Joining Jesus on the Edges
- davidwperk
- Jan 22
- 7 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Devotional Reflection, Thursday, January 22, 2026
The week of the second Sunday after Epiphany
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The 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.)
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 945)
AM Psalm 37:1-18; PM Psalm 37:19-42
Gen. 11:1-9; Heb. 6:13-20; John 4:1-15
Today we celebrate the Feast of Phillips Brooks. (See below.)
David’s Reflection
Theodore Roethke’s classic poem “In a Dark Time” offers up images and phrases that repeatedly spur my imagination and connect to experience.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.*
Today’s Gospel relates how Jesus met a woman who might have intoned those words; and, Jesus reveals his commitment to living on the edge. She was of Samaritan descent, and as the narrator whispers in the reader’s ear in verse nine, Jews and Samaritans did not engage in social interchange. Literally, the Greek underlying the translation says they did not drink from common vessels. Jesus’ request for water surprised the woman, because it meant that he would have to violate that social boundary by drinking from her vessel. She may have felt shock at being invited into that edge place by anyone of Jewish descent.
This woman shared the basic hungers for connection, transcendence, and transformation common to us all.+ Jesus cared deeply about making connections and treated with disdain the social prejudices that kept Jews and Samaritans isolated from each other. And, he disdained his culture’s social taboos about public conversation with a woman. Her style of life may have forced her to the edges. Could it be she came to the well at noon to avoid those who would have been there at the beginning or end of the day? It would make more sense to draw and carry water in the cool of the day.
Who in your relationship network has been driven to the edge and wounded by the religious in their world? Their hunger and thirst for the spiritually real haunts them. Our calling is to live in the center, as it were, the center of God’s gracious love and the center of caring community. Jesus certainly lived a centered life. But, that calling demands that we live on the edges, too, that we become more aware of those we routinely or occasionally encounter. There on the edges, they live among the waves of regret and yearn for life still unknown.
I am thinking today of a young woman I came to know who tended bar in an old neighborhood pub in a town where I served as priest. Through her tears she shared the feelings of estrangement created because her divorce had barred her from receiving communion in her church. She hungered and thirsted, yet felt edged out. Imagine having your ankle shackled to a palm tree in an oasis and being able only to touch the water with the tips of your fingers.
There is love and acceptance for her and for all those whom she symbolizes. In bread and wine, at the altar of love, Jesus comes to us each Sunday to love, forgive, transform, and nurture. When we embody that love, people on the edge encounter Jesus in our lives. How much more joyful will you and I feel when that person we know living on the edge stands with us at that table, especially if s/he is there because we cared, prayed, related, and invited? To do so would be like joining Jesus on the edge at that well and being part of his hospitality to that woman. The edge is what we have.
We can sound the “amen” to Roethke’s lines, lines embodied by Jesus.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? . . . . .
The edge is what I have.*
*The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 231.
+An observation made to me by psychologist James Hollis in a conversation. He says this in one of his books. I think it’s in Tracking the Gods, but don’t have the book in front of me. He illustrates it with a gambling casino. People look for connection—conversation at the slots or tables. They look for transcendence—lady luck. And, they look for transformation—hitting the jackpot.
Collect of the Day, The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.. (BCP, 215)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Phillips Brooks, bishop and preacher (died 23 Jan 1893 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Phillips Brooks
Everlasting God, who implants your living Word in the minds and on the lips of all who proclaim your truth: Grant that we, like your pastor and preacher Phillips Brooks, might proclaim your Gospel in our own generation with grace and power. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A Collect for Protection
O God, the life of all who live, the light of the faithful, the strength of those who labor, and the repose of the dead: We thank you for the blessings of the day that is past, and humbly ask for your protection through the coming night. Bring us in safety to the morning hours; through him who died and rose again for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, 124)
A Collect for Early Evening
Almighty, everlasting God, let our prayer in your sight be as incense, the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Give us grace to behold you, present in your Word and Sacraments, and to recognize you in the lives of those around us. Stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages. Amen. (BCP, 113)
A Collect for Mission
Merciful God, creator of all the peoples of the earth and lover of souls: Have compassion on all who do not know you as you are revealed in your Son Jesus Christ; let your Gospel be preached with grace and power to those who have not heard it; turn the hearts of those who resist it; and bring home to your fold those who have gone astray; that there may be one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 280)
Daily Office Gospel, John 4:1-15
4:1Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’ 2—although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— 3he left Judea and started back to Galilee.
4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ 8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9The 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.) 10Jesus 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.’ 11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ 13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but 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.’ 15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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