“Not Where, or Who, but How”                                                               Vance L. Toivonen

READING John 4:5-29 (Part One)

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 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.) 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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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." 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."

READING John 4:5-29 (Part Two)

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 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." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

SERMON

Our statement of purpose at Hope Church begins, “People come together at Hope Church for the following purposes: To worship God.” When analyzing those three last words we can probably dispense with the first word, the word “to.” It would be a very creative sermon that would spend fifteen minutes elaborating on the word “to.” This leaves just two other words for our consideration this morning, the word “worship” and the word “God.”

I will first spend a few moments on the word “God.” We could debate ad nauseam the meaning of “God.” Who is “God?” What is “God?” What does God look like, feel like, sounds like, and act like. There are surely times when we might wonder together whether or not something or someone we call God actually exists. We might question whether those who claim to believe in God are simply manufacturing a figment of their own imaginations.

If we read the Bible, or the Koran, we will find God expressed with many different characteristics. These literary staples etch God in human terms, in language we can understand. The reading today from John refers to God as Father, a human designation. We know what “father” is, and we know what “mother” is, and yes, there is reference to God as mother. It is placed on the lips of Jesus in Matthew and Luke as he laments Jerusalem. He says,

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. (Luke 13:34; Matthew 23:37).

Mathew and Luke echo several Old Testament references here to God taking Israel under God’s wing, something a mother bird would do (Deuteronomy 32:11; Ruth 2:12; Psalms 36:7 & 57:1). In contrast God is often referred to as a wrathful and warring God, which turns most of us progressive types off, to be sure. We resonate to a loving, gracious, merciful, and just God, all of whom receive their due in these tomes of scripture.

Human beings have, it seems, been speculating about the existence of God, or the gods, for as long as human beings have been around. So we come around to that thorny question of why. Why do human beings seem to have a need for God? And why would human beings evolve to lose their sense of such a need? To God or not to God, that is the question.

Jesus’ tête à tête with the Samaritan woman is a microcosmic view of a larger cultural clash. Samaritans and Jews were a little bit like the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland, I suppose. When Jesus says “neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem,” he is referring to one of the primary differences between these two Semitic faiths. The Jews believed that the home of God was on Mount Zion, and the Samaritans Mount Gerazim. Mount Gerazim is considerably north and west of Jerusalem, while Mount Zion is considered to be synonymous with Jerusalem itself. There is a tug-of-war going on here concerning the location of God. Today we’ve got a clash of cultures too. Is God with the Muslim people and residing somewhere in the Middle East, or is God a red, white, and blue American? The battle rages on.

This still does not answer the question, to God or not to God? And here is where I can only speak for myself: I need God in my life. I tried it for awhile without, and it doesn’t work for me. So, I own this. It is tied, for me, to that famous wisdom of Jesus echoed in Mark and Luke’s gospels (Mk. 10:15; Luke 18:17) when Jesus teaches that becoming like a little child is essential to receiving the life that God is offering. Little children need parents. They need parents for guidance and direction, and yes, for correction. I need a divine, loving, forgiving, gracious, merciful, wise, and sometimes directive parent. This is God for me. Maybe its because I’m a guy, and the boy in me is never gone. Maybe I just don’t want to grow up. I don’t know. What I do know is that my life works better when God is at the center of it.

Which brings me to that other word: worship. Worship literally means to give worth or value to something or someone. On Valentine’s Day, one might say, we all worship our sweethearts. On Veteran’s Day we worship, value, and honor those who have served, and are serving, in war. On our birthdays we get worshipped just for being born. Sure, it’s only one day a year, but I’ll take it. In all of the ways we value one another we are engaging in worship: literally worth-ship.

On Sunday mornings Christians have traditionally set aside time to worship God, to give value, honor, and praise to God. The Jews do this on Saturdays by gathering at Synagogue. Muslims pray daily, six times daily to be exact. They do not isolate worship of God to a weekly, one hour activity. If you are a Muslim living in Milwaukee today, your prayer times for February 24th, 2008 are 5:02 AM, 6:37 AM, 12:05 PM, 3:05 PM, 5:34 PM, and 7:08 PM. This prayer can take place anywhere one happens to be at the moment. The point is, that times are scheduled throughout the day to honor, venerate, and pay attention to God.

Jesus focuses not on the where, or even the who, so much as the how, and this is, I believe, the crux of the text for today. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman,

Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem...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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

There it is. God is spirit. And the word for spirit comes from the Hebrew word ruach, which also means wind. We don’t control the wind, and we don’t control God. God is not exclusive to any place, any religion, or any group of peoples. We are all touched by wind (sure, some of us more than others), and we are all imbued with spirit, the same spirit that the first chapter of Genesis declares as having brooded over the face of the chaotic deep at the inception of creation. Spirit is that creative energy in all of us that makes possible what becomes possible. Which is all just another way of saying that we worship God with our lives. When we are full of the creative life-giving energy that makes the world more and more a place that is good for everyone to live in, we are worshiping God. We do not have to know God to worship God. We do not have to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch God to worship God. We worship God when there is a convergence of spirits, God’s spirit and ours.

Jesus also mentions truth as a hallmark of worship. I suppose this is how we know when we are close to God’s spirit, when truth blossoms forth. We sometimes hold secrets and lies within ourselves. This dark energy can drag us down, and even make us physically ill. But when the day comes that we finally tell someone, or finally seek forgiveness, there comes that moment of light energy that almost makes us feel like we are flying for just a moment. Healing begins immediately, and we feel stronger, brighter, and more hopeful. This is the convergence of spirit and truth, and it is God’s best work in us.

I look at what we do here on Sunday mornings as a kind of rehearsal for worship. We come here on Sunday mornings to practice worshiping God. We value God in our songs and hymns, in our prayers and litanies, in the preaching and teaching, and in the time we spend with our children. The worship service ends and we move on into our day just a little more conscious of God in our lives, and God in the world; a little more aware of that pervasive spirit and truth that is God. Our work in accomplishing that first purpose in our statement of purpose is to nurture that consciousness more and more throughout the many minutes, hours, and days of our lives. We worship God whenever, wherever, and however the moment we are in is imbued with spirit and truth. As for practicing, it’s like anything else – the more we practice, the better we get at it.