Homily | Doing God's Will - The Samaritan Woman 2026

you don't know about. So my Sermont's going to be answering what is that food? But I'm not there yet, not there yet. First, a very happy Mother's Day to all of our mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers, godmothers, spiritual mothers, all our precious nuns. We're so thankful to God for you. We have some special treats for you later. This is the fifth Sunday of Pasca. The day of Easter itself is first Sunday. Saint Thomas and his faith after touching

the side of Christ is the second Sunday. After that we have the murdering women and their incredible devotion as a model. Then we have the paralytic that Jesus healed, and then today the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman. Next week. The marvelous gospel text on the blind Man Pasca is a treasure trove of edification from the Gospels, one encouraging, miraculous gospel after the other. This text may be the most rich theological text in the entire New Testament. This

account of the Samaritan woman. So many amazing truths set forth in this engagement between her, Saint Foutini, the woman who would become Saint Foutini, and our Lord Christ. I want you to see a number of things. First, I want you to see the incredible humility that is the backdrop of this whole account. Remember what's happening. Why is Jesus at the well? He's tired. He's tired, The co

eternal son of God is tired. Saint Ephim the Syrian, in one of his hymns, I think it's the seventeenth hymn, his collect him on Virginity, describes this incredibly gracious reference to Jesus being tired, Listen to what he says, Although tireless, he became tired in order to give you rest. Although tireless as the co eternal son of God in his humility, he condescended to take on our flesh and all of its natural passions and weaknesses in order to redeem us

and save us. Although tireless, he became tired in order to give you rest. This text also shows the incredible thirst that Jesus has for the love of human beings, how much he seeks us, how much he wants us his mercy and love, which are highlighted in this text, especially his manifestation with this Samaritan woman. He sought her. He broke all the rules, beautifully broke all the bogus rules, all the made up rules, all the fallen rules, in order to save this woman, to make this woman participant

in his own love. You also see in this text God's amazing thirst for the entire human race. He thirsts for them to know Him and his father in the Holy Spirit. He thirsts for us to join ourselves to Him in worship. This is why he says what he said about it's no longer time to worship in Jerusalem, nor has it ever been time to worship on Mount Gharrisiem in Samaria. But the Father desires that all men would worship him in space and in truth. We see

Jesus's resolve for the revelation of full trinitarian worship. Those who worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth. This is the Father say, an affirmation of full Trinitarian worship the Father in He who is the Truth Christ, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We also see in this text that Jesus reveals himself as the Lord of history, the one whose hand is guiding everything. Whenever we're in political conflict, it's always a relief to me.

Besides all the grief, the endless wars are such a burden, such a burden, they seem to never stop my whole

bloody life. But what puts that's a smile on my face is when all of our arrogant political leaders telling us what's going to happen the Golden Age, this, and this is going to happen for sure, and that's going to happen there for sure, and they don't know what in the world they're talking about, and Evidently they haven't learned from the last war and the one before that, and the one before that and the one before that, where it never goes as they say it's going to go.

There's one who can tell you that one. That's him. He's painted there because he sits at the right hand of the Father, on the throne of God, until all of his enemies become a footstool for his feet, and his hand guides all the destinies of men. He causes men to rise up, and then he throws them down. He moves this left, and he moves that right. Listen to Jesus in this incredible account with the Samaritan woman. Three times he tells the Samaritan woman what the real

time is, what's really going on? Historically? An hour is coming, he says, when neither here in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. Here he's telling you that right now, the system of worship which they have had for over one thousand years, it's that's four times as old as our country. They have had this system, and it was revealed by God. Don't miss this. How extreme an affirmation Jesus is saying. Here, He's saying it's

done no more. An hour is coming when neither here in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. I'm sure they were thinking, what what do you mean. It's been going on for a thousand years and God commanded it through Moses, and Jesus says it's over, despite the radical Zionists who are trying to reinstitute it. Right now, it's been dead for two thousand years, and it was over because the Lord of History said it was over.

