On Our Apostolic Mission
- Br. Lee Hughes, OP (Anglican)
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
[Sermon delivered at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona on the Third Sunday in Lent (Oculi), March 8, 2026]
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.
Three years ago, from this very ambo I preached from this same Gospel passage[1] about God breaking down barriers, of eliminating human divisions, and of proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God to everyone, regardless of whether they were “of the enemy” or not. At the time, I likened keeping a lid on the Good News to being complicit in the spiritual murder of those who would otherwise have entered the Kingdom of Heaven and used an old slogan from the 1980’s AIDS crisis:
Silence = Death[2]
My dear family in Christ, that warning rings more loudly now than ever. Look around. We hear the rhetoric and we witness the fallout of hatred, blasphemy, greed, lust, and an insatiable thirst for blood among the leaders of the nations, even (or most especially) our own. We see the words of the Law and the Prophets and even our Saviour and His Apostles twisted and warped to feed the Devil’s wanton need for our destruction. At both ends of the political spectrum and running toward each other in the middle is rampant hatred for enemies, for neighbour, for them that should be our eternal family. Some brave souls are indeed proclaiming the Good News as loudly as they can, but it seems as though Satan’s shouts deafen those in earshot to the saving words of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Perhaps this also is true:
Noise = Death
The woman from our Gospel story appears to be such a deafened person. Here is a woman with a string of marriages behind her and a current unconventional relationship. She has probably heard every slur in Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and possibly even Hebrew (Yiddish not having yet arisen), drowning out anything she would have heard from the Law (remember, as a Samaritan, they would not have officially had the Prophets). Speaking of that, as a Samaritan, she would have heard every slur and suspicion attached to her people from those around them, particularly their arch-rivals, the Jews. Tack onto this, she was (still is for that matter), a woman, already in a second-class citizenship according to society. Here is a woman just trying to make it through life, just trying her best with the cards she has been dealt.
Then this guy, a Jewish rabbi of all things, strikes up a conversation with her. He actually converses. He doesn’t talk at, He doesn’t mansplain,[3] He doesn’t dismiss, He listens and engages in conversational debate, with respect and a new take on old themes. Frankly, the woman is amazed that He is treating her like someone worthy, with a message that stirs something she had not felt in a long time.
Hope.
This man spoke to her about how things were, the dichotomy of how Jews worshipped versus how Samaritans worshipped, and how that was passing away. Earlier they spoke about “living water”, and then this man flat out told her that this “living water” is the foundation of true interaction with God, where Jew and Samaritan would worship God in Spirit and in truth. He, a male Jewish rabbi, offered her, a female Samaritan nobody, before anyone else in town, this gift of “living water”, the constant flowing of God’s Holy Spirit through her life, transforming her and fully integrating her into the Kingdom of God, and He did so while fully knowing her whole history.
As He had done something she completely did not expect, she did something most people would not expect. They would have expected her to sit meekly upon this, maybe bring her current companion as she had been asked.
She. Brought. The. Whole. Town.
Holy Tradition names her Photini, the Enlightened One, and refers to her as Ἰσαποστόλη, Equal to the Apostles, for she was sent and she brought many to the Messiah, not with clever words, not with theological brilliance, but with the story of her own encounter with the Anointed One, the Messiah. Of that she was convinced. Already she was feeling the life-giving flow of the power of the Holy Spirit, of the Spirit’s anointing on her life, and that was something she could not keep to herself. While Satan thrived on depriving people of the Good News and the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit, Our Lord thrived on bringing people the Good News and the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit, and He found a joyful and willing assistant in this woman He met at Jacob’s Well in Sychar, Samaria. While His disciples were pressing Him to eat, He told them He had first to bring in the harvest, for the green fields had now flushed golden with the ready souls of those eager to embrace the Kingdom of God, souls who would have missed the chance if Photini had not suddenly ended her silence and proclaimed loudly that she had found someone marvelous and that they had to come and see and decide for themselves just what she had found. They heard her words and came and saw for themselves, and then they wanted more.
