In our day-to-day existence, the concepts of law and love can seem mutually exclusive. Law can seem to be the last resort when love and any other form of human compassion fall short of the challenges that are ours as human beings. Law sets the boundaries of what is allowed, of what will bring punishment, of what is good or bad because of its effects on the community in which we live, choose, and act.
Law, as we hear of it in today’s Scriptures, had acquired its meaning for God’s Chosen People from the time of Moses to the very day in which Our Lord encounters the Samaritan woman at the well. It is exceptional that this woman should be at the sacred well so late in the day, and it is exceptional that Jesus, an observant Jew, should approach her, a Samaritan, and speak with her, even asking her for a drink of water.
His love for her, his desire that she come to faith in the source of Living Water, is not apart from the Law, but as he has said and will say, is the fulfillment of the Law. The will of the Father and the response of those who are called to faith and given the life-giving waters are the very food on which Jesus lives. The fulfillment of the Law in time to come will be rooted in this – genuine love of God and a reflective, genuine love of others as God loves us and them.
The laws we devise for ourselves here on earth can reflect these deepest truths, or not. Our observance or even use of these laws can be consistent with these deepest truths or not. There were many among the Chosen People in Jesus’ day who could claim their lives were in keeping with the Law, but they were in fact far from the God who had given the Law, and far from their sisters and brothers, among God’s People and among their neighbors. The Jesus we hear and see today offers the Living Water in which we know God and each other.