Now the Holy Trinity will be worshiped throughout the whole world, as is the case and has been for two thousand years. That's number one. Next, he says, an hour is coming, and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the spirit and truth. So now he's proclaiming that it's happening right now. It's not just coming, it's now here that Christian worship, authentic Christian worship is breaking out. It was breaking out in his disciple group, but that

disciple group would take it to the whole world. And then a third word, the Lord of History issues about the Gospel age. He says, do you not say there are yet four months? And then comes the harvest. Behold, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already, he who reaps is gathering fruit for life eternal. This affirmation by the Lord of History probably was the hardest one for them to accept.

He had a few disciples, there ones a few disciples, and here he's saying, the hour right now is that the whole world is going to be reaped. I'm going

to gather them all into my storehouse. If you had sat the disciples down and told them that this little bunch of fishermen, a dozen fishermen, and they were young, some were teenagers, teenagers, that they were going to convert the world, that in a very short time, like within fifty years, we would have leaders writing significant treatises to the emperors to make apologetic defenses of the Christian faith.

And within two hundred years a third of the empire would be Christian, and within three hundred years it would be completely Christian, and by the end of the fourth century it would become the legal religion of the world. The civilized Well, are you kidding me? They would have laughed at you. But when the Lord of History speaks, it happens. He knows what he's talking about. It's an incredible revelation. In this text, Jesus reveals himself as a

radical missionary come to harvest the entire world. In chapter three, just before this, he tells Nicodemus to forget the old stop being interested in propagating Moses's law and your pharisaic traditions, because they have no future, and you made them up. Unless a man is born again, he will never enter into the Kingdom of God unless he's born of water and the spirit. He won't even see it. And Nicodemus

said to him, what are you talking about? And Lord said, how could you be a teacher of Israel and not understand these things? How did you, Nicodemus, get so caught up in this made up rabbinic nonsense that you can't even understand what the prophets have been talking about. He tells them how people are going to be saved, how they're going to be enlightened, and then he tells them that it's going to be all over the whole world.

He describes to Nicodemus the means of salvation is not keeping the law on the traditions of the Jewish elders, but being born again of water. Having explained how one is saved, he then shows exactly who he is seeking to save by going and meeting with this woman, someone they would never have spoken to. And the answer is given in that question. Just two days after this interaction, after he's done with the Samaritans, and what a witness. Can you imagine? The Lord exhausted, he had nothing to

eat like we eat. And then they say to him, Lord, the Samaritans, do do you think you could please stay here with us? I mean, you can't blame them. They just have become convinced that Christ is the Messiah, the long for Messiah, And they say to him, could you please stay with us? And he changes his whole plans and stays two full days with him, two full days with the outcasts, living in their homes, eating their food.

He shows Nicodemus how to be saved, and then he shows immediately afterwards who he wants to be saved, which is everyone. And he chose this woman for a reason. A heretic and totally degraded, five husbands and living with a man. She just couldn't get it right. She just couldn't get it right. Poor thing, and then the Samaritans hear him, and then they proclaim that it's not just for them. They come out and they said, we have come to believe that he is the savior of the world.

Do you see how virtuous these people are, these heretics, incredible people. He had already performed all sorts of miracles in front of his own people, God's people, the Jews, and they didn't believe in him. These people, he didn't do a single miracle. It says that they had him for two days, asking him questions, and he talked, and then they proclaimed their utter faith in him, and not just that he was telling the truth, but he was the savior of the whole world. This is an incredible text.

