From Fleming Rutledge’s Means of Grace on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:

That is what Jesus does. He reaches out especially to those who are outcast and downtrodden, and he transforms them. He gives them water for eternal life. The water that Jesus gives is his own self, his own divine life. In receiving Jesus, we become new people. We begin a new journey. We won’t want to set ourselves up against others. We won’t want to divide up the world into good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. We will understand that even those who live in nice neighborhoods don’t have clean hands and a pure heart.

So the miracle of today’s story is that the Lord’s wonderful message today is for every one of us. Saint Paul makes it clear in the second reading for today:

While we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly….God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.  (Rom. 5:6,8)

He didn’t wait until we had clean hands and a pure heart. He didn’t say, “God helps those who help themselves.” While we were still helpless, Jesus died for unrighteous people, immoral people, ungodly people. These two verses from Romans are the very heart of the Bible: Christ died for the ungodly. For you see, in the Lord’s sight, all of us are ungodly Samaritans, but while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Draw near today with renewed faith as our living Lord speaks to us all in the words he spoke to that outcast Samaritan woman: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Prayer

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy:  Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.