A good friend of mine, Paul Johnsen, has taken a new job and is moving to Yorktown in early March. He's going to be the pastor of St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, replacing Bob Johnson who retired two years ago. I told Paul how happy I was that he was going to be a neighbor, because I could trot out my old line again: "these are the Kennedy - Johnsen years for Yorktown Lutherans!" I was talking with the Council President and encouraged St. Andrews to purchase a GPS system for his car. Why? For the same reasoning as one of our presidential candidates, when Paul enters the square office he'll be ready to go - on Day 1. The Council President thought that was a grand idea and he would purchase the GPS. Further, he was going to make sure it was preprogrammed for Grace so Paul could find me. This is a lengthy introduction just to get to his beautiful phrase, the GPS will be preprogrammed for Grace. What a wonderful thing it is for you and me, and all God's children: to be preprogrammed for grace!

In Jesus' book, the women at the well has at least three strikes against her. Fortunately for her, and God's grace for us all, Jesus never keeps a book. As his wonderful Gospel story reminds us, you can have far more than three strikes and you're still not out. Among the strikes against the woman in our text were these: she is a woman in a male-centered society, with few rights and no legal status. She is a serial bride ... going through husbands like some politicians go through convictions. But the most striking strike, in the eyes of a Jew, she is a Samaritan, a second-class citizen at best. Her lifestyle would not go well in Jesus' book, nor would her heritage. But, Jesus has no book!

And the reason this shady lady is fetching water under the bright sun of a noontime sky? All the other women of the village gather at the well in the cool of the morning. They draw water, catch up on the village gossip (of which she is usually a hot topic) and go back to their homes before the sun has reached its peak! Not her. Not this nameless and shameless woman. She arrives in the heat of the day - to avoid the shunning, the stares, the comments. She is alone. Thrice shunned - triple cursed - three strikes against her. And yet Jesus engages her in a conversation which lasts longer than any other conversation he has in all of scripture. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all this has some deep implications for you and me, with our own sets of strikes against us? It does. And Jesus keeps no book.

Jesus keeps no book on who you are - because he is far more concerned more about who you can be. He encounters a woman with a past - and points her toward the future. God's version of "No Samaritan left behind." The woman is preprogrammed for grace, as are we all. This whole Season of Lent is about transformation ... pointing us to the future. Not only toward Easter ... but toward becoming the Easter person God wants us to be - filled with new life - and using that new life to change the world. And this story is a beautiful affirmation that change is possible! As someone once said, "if you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance!"

I don't know how many of us - if any of us - feel the need for personal transformation. It may be that we think we're too young - or too old - to change. Or we may at calm moments think we're pretty good just as we are right now. But no matter how we feel about ourselves, don't we wish we could change, transform, the world in which we live? We worry about what's happening to our children. We wonder about how we will face old age. We have questions about everything from health care to the economy to international relations to the identity of our next president. We have doubts about the motives and trustworthiness of politicians and corporate leaders. And of course, we still wonder when and where and how those who hate us will strike next. And we tend to feel that we are either victims of all this or too insignificant and powerless to transform our world. We can relate, perhaps, to the three-strike-woman-of-Sychar, beaten down by life with the resulting pessimism: you can't change my world and you can't change me.

Enter the refreshing Living Water, Jesus, who virtually douses this woman with grace. The Samaritan woman is given a new confidence which leads to a new identity. No longer woman of the street, she recognizes herself as a child of God. She has been irrigated with Living Water and immediately she becomes the first preacher; the first proclaimer of the Good News of Jesus. She goes into her village and shares her Christ encounter and "many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of that woman's testimony: 'He told me everything I have ever done."' Some folks get converted by her testimony. More believe when they meet Jesus for themselves. This is the way (or at least, one way) that God brings people to faith.

This morning, in an experience almost beyond our understanding, Mia is going to encounter Jesus at the well. It's will be not quite high noon when we gather around the well, not quite the heat of the day when we assemble at our font. Just as an aside, it's always handy to have a prop when illustrating a point. Mia, of course, is no prop. She is nothing less than the living, breathing daughter of Aaron and Alli, about to be publicly acclaimed as a child of God. The water is just ordinary water - but when it gets stirred with God's word, this water becomes the moisture of eternity. God's version of, "no child of God left behind."

There is little doubt that we live in a world in which people find themselves thirsty. I'm not talking about the need for water. I'm not referencing the fact that we are anywhere near a drought in this neck of the woods. But, people ARE thirsty. People are thirsty for meaning in life ... and for a way to transform both themselves and the world. For our part all we have to do is recognize the drought ... and ask for a drink. And Jesus will respond with the water of life. So it is that this Living Water is available people of every time and place. This Living Water is on tap for us this day and each day. How refreshing, this Living Water, for we who are preprogrammed for grace.