Thirsty for Belonging (3rd Lent A)

A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Savannah, GA, on Sunday, March 8, 2026, the 3rd Sunday in Lent (Year A).

Image Credits: https://www.reformconfess.com/blog/blogcast-water-from-a-rock

Primary Bible Reading(s)

(Click on March 8, 2026, to see all of the Lectionary Texts)

Exodus 17:1-7 (NRSV)

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Thirsty for Belonging

By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA

Everyone feels thirsty sometimes. We know the sensation of thirst. We know what it’s like for our mouths to feel dry and our throats parched. That feeling can drive people into delirium, to see mirages, to start hallucinating, or otherwise act a fool. Scientists say that human beings can only survive a couple of days without any water. Thirst is powerful. That’s why the Bible so often uses thirst and water as analogies for our spiritual lives. We need water desperately, and we’ll do anything to get it; just like how we need God. So today, we read two biblical stories about thirst.

In Exodus 17, the Israelites complain and quarrel with Moses while wandering in the desert wilderness. They have just escaped slavery in Egypt but they have not reached the promised land yet. They have run out of supplies and in the desert, they can’t find a spring, so they are very low on safe drinking water. You might call this situation a public health crisis. So they turn on Moses and blame him for their thirst. They blame him for dragging them out of Egypt and into the Sinai desert (as if they didn’t want to leave enslavement). They try to scapegoat him and threaten him. They even say that they long for a return to the “comforts” of slavery in Egypt. Their thirst drives them to rebel against God and want things that are bad for them. Their thirst makes them quarrelsome, willing to pick a fight with Moses and the God they serve. They would rather return to a state of bondage than struggle with God on their side to find grace, healing, and freedom. 

In John 4, the Samaritan woman at the well also thirsts, but not really for water. She already has water (she is visiting a well, after all). Instead, she thirsts for community, for true love, for acceptance and belonging. This woman has a checkered past. She has had five husbands. And in a culture in which women usually couldn’t choose their husbands, that probably wasn’t her fault. She had likely been divorced by one or more husbands. Some could have died. But either way she knows loss. She knows rejection. She knows abandonment and isolation. 

When Jesus meets this woman, she is hiding from the people of her town. This woman goes to the well to draw water at noon, in the hottest part of the day. Most people went to the well in the cool morning or evening. In 1st century Samaria and 21st century Georgia, nobody likes to sweat when they don’t need to. Not to mention, going out when it’s hot makes you thirstier. But she goes out at noon and avoids the busy times because she is afraid of how her neighbors will treat her. She would rather be physically thirsty and uncomfortable so long as she avoids the pain of her social abandonment and rejection. Perhaps because of her many husbands (and the rumors that swirl around her), she has been cast out of ordinary society. She feels that no one loves her and even that she is unlovable. 

In both of these Bible stories, the thirst for water was really connected to something deeper. Our thirst today is similar. We live in thirsty, stressful times. There are wars abroad, inflation, economic uncertainty, and government overreach. We live in an age of mental health crisis, what some experts call a loneliness epidemic. We live in times of isolation and unhappiness. So we thirst for happiness. But sometimes our thirst gets misdirected. Do you know how some drinks actually dehydrate you and make you more thirsty? Sometimes we try to quench our thirst for love and community with distractions and short term pleasures like TV, social media, doomscrolling, junk food or drinks. Sometimes our thirst feels like fear or anger that can evolve into vengeance and violence.

But in both these Bible stories, God provides. God satisfies the deeper thirsts. For the Israelites, God provided literal water from a spring in the desert (Exodus 17:5-6). For the Samaritan woman, Jesus gives the “living water” of truth, mercy, and compassion (John 4:10). Jesus shows her that someone can know her for who she truly is (a foreign woman who has been married five times) and still love her dearly.

How many of us thirst for the kind of acceptance that Jesus showed the woman at the well? How many of us need to hear Jesus say he loves us just as we are, flaws and scars and all? How many of us need to be reminded that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, given to us (Romans 5:5)? How many of us need living water that never runs dry?

Yes, we thirst for peace in violent times. Yes, we thirst for consolation from our sorrows. Yes, we thirst for a loving, accepting community that will care for us when we cannot care for ourselves. And yes, we thirst for Jesus.

When we face fear, isolation, and the anxieties of the world, know that only God can give us living water. Only God can quench our thirst for love, joy, hope, and peace. Only God can give us what we truly need, even if our thirsts and desires get misdirected. Only Jesus can give us living water so that we’ll never thirst again. Only Jesus can see us as we are in our weakness and dependency, in our faults and failures, and still love us with an everlasting love. Only Jesus can quench the thirst that we all have, now and forever.

Maybe the path to healing and wellness isn’t the easiest or most comfortable. Maybe we will have to be thirsty for a while as we journey in the desert. Maybe we would rather go back to the old ways of selfishness, violence, greed, and bondage to the destructive forces of the world. The old ways are easier. They promise quick hits of relief and good feelings. But they don’t last. 

Psalm 42:1-2b says, “As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God.” I pray that we grow to thirst for God so that our hearts ache for God just as our bodies ache for water. Then, no matter what crisis comes our way, we will be rooted and grounded in God’s love.