Freelton Strabane United Church
To live our discipleship with integrity and grace.
Horseshoe Falls Regional Council
Lent 3
Sunday, March 8 2026
Minister: Rev. Will Wheeler, B.A. M. Div. 905-659-3380 E-mail: [email protected]
Music Director Joan Simpson
Let us Gather together for worship.
Come touch our souls that we may know and love you
Your quiet presence all our fears dispel
Create a space for sprit to grow in us
Let life and beauty fill us,
Come touch and bless our souls.
Come touch us now, this people who are gathered,
To break the bread and share the cup of peace;
That we may love you with our heart our soul,
Our mind, our strength, our all,
Come touch us with your grace.
Call To Worship
One Gather us in Holy God to this time, to this place.
All We come seeking more than what this world offers. We come thirsting for more in our lives.
One Gather people of God, and the Lord your God has promised you and will bring you to the waters of life, where you shall never thirst again.
All We shall come to the well of God, For the word of God is water to the soul for this is the place that we need to be
One: In the darkness, our fears come to own us
All The fears we press down into the boxes of our soul
One fear is the great destroyer.
All Fear separates us from the Divine within and without.
One Christ is the key that will open our boxed fears and free us.
All Our fear hides behind many things.
One Within the boxes of our fear there are our fears to act. We give ourselves over to apathy and then seek the rational for not doing what needs to be done. We accept the idea that “Things are the way things are and so it easier and not worth the energy.” Our Apathy feeds into our Indifference. The fear of having to act to change feeds our apathy and indifference.
All Christ is the Key that will free us from our fears.
One We light this candle to dispel the darkness and place this key to open the box of our fears
Prayer of Confession.
God of continued Mercy we come to you holding the box of indifference and apathy. We confess that our fears at times keep us from acting. We would avoid that which we know we should do. In this we hurt ourselves and others. May your Spirit speak to our souls to give us such confidence to have faith in ourselves to own our fears and let them go. . We bring our own personal prayers of confession before you.
Song (81 More Voices)
Love us into fullness,
Touch us with your grace;
Jesus, in your mercy,
draw us to your face.
Assurance of Pardon
One: and Jesus said “ Come to me , all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

One: Who we strive to be is founded in our story.
All Please, share once more with us our story.
One Our Epistle is taken from Romans 5:1-11
One This is our Story
All Thanks be to God
One Our way through the wilderness is found in the gift of the Gospels our Lesson is taken from John 4:5-42
One: The Word of God for the People of God
All Thanks be to God
I read this week that Your body is a temple. One replay to that was “Mine is a bouncy castle that is deflating”. My thought was that my body is a castle that has fallen into disrepair. Actually, taken a few hits showing it’s age, could use a face lift. You get the idea. There is at times a notion that old is not better.
I was having a conversation with some folk and we got on the topic of holy relics. No we were not talking about me. Sometimes I wonder if us Protestants tossed the baby out with the bathwater. For the most part we are very practical and we shy away from the mystical. In the early days of the faith there was the Christian Mystics. Christian mystics seek a profound, personal relationship with God, often through practices such as contemplative prayer, meditation on Scripture, and silence. This experiential dimension is seen as essential for spiritual growth and transformation. Yes there are still those that practice Christian mysticism. Have we lost our sense of mystery.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. -
The mystical experience in our lives take us by surprise, and leave us trying to shake them off like a chill running up the spine.
We dismiss them.
Why?
We are modern people who flatter ourselves into thinking that we have an expansive view of the world. In reality, we tend toward the flat and the reductionist.
All things must be explained and fit into the pattern of the norm, which is set by an unspoken mutual consensus and preconceived notions and biases set by society.

There are certain truths we cannot merely accept, but have to discover for ourselves and that Jesus is constantly asking people to face these truths for themselves.
Mystical experiences are for the poetic and fanciful mind. Not for the modern person.
the Samaritan woman was a literalist....could not sense the closeness of the spiritual.
In today’s Gospel we find an almost mystical encounter that flies in the face of what was considered right. The whole gospel is about bridging gaps, reaching beyond the Fixed reality and reaching beyond the norm. Thus flying in the face of convention. We have never done it that way…why not??
We find here in this story of the women at the well
The women at the well has no preconceived notion of who Jesus is because that is not what she came to the well for. In fact she has problem understanding when Jesus offers her things that she did not even know she was looking for.
What John would have us see here is that there are certain truths we cannot merely accept, but have to discover for ourselves and that Jesus is constantly asking people to face these truths for themselves.
"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" (vv. 13-14).
-"Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water" (v. 15). The woman misses the point completely, asking only for the equivalent of a faucet in her kitchen. She does not understand what Jesus has to offer, but wants it nevertheless.
