But How Will We Worship Week 4 - July 5, 2020

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John 4: 19-26

I should probably start with the fact that John 4 is probably one of my most favorite stories in the scriptures. I knew the stories from growing up in the church, but when I was in Cuba I heard one of the most compelling sermons about it and it changed the way I engaged it and did my exegesis. I love the way Jesus overcomes multiple layers of prejudice and social separation. He pushes past cultural and racial discrimination as a Jew who freely talks to a Samaritan. And he plows through sexist norms of engagement as he, a man, talks sincerely and non-sexually, with her, a woman. And he breaks down the walls of shame and disgrace that surround her past. He knows it, and he names it, but he doesn’t shame her for it, it’s almost like, “yep, I know you’ve had 5 husbands…it’s

true…and we can move on because that’s not who you are.”

And they have a beautiful exchange of exploration and understanding and doctrine and she is so transformed by their experience that she runs to town….to the people who ridicule her and avoid her and whom she avoids telling them all about this man…he’s that worth it…she doesn’t care what they say about her this time because they can’t miss the chance to come and meet a man.

Oh, I love this passage. I could preach for weeks on what I just summarized in a half-page…but, curiously, the verses we have today, I almost always fly right through them. Because the other stuff is so good and this is so obtuse….worship in spirit and in truth…what does that even mean?!?! So I just sort of skip it. Until this time, when we’re talking about worship and what it means to worship and how on earth we will worship if we can’t worship in the ways we always have. And with this series, I felt like I needed to dig in and look at this message…to worship in Spirit and in truth and see what was here.

In case you’re not as familiar with this passage, I want to go over some details. As I mentioned before _______ and _______ read the scripture, Jews and Samaritans were enemies. They had similar heritage, but at one point one of the tribes of Israel took a turn and started marrying women outside of their religion and culture and there was a fracture among the tribes. Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate. That’s part of why the story of the Good Samaritan in the gospel of Luke is so profound…a Jewish man was injured and a rabbi and religious leader pass by and do nothing, but a Samaritan…a Samaritan of all people—like the last one on earth you would think would help, stopped to help the Jewish man.

And over the years more divisions and differences grew. It wasn’t just the intermarrying, it was also about how and where they each worshipped. This part of the story digs in there. Up to this point Jesus has proven he’s a man of God—a prophet, one who sees and knows things without having to be told. Jesus and the woman have built a rapport and the woman trusts him….at least enough to ask a religious question. Basically, I see you’re a man of God, so as a man of God will you solve this conflict we’ve had for hundreds of years…who’s right, the Jews, or the Samaritans? Is God’s designated dwelling place, the place where we should worship, in Jerusalem as your people say, or here on Mount Gerizim as my people say?

To which Jesus replies, “Oh woman, that question is so last year!” Not exactly, what he says is, look, this argument about where is missing the point. It’s not about here or there. It’s not about Jerusalem and the temple or Gerizim and the mountain. Look, what God is looking for is those who worship in Spirit in truth. Not where you worship but how…and not with rituals and gestures, but with your heart and your mind, in spirit and truth.

Alright, so back to the question I asked at the beginning of the service. To worship in spirit and in truth—what does that even mean?!!? I found that to get at the heart of it I had to dig a little in the scriptures. It wasn’t immediately obvious. First, I think it’s important to acknowledge that Jesus is emphatic about worship here. He uses the word, proskynesis in the Greek, 9 times in just 6 verses. That’s a lot. He’s driving the point here. And if we look up that word, proskyneo, in the Greek, we find that it means “to do reverence or homage—by kissing the hand, by lying prostrate—face to the floor, worshipping, adoring, or bowing in adoration.” In simple terms, it’s giving yourself over, with humility and reverence to God. To kneel, or kiss the hand, or lay prostrate is to lower yourself, literally, to lower yourself in stature to express your attitude of submission. To worship is to lower yourself in front of God, acknowledging how much greater God is. It’s an act of humility. And it’s an act of respect. And it’s willful. It’s not forced on us. It’s not abusive. Worship comes out of our acknowledgment of the relationship between God and us. It’s when we recognize that God is great and we are lesser. And it’s not about self-abasement either. Right? I want to say those things explicitly because sometimes theology and teachings about God get all kinds of convoluted and messed up. Let’s try and rectify that. We don’t bow or lay prostrate in some sort of unhealthy or abusive way, no, when we bow and humble ourselves in the presence of God, it is because we can see God is worthy of that acknowledgment.

