A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 8, 2026
Exodus 17:3-7, Romans 5:1-2, 5-8, John 4:5-42
In the second episode of their second season a half-century ago, the highly irreverent British comedy troupe Monty Python carved a phrase into popular culture forever:
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
The rest of their loony sketch was loaded with other unexpected ideas and items.
A Google search on “expect the unexpected” turns up a who’s who of people known for adopting some variation of the phrase as their personal mantras. There’s a millennia-old history of wisdom in being prepared for anything, even the unknown unknowns.
I can’t imagine a movie or a play or a novel or a sport without the unexpected. Even when we expect the unexpected, we never know what it will be.
In football, for example, a wide receiver expects to catch the ball when it’s thrown to him. He hopes that, after he’s caught the ball, he will continue running toward the goal line and maybe even score.
But he also is wary of a tackle, a blocked pass, a mis-thrown ball, or some other incompletion.
For him, the unexpected — the un-hoped-for — means failure. So he listens for footsteps behind him.
Expecting the unexpected arms us against possible failures, or at least prepares us for them.
Then again, on the brighter side, expecting the unexpected opens us to a wide, wide world of possible joys and ecstasies.
Expecting the unexpected prevents us from missing out.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986
As we look through our everyday lives, we probably notice the reason we’re startled by the unexpected is that we were expecting someone or something else. And often when we’re not expecting someone or something, we nonetheless are hoping for them.
The Samaritan woman at the well certainly wasn’t expecting Jesus. Not there, not at midday in the Mideastern sun and heat. She didn’t expect that a Jewish man would ask her to wait on him.
She didn’t expect Jesus to offer her the source of eternal life.
And whoever she expected the Messiah to be, God’s chosen to be, The One to be, whoever or whatever she hoped he’d be, she likely didn’t expect him to be a sweaty, thirsty man in ordinary clothes traveling on foot.
But without much prompting, the woman at the well opened herself to the unexpected.
She recognized in this itinerant rabbi the fulfillment of promises made to her ancestors, even though her ancestors had interpreted those promises in a far different way.
And when she spread the word to her relatives and friends — a message they did not expect — those other Samaritans looked past what and who they were expecting and recognized Jesus for who he is.
Who do we expect Jesus to be?
Who do we hope Jesus will be?
Who do we expect and hope Jesus will be in our lives?
Many Israelites expected the heir to King David’s throne to be a warrior, swinging a massive double-edged sword and leading an army to trample over the Roman occupiers and oppressors.
They expected their king to wear gold and silk and demand that everyone wash him and anoint him and shower him with gifts.
They hoped he’d come down from his throne to restore the earthly kingdom they believed to be their destiny.
Instead, Jesus dined with sinners and the sick and the lowliest of the low, washing and anointing them and showering them with gifts of grace and healing: physical, emotional and spiritual. The gift of his own life, sacrificed for everyone ever born or ever to be born, to free us all from the ravages of sin and death.
His kingdom? Not of this Earth.
His crown? Thorns, not gold and rubies.
Talk about unexpected!
Unexpected then; unexpected now.
The Christ visits us daily in unexpected ways. A stranger whose GPS pooped out. A friend who needs an ear to hear or a shoulder to cry on. Maybe just a cup of tea.
An unjust system that treats certain people as less than human, less than fellow children of God, less than our sisters and brothers, who every one of them is.
We are called to be Christ the Healer, just as sometimes we are called to be Christ the Victim.
We are called to expect the unexpected, and to expect — and hope and believe — that God’s grace and strength will always help us act as Jesus would.
Of that, we can be certain.