Jesus comes into her life and begins to seed ideas.
As Albert Schweitzer reminds us The power of ideas is incalculable. We see no power in a drop of water. But let it get into a crack in the rock and be turned to ice, and it splits the rock; turned into steam, it drives the pistons of the most powerful engines.
The waters of the oceans of God's love do come up into the tiny bays of our unbelief.
Like a house plant forgotten by the house sitter after you have been gone a week seeks water for its roots, so do we at times seek and need water for our roots
This women came for one thing water for the day but in the end finds that in herself she was spiritually thirsty. Living Water
Newfoundland expression. Live tea, vs. tea in a bag. Tea that is free to move in the water compared to tea in a bag which is all nicely contained. Living water. Refers to the Spirit the Spirit is something that cannot be contained but is Free to move.
You are living water
There are two and a half quarts of water in your blood. There are fifteen quarts of water in the extra plasma in your body. There are thirty quarts of water in the cells of your body, allowing all those little cells to grow. It is amazing how much of your body is made of water Truly, you are living water.
Here the women at the well stands pondering Jesus.
Here is a man who knows her past, who speaks to her of a living water that is the very source of life. Who is this? This can’t be the long awaited Messiah can he?.
This messiah comes in a form other than the one we expected. A Saviour who comes to us to save, rather than our coming to him. It is all rather disconcerting for the women.
Here we sit at the “Well” again. Pondering Jesus. He knows us, he speaks to us across time of living water through a living word . A Saviour who comes to us. Who is this? How can this be?
We have our categories our expectations of what can what can’ t be, and Jesus intrudes disrupting, expanding our expectations. By the end, those in her town who heard the woman’ s testimony were able to say, this is truly the Saviour of the world.
No matter how hard we try God keeps breaking into our world with his Love flowing like water over us.
So might we, if we are willing to be surprised, willing to think Big. Bolster the imagination and allow the Spirit to work. For you see God in Jesus is not a projection of who we are, but, a presence which knows us at our deepest level.
Knowing even what we do not want to know about ourselves and challenging us. Christianity is a religion of revelation. Not projection. It can be taught but unless it is experienced it has no depth
Christianity is like this
Christianity is the unexpected. The spirit is that which we just don’t expect.
That’s often the way Jesus comes to us. Unexpectedly
He is not a projection of our needs. Rather, he comes to us and speaks to us of a need deeper than even what we thought were our deepest needs. He seeks us out before we ever go to the trouble to look for him.
Jesus is the beginning that rocks our practical side, and upsets perceived natural order.
Jesus is our beginning of an examination of God in the Spirit is a part of our lives
Jesus is our beginning of seeing beyond what is to what can be. Often as we celebrate lent we may forget that the Road to Jerusalem was full of the unexpected. The disciples did not know what to expect. Likewise as we travel with Jesus we do not know what to expect.
We are the women at the well. We come to God for one thing and end up finding something different. We are challenged to let the spirit move us.
To be open to the fantastic, the mystical, the new beginning the challenge of God’s spirit. Jesus comes to us as we travel on this journey of discovery and in encountering him we are shown again that we are not alone.
Prayers of the people
When we shiver in despair when the chill of death comes near,
Hold us Spirit, calm our fear while the evening deepens.
Holy Light, warm our night warm the time of winter
Holy night warm our night warm the time of winter
God of the unexpected on this journey of faith we encounter you when we least expect it. We come to you as the women at the well came to Jesus. We come expecting one thing then in your wisdom and love surprise us. We once more feel the living movement of your spirit over us like water. We once more think, how can this be. It is because of your love. When we are discouraged by this world you speak to us. “don’t be discouraged believe in me, I am with you always.” Once more we experience the living love you have for us at the well of faith. You remind us that there is always hope. In that hope we pray for all those who are a part of our lives that need to know your presence which brings hope, the presence of your healing touch. The comforting of your spirit in our grief. In that hope we pray for the world for all those people who are displaced by war and know such great violence and fear. For all those that live under oppressive regimes. For all those that know illness and hunger.
In that hope we pray for ourselves and our community of faith. We are thankful for how we are blessed and know that you walk with us as we seek out your calling for us. And it is in that hope that we bring our own personal prayers to you trusting in your love and saying the one prayer that binds us as your people saying Our Father….
Offering
We give thee but thy own. The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work. Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse. Let us make our offering and give thanks.
God of all humankind, send our generous gifts where we are unable to go/. Send us to places where we would not venture to witness to your love. We offer these gifts to do your work and rededicate all we hare to your service. Amen
Yesterdaywe honour our heritage.
Todaywe know that we are not alone,that we live in God's world.
Tomorrowwith God,we will discoverthe undiscovered country.
Upcoming Events
