This episode features Pastor Katie Elkin Ziehr, delivering a poignant message in celebration of International Women's Day on March 8th, 2026. At the heart of her homily lies the profound encounter between Jesus and the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well, exemplifying the transformative power of dialogue and invitation. Pastor Katie elucidates how this narrative serves as a model of evangelism, highlighting the importance of inviting others to engage with faith firsthand. By emphasizing the Samaritan woman's role as an unexpected evangelist, she inspires listeners to embrace their own capacity for sharing the good news. This special message encourages us all to reflect on our faith journeys and the ways in which we can invite others to experience the love of Christ.

Pastor Katie Elkin Ziehr delivers a poignant message in this special episode of "The Homily," commemorating International Women's Day. Her sermon centers around the narrative of the Samaritan woman at the well, as recounted in the Gospel of John. This biblical account serves as a profound illustration of the transformative power of encounters with Christ. By engaging with the Samaritan woman—an individual marginalized by her societal context—Jesus exemplifies the radical inclusivity of God's love. The sermon emphasizes the importance of recognizing the dignity and worth of all individuals, particularly women, in the context of faith and community. Pastor Katie's reflections invite listeners to contemplate their identities as children of God and the ways in which they can embody Christ's love in their daily lives, particularly during the Lenten season, which calls for introspection and renewal.

Takeaways:

1. This episode features Pastor Katie Elkin Ziehr delivering a poignant homily in honor of International Women's Day.
2. The podcast highlights the significance of the Samaritan woman's encounter with Jesus at the well, emphasizing her role as a pivotal evangelist.
3. Pastor Ziehr encourages listeners to embrace their limitations while recognizing God's boundless grace and love during Lent.
4. The episode invites the audience to engage in invitational evangelism, as exemplified by the Samaritan woman's testimony to her community.
5. Listeners are reminded that Lent is not merely a season of reflection but a time for inviting others to experience faith.
6. The homily underscores the importance of sharing personal stories in ministry, as they foster genuine connections within the community.

.

Check out merch for this podcast and discover other podcasts on the Anazao Podcast Network on our website:

https://anazao-podcasts-shop.fourthwall.com/

Thank you for engaging with the homily by Pastor Chill Will from Chapel Hill.

I hope this message encourages you, challenges you and moves you to go deeper in your faith and enrich how you love God and love your neighbor in your day to day life. Just a reminder.

Like the scriptures and gospels themselves, this homily was written for a particular community in a particular, particular context, time in history. And yet, like our sacred texts, I hope that these words hold timeless truths about God's unconditional love and grace.

We hope these words speak to you in a meaningful way.

Hey friends. Welcome to another episode of the homily and today we have a special special guest on the homily.

My co worker, my co pastor, my partner in ministry here at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lutheran Campus ministry.

Pastor Katie Elkin Zier, who is the campus pastor who does takes the lead with our students in our campus ministry here on the campus of UNC and in Chapel Hill.

And she preached a phenomenal sermon this past Sunday on March 8th on International Women's Day on the third Sunday in Lent, John, chapter four, the unnamed Samaritan woman at the well.

And I thought she tied in a lot of great things when it comes to Lent, when it comes to how we identify ourselves as Lutheran Christians, and then also lifting up what this text had to say. So I'm bringing her on board to take the lead on this.

You'll hear in the Gospel reading some of our friends and members here and staff members at Holy Trinity reading the Gospel lesson. It's a really long one. And then she dives into the homily. So enjoy.

And again, as always, always, if you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, if it sparked any awe, wonder, curiosity in you, reach out and let us know peace.

This is the Holy Gospel according to John.

Glory to you, oh Lord.

So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water.

And Jesus said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. Then the Samaritan woman said to him,

how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?

Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the

gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

The woman said to Jesus, sir, you

have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us the well. And with his sons and his flocks drank from it?

Jesus said to her, 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.

So the woman said to Jesus, sir,

give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.

And Jesus said to her, go call

your husband and come back.

The woman answered him, I have no husband.

And Jesus said to her, you are

right in saying I have no husband. For you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.

The woman said to Jesus, sir, I

see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.

And Jesus said to the woman, woman,

believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the father. Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews.

The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father and spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to Jesus, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.

Jesus said to her, I am he,

the one who is speaking to you.

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman. But no one said, what do you want? Or why are you speaking with her?

Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, come and

see a man who told me everything I have ever done. He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

They left the city and they were on their way to Jesus. Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have

food to eat that you do not know about. Surely no one has brought him something to eat.

And Jesus said to them, my food

is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say four months more? Then comes the harvest. But I tell you, look around you and see how the fields are ripe for the harvesting.

The Reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true. One sows, another wheat reaps. I sent you to reap for what you do not labor.

Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.

Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony.

He told me everything I have ever done.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked Jesus to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word.

Then they said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves. And we know that this is truly the Savior of the world, the Gospel of the Lord. Praise you. You, O Bryce, you may be seated.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and Lutheran Campus Ministry is a congregation of the elca. Many of y' all know that already.

And I bet some of y' all even remember when this congregation was a part of the lca, before the ELCA even existed. But that was also before I existed. So as long as I have been Lutheran, I have only known the elca. Anyone know what that acronym stands for?

