Good day dear friends. Just a friendly reminder to be present today at noon for our Lenten Litury and Luncheon. The Rev. Santiago Heredia of El Buen Pastor UMC is presenting the talk. A delicious soup, bread, and water meal follows as does great fellowship!
We've been talking about the meaning of worship and here is our study guide for today:
Thursday: Read John 4:7-26. Read each verse carefully as we tend to focus on the more celebrated part of this story, namely Jesus talking to this woman, but pay close attention to the worship references in this passage. What is this saying to you as a modern person? What can we learn about worship in this passage?
Here is that passage from the NRSV: John 4:7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) {Other ancient authorities lack this sentence} 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, "Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." 26 Jesus said to her, "I am he, {Gk [I am]} the one who is speaking to you."
We tend to overlook the worship references in this passage. It is the Samaritan woman who brings them up as a way of changing the subject regarding her marital status. She believes Jesus is a prophet and then shares perhaps the little she knew about worship and that was that worship occurred on the mountain on which they stood. She also adds that Jesus had said people "must worship...in Jerusalem." Jesus replied that the hour was coming when worship would take place in the hearts and spirits of people and that it would be done "in spirit and truth." Jesus knew the coming end of Jerusalem as people at that time knew it, and the Temple would no longer be the same as it once was. But it was that God had revealed grace in Jesus and now face-to-face with Jesus she was a recipient in receiving that grace and begins to understand how we are to worship once we know grace: in our souls (fully surrendered to God) and in truth (hiding nothing, baring our souls to God).
Location is not as important as is the condition of our spirit and heart. That is not to say we don't have to go to church, rather whatever church you choose is not as important as the way you come to worship. Do you come as a "seeker" as was mentioned in the sermon? Do we come excited and expectant to what God can share with us during all that is offered to us? Or do we come with a set list of things WE want? That encounter with Jesus changed the woman. She is known afterwards not as the immoral woman but as the woman whose testimony changed the lives of those in her village.
PRAYER: Come, loving God of life, to my life. Open my soul and heart to Your presence. Let me know how you seek to bless me and use me to give testimony of all You offer. Thank you for the faith of that woman. Thank you for Jesus and what Jesus did for the Samaritans and for us. We praise You in Jesus' name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day!
e.v.
