Sermon – Lent 3, Year A
Vincent Booth — March 8, 2026
Opening
Good morning.
Last week, I led the children’s formation downstairs, with Nancy’s capable and exceptionally gracious assistance. There were jokes and laughter, quite a bit of irreverence, and there was frank sharing about some difficult relationships at school.
Nancy and I did our best to affirm that the space we convened was a place of safety and affirmation.
We led a reflection on the blessedness of the peacemakers in the Beatitudes. That, as Christians, we are called to pursue peace. We can develop it in ourselves, and we can share it with others. We can find ways to navigate difference without resorting to violence.
I assume we fully accomplished our teaching goals, and your children returned to you transformed, saying, “Peace be upon thee, Mother,” or “Peace be upon thee, Father.”
Or maybe it takes a little longer than one relatively disorganized lesson plan, however kindly delivered.
And maybe we ourselves—full grown adults—have not fully arrived into our full identity and capacity as peacemakers.
So it is with this thirst for peace that drives me to the well this morning.
A Search for Peace
I am, of course, seeking peace this week, as our leaders initiate war. Sometimes, when I don’t understand why someone—like our leaders—are doing what they’re doing, I wonder about the experiences they’ve had in life that form the foundation of their understanding of the world.
For me, as someone with a strong connection to trees, I think back to a time when I first experienced an old-growth forest. I stood in awe at the majesty of the fully grown trees towering overhead, and all the life they supported beneath them.
This can be Douglas firs and cedars, or ponderosa pines and oaks, or redwoods along the coast. Any of them, in their height and thickness—and their sometimes gnarled mixture of dead parts and live parts—make abundantly clear to me how short and precious a human life is next to the immensity, in time and space, of very old trees.
I enjoy spending time in all forests. But if my understanding of what a forest is were only informed by second-growth forests—uniformly spaced and uniformly sized, like the ones on the way up Mount Si—I can’t see how I would arrive at a relationship of awe toward forests and trees.
The Truth of Trees
When I spend time among big trees that have reached their true, full stature, I grow more humble and grateful for the Earth from which we come. I understand the interconnectedness of all living things on a felt level. And I’m inspired to protect what is good and full of life in the world.
I planted a beech tree in our front yard two and a half years ago. I don’t care for it with the image of it in my mind 10, 20, or even 30 years from now. I imagine it far beyond that time.
I imagine it massive, shading far into the street, with children playing under it—children born to parents who aren’t yet born, born to parents who aren’t yet born.
After walking among old-growth forests, all trees have to be seen within this larger, truer context.
Old growth is the full truth of trees.
(And if what comes out of this sermon is a need for a field trip to go see some big trees—let’s do it.)
Experiences That Reveal the Truth
I understand, though, that not everyone has this type of connection to trees.
If you’re not a tree person, that’s fine. There are many things in this world that can be experienced in their partial truth—and then closer to their full truth.
Seeing someone love and care and sacrifice for another person can change you, in what you understand love can be.
A good and true friend can change what you imagine friendship to be.
Even a good party can change what you know celebration can be.
Perhaps on your way home today you might reflect on the experiences in your life that bring you closer to the truth about the world—in all its humbling, old-growth glory.
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
Today Jesus speaks through the Gospel, challenging and inviting the Samaritan woman, the disciples, and us to get closer to the truth of this world.
Last week Nicodemus couldn’t shift his literalistic mind to imagine the spiritual possibilities of being born from above.
“How can anyone be born after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”
This week Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman carries a similar tension between what is true in a limited sense and what is true in the larger kingdom to which we are being beckoned.
Jesus begins by asking her for water. He is the one who is thirsty. She points out the social conventions that make this sharing transgressive, and the practical problem that he has no bucket.
Jesus responds:
“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.”
Her reply shows that—like Nicodemus—she hears his words literally. She imagines never needing to come to the well again.
The Larger Reality
Nicodemus was challenged to expand his understanding of the source of his life.
Being born from above would not erase the reality that he was born of his mother. Rather, it would open him to the larger truth that he is also a child of God.
Jesus takes a deeply human reality—the birth of a child—and invites us to see it within a larger, truer reality.
The Samaritan woman and the disciples are similarly challenged. The necessity of water and food is placed within a larger truth.
Instead of the food the disciples brought, Jesus says his food is:
“To do the will of him who sent me.”
Jesus interrupts our understanding of the fundamental cycles of life—birth and sustenance.
We know the chore of fetching water will continue. A person cannot live without water for long. But Jesus is saying that life must be more than this.
There must be another level. Another reality. Another kingdom.
We are not given life merely by our mothers—blessed as they are—but also by the Spirit, who births new life in us forever.
And we are not sustained merely by the water that passes our lips, but by the living water that enters our hearts and sustains us eternally.
No Ordinary People
In Jesus we are asked to place the daily cycles of our lives—our eating and drinking—within the towering realities of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and the hope of his eternal kingdom.
We are invited to live our ordinary chores with an eye toward eternity.
C.S. Lewis wrote:
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—
immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
This is the truth about people, just as old growth is the truth about trees.
We are blessed to be giants in the eyes of God—every last one of us.
And we are beckoned to come with our deep spiritual thirst to the well of the one who offers reconciling love to all, and drink of the living water.
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
and let the one who believes in me drink.”
Closing
Standing in this forest—glimpsing immortality in the eyes of children and young people and old people—the only song I can hear is a song of peace.
May we all—especially those with the capacity to make war and end war—drink of this living water, becoming springs gushing forth with peace.
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