Yes, some of y'. All. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Right. But most of those words we can get behind. We are Lutheran.

We believe that all people are imperfect and are saved by God's grace alone through Christ. We are a church. Yep. And we're in America. The United States, to be specific. So we got the L and the C and the A.

But we can't forget about the E. The E that stands for evangelical. Now, that word might make some of us itchy.

Over the last several decades in the United States, specifically evangelical Christians, have come to be seen as loud, even aggressive.

A gang of moralists attempting to impose their will on a pluralistic society. That's a quote. So for some people, the word evangelical brings up way too many negative associations.

So there's even been a movement to try and take the E out of elca. But the root of the word evangelical is a Greek word, euangelion. And euangelion simply means good news.

Maybe we could change our church to the good News Lutheran Church in America? I don't know. That's an idea. Evangelism just means sharing good news. But in our desire to distance ourselves from one specific type of Christianity,

we

elca Lutherans sometimes shrink at the idea of evangelizing.

We don't want to come across as pushy or heavy handed, so we pull back instead of being bold about who we are and what we have to offer the world, or rather, what God can offer the world through us. And that's one of the reasons I love our Gospel story for today.

It's the longest interaction anyone has with Jesus in the whole Bible, and maybe y' all felt that while we were reading it earlier, but it also gives us a beautiful, healthy model of evangelism embodied in the form of a Samaritan woman. It is noon outside the walls of Sychar when Jesus sits down by Jacob's well for a little rest.

A Samaritan woman comes to draw water, and Jesus demands of her, give me a drink. Now much ink has been spilled about who this Samaritan woman was and why she's drawing water in the middle of the day.

But for now, it's enough to say that she is an unexpected conversation partner for Jesus, and she's rightly confused by his request for a drink. She is a Samaritan, Jesus is a Jew, and Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.

But throughout the course of their interaction, we find that the Samaritan woman and Jesus are evenly matched conversation partners.

They talk about everything from their forefathers in faith to their differing worship practices, to what the arrival of the Messiah is going to look like, and even their own personal identities.

And when this discussion comes to an end, this unnamed, unashamed, unexpected woman becomes the first to share the good news, to evangelize to the people in Samaria. Come and see the man who has proclaimed to me everything about myself, she says. Can this be the Messiah? Come and see, she says. Come and see.

The Samaritan woman's example of evangelism is so powerful because it's an invitation. She has encountered the Savior of the world, and she tells everyone about it.

But then instead of telling everyone that, well, they should just believe her or that they should believe just like her, she invites her neighbors along to come experience Christ for themselves. Come and see, she says. Do you think this could be the Messiah? Come on, form your own opinions. Come and see.

Now I have to brag a little bit and say that our LCM students are really good at this type of Invitational Evangelism. They all have a story about how they got to campus ministry.

And for a majority of them, it's because a friend asked them to come along for an event or a meal or a Wednesday night worship. And I know at least a handful of y' all are here this morning because a friend invited you, too.

The good news compels us, like the Samaritan woman, to run into the world shouting and inviting, come and see. See what Christ is doing in and through this community of faith. Come and experience it for yourself.

Now, maybe some of y' all are still itchy about the idea of evangelizing, or maybe you're all in on inviting folks to come and see, but thinking Lent is kind of a weird time to invite my friends to church. I mean, we're not exactly shouting hallelujahs this time of year. Maybe I'll wait until Easter.

But y', all, I actually think that Lent is a great time to invite new people into a community of faith.

Each Ash Wednesday, myself and the other Protestant campus ministers at UNC take ships standing outside the undergraduate library, imposing ashes for anyone who asks.

This year, when I got there, I started out by giving my pretty generic spiel about how the ashes remind us that our time on earth is finite and the cross reminds us that God's love is infinite. But towards the end of my hour outside the ul, I started getting more specific.

This ashy cross reminds us that our lives won't last forever, so neither will our grades or our papers or our projects or our stress. And as I said those words to one of the students standing in front of me that day, she literally closed her eyes and said, oh, thank God.

It was kind of funny.

And it was also a tender moment, because in a culture that teaches us that we are only worth what we produce in a world that wants us to believe that we can buy a fuller life in eight easy installments. In an individualized society that claims that we can be the source of our own living water, a reminder of our finitude can actually be good news.

Our suffering, our pain, our human limitations are real. There's no use pretending like there's nothing. And Lent is a season where we can be honest about our own limitations.

It is true that we humans settle for shallow waters that will not quench our true thirst. It is true that we are not always comfortable inviting or evangelizing or talking about our faith. It is true that we are humans and we have limits.

So the good news that we can share today and every day is that even with our human limitations. God delights in us.

Christ is still at work through us and the Holy Spirit still empowers us to evangelize, to share the good news and to join in on God's mission of loving the whole world. Because God's love has no limits and God's limitless love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

So whether or not we evangelize like the Samaritan woman, whether or not our human limitations actually feel like good news, whether or not we want to keep the E in Elca, Christ's living water is a spring within us gushing up to eternal life for the whole world. So come and see. This is truly the Savior of the world. Amen.

Foreign. Thank you for listening.

If there is anything that stood out

for you or if you have a

question or you just want to have a conversation, you are always free to reach out and contact us.

And remember you are not alone and

that you are loved with a love stronger than death.