I was trying to come up with a parallel and hopefully, this will help. How many of you have ever been to see the Sequoias in California? They are these enormous trees. I imagine even if you haven’t been that you’ve seen pictures of them. They are towering giants in the forest and they aren’t just tall, but they are robust. There was one famous one that was so big someone carved a chunk out of the base that was so big a car could drive through it. You could drive a car through the bottom of a tree and the tree was so big and so hearty that it just kept growing. It was huge. The size of the sequoia is humbling. They make you feel small standing next to them. And they don’t diminish your value or worth, they just make you recognize, man, in the scheme of things, I’m kinda tiny. I think that’s a healthy parallel for how we are talking about worship and submission, reverence and humility in the presence of God. God is so big that we can’t help but feel small and stand in awe….

Alright, so we have a grip on what it means to worship…now…in Spirit and in truth. This was the treasure hunt!! Often when reading scripture we work with our assumptions. We read “spirit and truth” and assume we know what that means in the passage. And that’s not a bad practice, it’s what all of us do. But if we want to dig a little, one good way to do it is to stay in that same book of the Bible and see what else the author says about that same thing or the same word.

In the Gospel of John, the Spirit is a pervasive term. We find the presence of the Spirit a lot…it’s at Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descends, the Spirit gives life, the Spirit baptizes, and the Spirit is a gift from God. It’s fairly clear as we search in the gospel that the spirit Jesus refers to is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. There are not a lot of references there to some other type of spirit. And so, by extension, I think we can assume that to worship in the Spirit is to worship with the Spirit, with its presence, with its blessing, and with its power.

And then, we are to worship in truth…that one is a little more fun. It’s not so much about hard facts kind of truth. That’s not what we find Jesus discussing. The truth is mentioned a lot in the gospel of John and what we find is that it is always connected to Jesus. Early on in chapter 1, “God’s only son is full of grace and truth”, and “grace and truth come from Jesus Christ”. In chapter 8, Jesus says if you continue you in my word, and if you are my disciples you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. In chapter 17 Jesus prays to God and asks God to sanctify the disciples in God’s truth for God’s word is truth. And then finally, in front of Pilate Jesus says he came to earth to testify to the truth. In each instance, truth is communicated through Jesus and comes from God. Truth is about the divine revelation that is most clearly seen and understood in the person of Jesus.

So, if we are to worship in truth…we are to worship through Jesus….to connect to the truth is to connect to Jesus. Again, it’s not about hard facts, it’s about the revelation of God through Christ—it’s about the incarnation. If we want to worship God, if we want to find ourselves in the presence of God and awed by the enormity and majesty of who God is that’s going to happen most fully through Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of God, which means he is the embodiment of love, grace, and abundance. When we see and experience those things, we see Jesus and when we see Jesus, we know the truth and when we know the truth we are hearing from God.

I have to confess that after studying all of that this week, I love this passage even more!

Coming to the question of our series, but how will we worship? How will we worship if we aren’t gathered in a sanctuary or around a campfire? How will we worship if we can’t sing together? How will we worship if we can’t hug one another and pass the peace of Christ? Well, we can start here, we can worship in Spirit and in truth. We can draw close to the awesome presence of God, invite the Holy Spirit to be with us and speak to us and draw close to the good news of Jesus...that’s how! And there are limitless ways to do each of those things!!

We don’t have to be broken by what is different in our faith lives these days. We can be empowered to remember that it isn’t about where we worship God, but instead about living in the good news of Jesus.