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It is absolutely wonderful to be back here again with you. I don't know if you know what a gift you are to each other. But it is no reflection on the weather in Cleveland to say how good it is to be here!

The Gospel we heard today is filled with all manner of challenge and insight. And we could probably spend all night unraveling it, but we won't, I promise you! I would, though, like to share three approaches to this Gospel.

The first has to do with when the story takes place. Did it strike you as odd that the woman comes to the well at noon - at high noon - to draw water? Anyone here who has ever carried water, in a garden or on a playing field, knows that you would choose the cool of the morning, or later in the evening to haul water - not noon, not the heat of the day. That's why the well, a common gathering place in towns, was abandoned when Jesus approached it. It was the heat of the day, and a lone woman approaches, a woman who might have reason to avoid coming to a well when all kinds of people are there. It's a woman with five husbands, and any woman with five husbands probably has a story that goes with it!

It makes me wonder, though, who is more disappointed to see each other there, Jesus or the woman? Jesus was tired and apparently looking for a spot of time to rest. The woman comes, hoping to find no one else there. And they wind up there, at the same time, with each other. Haven't all of us been in that spot somewhere or another? We're on a plane waiting for takeoff, we're in a doctor's office waiting for an appointment, and we're sitting there and somebody else comes in, and they eye the seat next to us. And we say to ourselves, almost calling out, "Please not here, not next to me - not here. I want to just be in my own space, my own time." And of all the chairs that they can choose, they choose the one right next to you. That's what happens at the well. Jesus and the woman end up right next to each other, and that's when the miracle begins.

"While you're drawing water, would you get Me a drink, too?"

"But why not? Thirst is something we all share in common."

"Well, how can we share anything in common, if our religious traditions are so different?"

"Well, it's true our traditions are different, but our hopes are similar - and the future that lies ahead of us will draw us both together."

And so began a wonderful conversation, and a wonderful conversion. At a moment and a place where a transformation is least expected, the miracle happens. And the message for us is to be alert - to be careful not to write off those ordinary commonplace moments, the kind of throwaway times we have - the moments of little or no significance, or so we think. In the week ahead, why not identify one of these commonplace times for yourself? When you meet somebody in the aisle at Safeway, or you're standing next to somebody on BART, or it's the couple minutes before your kids leave for school or your spouse leaves for work; and in that moment, be alert to how the Spirit of God walks into your space with you. You, too, might experience a miracle of sorts, similar to what happens between the Samaritan woman and Jesus - a miracle of a turning of your heart, and an opening of your eyes.

The second approach I'd like to suggest to the Gospel concerns this wonderful series of questions that take place - the questions exchanged between the woman and Jesus, each one taking the conversation a little farther, and a little deeper. This isn't typical today; we're in an age of TV Jeopardy shows. And whether we watch the show or not - and I won't ask for a show of hands - whether we watch the show or not, I think Jeopardy has gotten in our blood and our souls. If you know the game, you win - if you provide the question when the answer is already known. Now, think about that - who cares about a question if you already know the answer? But that's how you win the game! We do this a lot, though, even if we're not on TV playing the game. We ask questions that imply an answer, or at least they imply our opinion. Questions like, "Don't you think you should pull off at the next exit for gas?" Now, why don't we just say, "Pull off"! Or, questions like, "Do you really think that's a good use of your money?" The answer is implied in the question - it's not open, we're not looking for something new. We're not open to a discovery. They're really opinions, with question marks at the end, not questions in search of the truth.

The Samaritan woman and Jesus exchange a series of questions that take them in a whole new direction. She asks questions to which she really does not know the answer, and to which she is open for a whole new discovery. And Jesus responds not with answers, but with observations that take them both deeper and farther, and never closes off the dialogue.

This week let me suggest that we all notice the questions that we ask on any given day. Do you, do I ever ask a question that the answer might change the rest of my life? Do I ask a question like, "Why do I stay in this job? Why am I staying in this relationship? Why am I continuing this habit or this behavior? How is this action or this decision of mine impacting those I love?" Questions that really might change the rest of my life.

That brings us to the third and last approach. When you have found a genuine question, stay with it - follow it, in the Spirit of God Who is asking it with your whole self.

The theme of this Lent, There Is A Longing In Our Hearts, seeks to discover the questions between the longing in our hearts (sometimes even an aching inside of us) with the need and the gift that is outside there, and somehow bring the aching in myself to the need or gift that is out there. And ask the question, "What is it I long for?" very, very slowly. Remember, this isn't TV Jeopardy - I have all the time I need to ask and answer the question. Let Lent be a time of questions without answers, and plan to stay a little longer at the well. We, too, might experience a miracle and discover an answer that will satisfy all our thirst, forever.

Those are the three approaches that I'd suggest to this Gospel. But let me offer one last thought on the Gospel, and with it a request for your prayer as a community. The Gospel today is a microcosm of the questions asked all over the world - who gets to worship where? Whose religious faith prevails? "Our fathers worship on this mountain," the Samaritan woman says to Jesus. "But you Jews, you worship in Jerusalem."

In Israel, in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Congo, in Iraq, here in this country, whose religious faith prevails? Who gets to worship where? The shadow that's cast by history makes it difficult to see clearly. In this darkness, in the darkness of this shadow, ancient boundaries cannot be clearly seen. Fences put up over years of warfare moved the borders many, many times since the first families settled anywhere. Whose religious faith prevails? Who gets to worship where? We might, you and I here in this country, be tempted to answer the question glibly, "Well, why don't these folks just get together and settle it, and figure out how to share". But you know, we don't have a real good track record in our own country, of how we figured out how to share with the Native Americans, who were here first. Or the African Americans, who came here unwillingly. So the question remains for us - who gets to worship where, and whose religious faith prevails?

We need to stay with the question, and with the Spirit of God who asks it for a very long time and, perhaps, to stay at the well in the company of each other, because there we can pray together for the answer, in hope, that we don't yet have. For what do you long? What is the longing in your heart? Find time to stay at the well a little longer this week - perhaps your question will be taken up by the Spirit of God, and given back to you (and to all of us) as an invitation to be part of a grand, unfolding miracle here at Christ the King, here in our Church, and here in our world.