Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from Exodus where Moses and the Israelites have recently escaped Egypt, Pharaoh, and slavery. But now they are in the wilderness and they are thirsty. They turned on Moses and demanded to know why he made them leave Egypt only to die of thirst. Moses cried out to the Lord and the Lord told him to take his staff and strike the rock in Horeb. He did and water began to flow from the rock. John’s Gospel describes Jesus and his followers outside a Samaritan town. Jesus sat near a well when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her for a drink and the woman expressed surprise. Since Jesus was a Jew and a man he wasn’t supposed to acknowledge her. Jesus told her that he could provide living water (moving water, as in a stream) and she expressed doubt as the well was deep and Jesus didn’t have a bucket. But Jesus told her the living water he could provide will bring eternal life and she asked him for that type of water. When Jesus showed that he knew about her broken life she declared he must be a prophet. Jesus then told her that an hour is coming when “true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth.” She believed she was talking about the Messiah to come and recognized that Jesus was that person. She then bore witness to the people in her town who came to believe in Jesus.

You know, some days it just doesn’t pay to be a good person in charge of others. In our first reading you have to give some sympathy to Moses. His followers were slaves in Egypt and suffered greatly under Pharaoh. It’s worth noting that Moses was not a slave but was called by God to liberate them and frankly a lesser man would have left them in the desert and returned to his life tending the flocks of his father in law Jethro.

Likewise, in the Gospel Jesus had to work to provide the Samaritan woman what she needed. We need to give some context here. At the time Jews and Samaritans hated each other and frankly men and women who were not related were not supposed to talk with each other. Everything about Jesus and this woman screamed that they were not supposed to converse. Additionally, the woman was coming to the well alone in the middle of the day; we know enough about their society to know that this woman was an outcast among women of her village. They would have come to the well in the cooler hours of the day in a group, and the only reason this woman came alone at noon is that she was not welcome among them. Given all this we could reasonably expect that she could crave the attention Jesus gave her. Then again, we’d also expect the ex slaves in our first reading to show some gratitude to Moses.

We oftentimes read these readings through the eyes of the ex slaves or the woman at the well and tell ourselves that we would be more grateful or more willing to hear Jesus. But I wonder what it was like to be Moses or Jesus, offering deliverance and salvation to people who don’t seem to want it. Moses’ group is easier to dislike; at the first sign of thirst they suddenly get nostalgic for Egypt. But oftentimes what looks like anger is really fear and the desert is a good place to be afraid and when they saw Moses draw water from the rock they calmed down pretty quickly. Moses looked beyond their fear, beyond their pain and asked God to help them.

But the woman at the well has a more complicated story. When she saw Jesus she thought she knew him: another Jew, another man, another person to look down on her and treat her with contempt. When Jesus recognized why she was an outcast it must have made her feel worse (the Gospel explains Jesus knew she had 5 husbands and she lived with a man who is not her husband). But Jesus reached beyond her pain and well entrenched fear and offered her a gift far beyond the water she sought. He knew her in a way that didn’t condemn her but instead accepted her for who she was As a matter of fact he empowered her enough that she was able to return to her village and bear witness to Jesus to people who shunned her.

I think there’s a lesson for many of us. As disciples of Jesus we are generally people who want to help but it can be difficult if the people we wish to help don’t appear sufficiently grateful or appear to put up roadblocks to our help. It’s an easy out for us: If they don’t want my help, the heck with them. But I think we are called to reach through their pain and bad experiences and remind them that God’s love is limitless.

As should be our love. Moses’ people should have recognized God wouldn’t take them into the desert to die but when they were ready to quit, Moses wasn’t. When the woman at the well essentially said to Jesus: “If you knew me you’d hate me too” Jesus loved her all the more. At mass the Eucharistic Prayer is central and in one of them we hear this: “Indeed, though we once were lost and could not approach you, you loved us with the greatest love: for your Son, who alone is just, handed himself over to death, and did not disdain to be nailed for our sake to the wood of the Cross.”

Reaching through someone’s pain isn’t easy and sometimes they will lash out in ways we find painful. But the nasty neighbor or manipulative coworker or vicious sibling still deserves our love and compassion. It doesn’t mean we need to give them what they demand or agree with their warped view of the world. But we can give that pinpoint of light that invites them to trudge the road to healing that they never believed existed.

As we continue our Lenten journey let us make a point of praying for those among us who don’t feel deserving of our prayers.