Satan had deafened that town with centuries of gaslighting and misdirection and carefully applied facts and factoids. One woman saying she found someone who had given her hope again unravelled that whole mess.
Silence = Death
The Spirit = Life
The Kingdom of this world, the work of the Devil, would create and propagate Hell around us. While the Kingdom of God is oftentimes called the Kingdom of Heaven, likewise we can call the Kingdom of This World by another name, the Kingdom of Hell. What is Hell but the absence of God, a place where the Good News is not heard, the Spirit is shunned, where Life is denied and Death celebrated and offered as the only choice we have. We hear all around us that those not like us want us dead, so let us beat them to the punch. We hear that those who are different are dangerous and do not deserve dignity, respect, freedom, or even life. The principalities and powers in high places tell us that those who speak up for justice, righteousness, forgiveness, mercy, and love are deluded, disloyal, and a detriment to the great society they wish to build.
Our human leaders are merely the mouthpieces and the puppets of those principalities and powers. Their message is not from God, but from the Kingdom of Hell: corrupt, unspiritual, demonic.[4] Make no mistake, Satan and his angels are no longer hiding their hand but openly shouting their defiance of God, trying to drown out the words of eternal life and drag as many into ruin as they can.[5]
It falls to us, to every one of us, to become that muttered undercurrent, that subversion of the Kingdom of Hell, whether shouted from the rooftops or whispered in the corners that there is another way. Instead of the glorification of pride, wrath, envy, greed, gluttony, lust, and despair,[6] we tell of the delights of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.[7] We tell them of the life-giving flow of that “living water” which is the Holy Spirit, and we start by telling them of our own encounter with Jesus, the Living God Incarnate, who knew us long before we knew ourselves.
Silence = Death
The Good News = The Words of Eternal Life
St. Paul wrote to the Roman Church:
“But how are they to call upon Him in Whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of Whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach Good News!’”[8]
Our Lord came among us for two specific reasons. The first was to redeem us from Sin and Death, but the second was to tell us the Good News of that redemption, and both to restore us to a life in the Spirit and in truth. St. Photini could not sit on that Good News. She had to run into town and tell anyone who would listen (and likely anyone who would not listen) that she had heard the Good News and that she could take them to where they could hear it and decide for themselves. It is not for us to convince or to save, it is for us to get the message through so others can begin an encounter with the Risen Lord and decide for themselves whether to heed the Words of Eternal Life. However, we cannot just leave it up to chance that they will encounter the Good News on their own, they will need to know where to find it, and that is up to us.
Not everyone is called to write regularly published, lengthy op-ed pieces. Not everyone is called to preach from the ambo of a church or proclaim from a podium in a stadium or convention centre. Proclamation of the Good News may simply be the statement among friends that we do not hold the prevailing opinion, that we hold to another way. We may simply refuse to engage in a certain activity and when pressed for the reason to offer for them to see for themselves the One Who offers a better way. We may show acts of mercy and when challenged let them know of the Mercy of God. There are literally thousands of ways we can whisper the Good News, and opportunities to say aloud that we have seen the Messiah and that for those willing we can bring them to hear Him for themselves. The important thing is that St. Photini heard and would not keep it to herself. Neither should we.
The Good News = The Words of Eternal Life
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, the Holy Apostle Photini, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] Jn. 4.5-42
[2] For a good history of this slogan, Avram Finkelstein, one of the collective who devised it, published this guest post for the New York Public Library:
[3] If one is unfamiliar with this piece of slang, it is the act of a man needlessly explaining something to a woman based on the unconscious (and erroneous) bias that she is of inferior intellect.
[4] Cf. Jas. 3.15
[5] Cf. Jn. 6.68
[6] Also known as the Seven Deadly Sins.
[7] Gal. 5.22
[8] Rom. 10.14-15
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