You also see in this text the missionary plan that would govern the whole church's witness for the last two thousand years, very clearly in Saint Putini. And by the way, this woman ended up becoming an incredible missionary, Her sister, her kids, they all worked together, travel all over the place, ended up being martyred. You see the missionary plan. It

starts with personal testimony, it always does. It leads then to interest on the part of those who hear and an exposure to Jesus's words and then it leads to conversion. That's it. It's not that complicated personal testimony. Someone you know has tasted life in Christ, has touched the church. It gets talked about. It's followed by interest. What is that? Do you think I can come? If they come? Where did you read that? Can I see that? What did you say he did for you? They get exposed and

then He's got them? Then yeah, then there is and then it works again and again and again. This is the sary plan. Notice also, by the way, I haven't got to the main point in my sermon yet. I'm just telling you how incredible this text is. When I said it is perhaps the richest theological text in all of the Gospels, I wasn't joking. Other Zacharias, who you know I love so much is the great Elder at

the monastery of Saint John the Baptist in England. He says that this text is where we find that the Lord gave the greatest teaching in the entire New Testament to a ruined woman who was a heretic without a word of reproach. Let me repeat that the Lord gave the greatest teaching and the entire New Testament to a ruined woman who was a heretic without a word of reproach. Grace is more powerful than anything at all. Jesus makes saints out of sinners. He has no interest in shaming anyone.

And lastly, in this list of amazing remembrances from this text, since nineteen seventy nine, we have remembered the martyrdom of Saint Philumenos, a beloved Hira monk from Cyprus. Our Cypriots have to be happy about that. He was actually a monk of the monastery of Stavrovuni. He and his brother

both became monks. His brother went to Mount Athos, and father Philumenos went to the Holy Land, went to the West Bank, and there he became the official hiromonk, the priest at the church of Saint Foutini Innabolis, the church of Jacob's Well, which is still there by the way, and he took up his residence in that church as its guardian under the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and he did

services every morning and every evening. Hurt Confessions nineteen seventy nine, he was hacked to pieces by fanatical Jews, Zionists, illegal settlers who came to the monastery and to the church, interrupted the services, demanded that he remove all Christian symbols because this land is Jewish, it belongs to the Jews. You know what he said. He looked at them and he said, this was in church. He said, look at the ground, and the three crazies looked down. He said,

to see that mosaic floor. You know who installed that. His name is Emperor Saint Constantine. And if you notice, he put a date AD three point thirty one. We have been worshiping in this church, in this place for seventeen hundred years. Whatever fantasy you've made up about this being Jewish land, you're dead wrong. And they left, and they came back later and murdered him in the church.

They cut off his three fingers so he couldn't make the sign of the cross, and then they took an axe and severed his head in the sign of a cross and left him on the ground his precious relics, which, by the way, after five years, were incorrupt. His relics are in the church to this day. Let's never forget Saint Philuminos. May he pray for us now here's the point of my sermon. Here it is I got there. I got there. Let me just tell you that point of my servant. What I want you to see. What

I saw more this year than I've ever seen. I never really noticed. It is how much this account Jesus used to teach his disciples to love doing God's will. This is why I've entitled my sermon doing God's Will. Of course, throughout our Lord's ministry, he was constantly modeling that, showing us how to do his will, because he himself labored always to do his father's will, and he did it perfectly. He set the perfect example. Think of the great examples of Getsemine in his Agonia there and he said,

not my will, but thine be done. Think about Golgatha right, the perfect example going to the cross. He didn't just model it, He also explicitly taught us the supreme importance of doing God's will. This is very much highlighted in the Gospel of John itself. Four different times Jesus says something radical about how he himself cared about doing his father's will. The first one is in John seven. Jesus so submitted his will to his father that he said

he never spoke. This is unbelievable. He never spoke a single word that was not willed by his father. This is John seventh, seventeen and eighteen. My teaching is not mine, but it is his who sent me. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. Not in any of his teaching did he get anywhere except from his father. His father gave him the words, and he said it. He said, if I spoke for myself without reference to

my father, I'll be seeking my own glory. This is also, of course, why in imitation the fathers of the church, the church fathers, and the priests and bishops always labor to speak from someone else, from the Lord and from the saints, not from ourselves. When you hear a priest saying something that you've never heard before and he makes no reference, you should be scratching your head. There are some ethical issues that are very contested in today's modern

Orthodox world. I won't mess mention them because it will steal your mind from what I'm trying to tell you. But my point is the way that you can smell innovation is you look for references. Is there reference to the scripture, is there reference to the church fathers. Are they quoting saints or are they speaking from themselves? Ask that question you can discern a lot In John chapter eight, verse twenty eight. He said, he who sent me is true.

