john 4(part 3)

Review time!

The woman was all wrong on three counts. Her ethnicity was wrong. Her gender was wrong. Her moral character was wrong.

No doubt about it, this woman’s life was a mess.

Take a look around you. Maybe someone quite like her lives on your street. What? Oh, I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to insult you. Of course you don’t live around people like her. Nope! Note in your neighborhood. But surely you’ve seen her at the mall or maybe when you drove past a bar late at night on your way home from worshipping with the saints, and she's standing out front acting all available and stuff.

This lady, like a lot of us do when someone begins to make us uncomfortable about how we live our lives, wanted to get off the hot topic of her multiple sex partners, so she blurted out the most pertinent question she could think of. "Where is the proper place to worship – the Samaritan temple or the one in Jerusalem. Now you and I are on to her little bait-and-switch game. We know she didn’t give a whit about what Jesus thought. She only wanted to deflect the impending judgment she was certain was forthcoming.

So how would he answer? How would you answer? Probably I would have explained that the temple in Jerusalem was ordained by God and that it housed the scrolls that proved Jewish lineage. I would further elucidate the fact that since she could not prove her Jewness, she was in effect illegitimate – a half-breed bastard if you please.

I’m sure my response would have produced a wellspring of positive response.

Jesus, on the other hand, went right to the point. Ironically, the question she posed in order to turn the discussion away from her actually hit to the heart of the human condition. Simply put, worshipping God is not a matter of time or place. It’s about spirit and truth. It is an attitude of the heart. It is a morning, noon, and night thing. I’m thinking of the word “consuming.”

We, however, want to limit worship. It’s more comfortable for us that way. Eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, we turn our worship button on. Eleven forty-five, we turn it off. Twelve noon and we're on overtime. Religious duty done for the week. If we’re really committed, we return for another thirty minutes of torment on Sunday evening. And if we’re really righteous, we punch our card again at Wednesday night prayer meeting. The rest of the week, we’re free to raise hell (literally speaking).

I hope this doesn’t offend you, but our language betrays us. Ever heard of “worship service?” How about “going to worship?” Or maybe you like the post-modern “worship leader” or “worship team.” Then there is the ever popular praise and “worship” music.

This is not to say that we are not worshipping when we come together. We are. But what else could Jesus have meant when he said “The time is coming when you will worship the Father neither here on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. For the Father is looking for worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth?” In my humble opinion, Jesus took the time and place thing out of worship and replaced it with another model.

Isn’t that what Paul meant when he said, “I urge you, therefore, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices … this is your spiritual act of worship.” It seems to me that he is advocating a wholly distinct view of worship. No longer is it temple or church sanctuary, but a total surrendering of self and will to God. And this surrendering is borne out one’s clear view of God’s unparalleled mercy and grace. In other words, when I view the cost of his mercy, I surrender (sacrifice) my body to him. After all, that’s what he did for me. That kind of worship has nothing to do with "church" and everything to do with me and my heart.

The truth is (and you and I both know it), anyone can sit on a pew (and why do they call it a pew anyhow?) for an hour a week. Anyone can drink some grape juice, eat a piece of cracker, and sing a few songs if that’s all there is to worship. But offering my own body up as a sacrifice? Now that’s another matter. My body might not seem like much to hang on to to you, but it’s all I’ve got.

Back to the woman at the well. It is interesting to note that she left her jar of water to run back to the village and tell everyone that she had met the Messiah. That might not seem like much of a sacrifice to people like you and me who only have to turn a knob to have an endless supply of water running down the drain out into the sewer. But in an arid region like Samaria, water was a precious commodity. It wasn’t wasted. But the possibility that she had met the Messiah put everything into perspective.

Priorities change when you meet the son of God.