couple weeks ago, 300 people came. After Renee Good was killed, 600 people showed up. Last weekend, after Alex Pretti was killed, 1,400 people showed up to sing.
One of their leaders, who wouldn’t show her face because she fears for her safety, did an interview with Anderson Cooper. She sang to him:
I am not afraid
I am not afraid
I will live for liberation
Cause I know why I was made [2]
She explained, “Song is a vehicle for us to grieve. It’s a vehicle for us to feel rage. A vehicle for us to strengthen ourselves. When we sing ‘I am not afraid’ - we're not singing it because we're actually not afraid. Like, we are afraid. It is terrifying what is happening. Singing is a way to gather our courage.” [2]
Today’s story from the Gospel of John features another unnamed woman. And it’s another story of vulnerability and courage, strangers coming together in unexpected places. A story of mutual aid and the ways people choose to show up in challenging situations.
The scene: a Jewish teacher named Jesus has traveled into foreign territory. He’s on his way to his home in Galilee but first he has to go through Samaria - a place where Jews were not particularly warmly welcomed. Along the way, he becomes thirsty so he goes to the local well. He arrives there when the sun is high in the sky. Most women come to the well first thing in the morning when it’s still cool outside, but Jesus is here at noon so it’s basically deserted.
He’s in luck, though, as a woman who isn’t named arrives at the well. Jesus seems untroubled by the fact that she’s a Samaritan….or a women….or alone. I mean, you know how this guy is. Always busting open boundaries and very unwilling to be fenced in by cultural and religious expectations. Plus, he’s thirsty.
So he asks for a drink. And what he gets in return is a lot more than just water.
This lengthy passage (we didn't hear nearly all of it today) is a dialogue between two people who are mutually vulnerable. Jesus needs water. The woman can provide it. The woman needs to be seen, heard, understood. In Jesus she finds a careful listener and teacher - someone who is willing to probe the difficult areas of her life and hold a mirror up to her life. Karoline Lewis calls their conversation at the well a model for “faithful conversation” - a dialogue where questions are honest and authentic. [3] They are asked out of genuine curiosity, not because the asker already knows the answer. It is a conversation where both parties have something to risk and something to gain. They take their time. They are both willing to be surprised and learn together.
And, in the end, both of their lives are changed. Many scholars have pointed to this story as evidence that Jesus was always learning that God’s love operates far beyond our human-imposed boundaries. The Samaritan woman was an important teacher in that regard.
And she is also transformed. She calls Jesus a prophet and accepts his offer of Living Water. Eventually she leaves her jug behind - yet another symbol of her power and vulnerability - and runs to tell her neighbors that she has found the Messiah - the anointed one. In doing so, she is the first person in John’s gospel to recognize Jesus as the Messiah and to invite others to draw near.
Thirsty people in the desert. Vulnerable people. Mutual interdependence. Worlds being flipped upside down and barriers dismantled as it becomes harder and harder to tell who is the leader and who is the follower. Who is the student and who is the teacher? Who is the giver and who is the recipient? As is so often the case in our holy texts the answer is: yes.
Next month, our friends at the Manhattan Jewish Congregation will celebrate and dedicate some recent renovations to their building. They’ve completed updates to their kitchen, created accessible restrooms, and built a beautiful sukkah outside. All of these updates display their commitment to practicing hospitality.
The sukkah will be used in the fall during the Festival of Sukkot. Traditionally, during this seven-day, joy-filled holiday, Jews take all their meals outdoors in tents-like structures.
Why are the Jews so thankful and happy during Sukkot? What are they celebrating?
Get this. They are celebrating their vulnerability. They are commemorating the time when their faith ancestors were nomads in the desert. They are rejoicing as they recall the years their people spent wandering, hungry and thirsty.
They are celebrating their vulnerability.
As they build their sukkahs, they are required to ensure that the structure will allow rain to come through the roof. Rabbi Shmuel Hertzfeld describes it like this: "...the purpose of the sukkah...is to remind us, you know, in our own world we have our houses, which we invest in, and we think we're so secure, and we think we're in control. And for one week, we go outside, kind of live in the elements, reminding ourselves that we're under the shelter of God at all times." [4]
It’s as though remembering our vulnerability enables us to show up courageously. Rabbi Arthur Waskow reflected on the newfound sense of vulnerability many U.S.Americans felt after September 11, 2001. He reflected on the Sukkot that came just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, writing “In our evening prayers throughout the year, just as we prepare to lie down in vulnerable sleep, we plead with God, ‘Spread over us your sukkah of shalom - of peace and safety.’”
“Why,” he asks, “does the prayer plead for a sukkah of shalom rather than a temple or fortress or palace of shalom?” After all, he says, a sukkah is “the most vulnerable of houses. Vulnerable in time, since it lasts for only one week each year. Vulnerable in space, since its roof must be not only leafy but leaky enough to let in starlight and guests of wind and rain.” [5]
He’s right, isn’t he? What an odd thing to pray for the gift of insecurity. How could vulnerability lead to anything good? Rabbi Waskow notes that usually we try to cultivate a sense of security by building things like pyramids, pentagons, World Trade Centers. How could a fragile, leaky tent bring hope and joy?
I suppose it’s a bit like Jesus showing up with humility - admitting his own human vulnerability to a stranger when he asked for a drink of water.
And a bit like a woman showing up with quiet confidence as she talks to a religious leader who should ignore her, but, instead, sees her.
It’s like neighbors showing up with no weapon but their voices to create shelter, security, shalom as they sing, “We belong to them and they belong to us.”
Rabbi Waskow says:
We are all in truth vulnerable….we all live in a sukkah. Even the widest oceans, the mightiest buildings, the wealthiest balance sheets, the most powerful weapons [can not] shield us….
There are only wispy walls and leaky roofs between us….The command to love my neighbor as myself is not an admonition to be nice: It is a statement like the law of gravity. However much and in whatever way I love my neighbor, that will turn out to be the way I love myself….
Only a world where all communities feel vulnerable, and therefore connected to all other communities, can prevent...acts of rage and mass murder.
God, be with us in our leaky tents. Help us to show up with some measure of hope in the midst of our vulnerability.
NOTES:
[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DUAElNgEZFw/ ; https://soundcloud.com/annie-rambeau/we-belong-to-each-other
https://arnolfini.org.uk/app/uploads/2025/03/Nikita-Gill-Every-bombed-village-is-my-hometown.pdf
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/27/us/video/mn-group-singing-resistance-ice-vrt-digvid
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4839
[4] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130104116
[5] All following references and quotations to Rabbi Waskow’s work come from his essay “The Sukkah of Shalom” in The Impossible will Take a Little While” by Paul Rogat Loeb.