And the things which I heard from him, the things I heard from him, these things I speak to the world. I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak the things as the Father taught me. Credible. This is John twelve forty nine. For I did not speak on my own initiative, but the Father himself, who sent me, has given me a commandment what to say and what to speak. And lastly, this is John fourteen ten. The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father, abiding in me

does his works. Can you imagine how much trouble we would have avoided in our lives if we practice this with our mouth, all the trouble we would have avoided, all the things we said that we dread giving an account for on the day of judgment, since Jesus said, we will render an account for every careless word that we have spoken. In this light curie liism, how wonderful it would be if we love God's will so much that we never even spoke a single word that God

did not will us to speak. The Lord. Jesus modeled complete submission to the Lord God, and he also explicitly taught it. He didn't just model it and described himself. He also taught it, especially in the Lord's Prayer in the middle of the Sermon on the Mountain, which we pray these words several times every day, Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We make this a prayer, dear ones, every day, several times we say this, to do God's will. His will

be done on earth, not ours. Learning to love God enough to do his will over our own wills is the process of Christian discipleships. It's what it means to take up our cross, to crucify our own desire when it's opposed to God's will. And this gospel text of the Samaritan Woman that we read today afresh is a magnificent window into how Jesus related to God's will. This insight is revealed when the disciples return to Sikar. Remember they've gone to get food, and that's the occasion in

which he talks to Photinique. When they come back with the food and the woman's God. They bring the food to Jesus and they urge him to eat, and he says something amazing, these words, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples were saying to one another, no one brought him anything to eat?

but as his food. Oh, what a divine example, and what a gentle reprimand to all of us who speak every day of our duty as though it is a burden. Indeed, looking at the Lord and his willing performing of his crippingly, heavely, crippingly heavy duty among men, it must be said with good reason that no one in the world can do his duty to God if it has not become to him as pleasant as his daily food. Did you hear that?

I'm totally undone by this. Many of us, I think, are hoping simply to remember God's will a little bit each day, Just remember it in our crushing zeal to obey ourselves all the time and to do what we want when we want. We think that's freedom, that's slavery. Many of us are just hoping to remember God's will a little bit in this crushing zeal to obey ourselves our own desires. Some of us have learned to seek God's will and to be deeply suspicious of our own

will and desire. Some of us. Don't make me be too honest as a pastor right now? I love you so zip. This is an exceedingly important transition to make as a Christian, from trying to use God and your plan to say no, no, no, I'm going to try to do his will and not my will. It's very important to learn to die, to pick up the cross and die to your own will, to seek God's will, to make that prayer that you say twice a day, honest, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as

it is in heaven. But here we see that Jesus goes far beyond that. He was not doing his father's will as his duty. No, he did his father's will as his very nourishment. My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. It's his sustenance, his life. His true joy is ministry glory to Christ, God, who is such a perfect human being. This is the attitude we all should take, dear ones, towards God's will. We should pray, teach me to do

thy will for thou art, my God. Let us honestly seek to do God's will, not just as a duty, but if it's not there in your life, at least as a duty, and then move to a joy. I think this is how we manifest likeness to Jesus. We can ask are we really like him? Are we his authentic disciples? Is he really our lord? Because he himself says, whoever does the will of my father in heaven, this one is my mother, this one is my brother, this one is my sister. He has this in his mind.

He looks at us and he wonders are we related to him? Will show that by doing the Father's will, to our God, our Heavenly Father, and to his only begotten Son, the perfectly Obedient One, and to the all Holy Spirit, be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen, Christ is risen. If the Ctcumans would please come to the foot of the Solea for prayer, and those who are going to be enrolled Us Ctacumans here to the