This Sunday's Gospel is long. John, Chapter 4:5-42. It is just shy of a whole chapter. Long, though it is, it only tells of one encounter: Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

This is one of those stories that needs a little background to understand, and unlike many stories from the Bible, it gives that background itself.

Jesus is passing through a Samaritan village, and he gets thirsty. So, when a woman comes to the well to get some water, Jesus asks her to give him some. To our modern ears, that doesn't sound all that crazy. But, at the time, Jesus was breaking some major taboos.

First: He was talking to a woman, who was not a member of his family, alone. That would have been considered very out of the ordinary and quite scandalous.

Second: She is not only a woman, but she is also a Samaritan woman, and as she goes on to explain, Jews and Samaritans held nothing in common. Meaning, they would never share a ladle of water. To even ask was some pretty crazy talk.

I love this story. Jesus and this woman have a beautiful back and forth, and we see the humanity of the woman so clearly.

She refuses to give Jesus water, because he is a Jew, and he says,

If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

Her answer is wonderfully disrespectful, "ah, sir, you don't even have a bucket." Jesus replies again about the living water this woman should be asking for, and apparently, she is convinced. Because she asks,

"Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

Jesus then does something interesting. Out of nowhere, he asks her to get her husband. She replies, "I don't have one." to which Jesus responds,

You are right in saying, 'I do not have a husband.' For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.

Wow. That got real personal fast. The woman, rather than dealing with what Jesus just said, instead challenges him about how the Jews worship. She changes the subject. Wow. Here's the deal. God has good things he wants to give us, but for us to receive them, he wants to take some of the bad things we have been holding on to. In the case of this samaritan woman, she had a string of husbands, and she was currently living in an adulterous relationship. That was why she had come to the well in the middle of the day, by herself. The other women would have come in the morning when it was cool, but this woman was not welcome to join them. Jesus jumps right into the problem. He confronts the woman with the truth, and she has a choice. Face it, or run from it. She runs.

Instead of facing what Jesus has just laid out, she instead asks him about theology. She moves the topic away from her heart, and focuses external, impersonal arguments between Jews and Samaritans. It is a dodge.

All too often, we do the same. We all have things in our lives that are hindering our spiritual growth. We are holding on to habits, or vices that keep us from fully accepting the gift of living water that Jesus wants to pour into our lives. So, instead, we run from them. Rather than facing what we need to, we turn our attention to the Church.

"well, the Church needs to get it together."

Or we focus on other people,

"Did you know that he has an addiction? Lord, do we need to pray for them."

Yes, we do need to pray for other people. But we also need to acknowledge our sins, facing them, and repenting of them.

We hear this reading every Lent. This year, take some time to consider what Jesus might have sprung on you if he had encountered you at the well. Ask him, "Lord, what is it I need to deal with? What is getting in the way in your relationship."

Jesus and the woman continued talking a little longer, and he revealed something to her that he did not share with many. She asks him about the Messiah, and He tells her, "I am he."

You see, Jesus knew her stuff. He even knew that she would dodge it when he confronted her. But, Jesus is the Messiah. He is the one who came to save. And the sin of this woman didn't stop him from revealing himself to her.

Jesus wants to deal with the stuff in our lives, and he wants to reveal himself as Messiah and savior to us too. This Lent, invite God to speak to you at the well. Ask him to tell you the things you think are hidden and then ask him to be your Messiah and savior too.