Spirit and truth
Day 675, Wednesday, June 17
John Chapter 4 – 5:15
Up to this point in John the teaching Jesus has done has been not exactly secretive, but not very public either. The clearing of the temple was a very public act, but doesn’t seem to have been accompanied by what we would call public preaching.
The famous story of the Samaritan woman at the well keeps to the same pattern. His teaching to her is substantial, but takes place in a private conversation.
We’re familiar with the story and how groundbreaking it was. Jesus broke barriers of social convention speaking with a woman who was from a race the Jews did not get along with, and who lived a disreputable life. This was about as far as he could get from his recent conversation with Nicodemus, who was a model of respectability.
Our focus on the encounter with the woman often leads us to miss what comes next. “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.”
Here we finally see Jesus doing the kind of preaching we usually think of him doing. The woman had first proclaimed what he had done for her, leading some to believe, and he followed up by spending two days in the town speaking his message and attracting more believers.
Another shift we see in Jesus’s conversation with the woman is how he transforms the notion of worship itself. Much of the hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans was over how—and where—it was proper to worship. Jesus doesn’t take sides in that question, but reframes worship in a way that makes the disagreement meaningless. “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
We have our own disagreements over how woship should be done. We should listen to what Jesus says here and not ask about the form and place of worship as much as we ask, Is God present? Is truth spoken? Is truth heard?

Wednesday meditation

Psalms 144:9-15
I will sing a new song to you, my God; on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you, to the One who gives victory to kings, who delivers his servant David.
From the deadly sword deliver me; rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful.
Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. Our barns will be filled with every kind of provision. Our sheep will increase by thousands, by tens of thousands in our fields; our oxen will draw heavy loads. There will be no breaching of walls, no going into captivity, no cry of distress in our streets. Blessed is the people of whom this is true; blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.

Prayer focus
Lord, guide us into the spirit and truth of your worship.

-Rev. Mark Fleming