True worship

5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 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 nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 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 now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 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 is seeking such people 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 (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marvelled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”

John 4:5–42

This is quite a long conversation that covers a range of topics, so we can’t cover everything here. Towards the end of this dialogue (verses 21–26), Jesus makes some statements about worship which we ought to pay attention to. The key question for us here is, “What is true worship?”

All worship used to be about sacrifice

From the very beginning of their conversation, the woman recognises that Jesus is a Jew. This meant a few things:

• Jesus shouldn’t have been there in the first place. This was Samaritan territory, and John says very clearly that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” They were cultural enemies and tended to completely avoid each other.

• Jesus shouldn’t have been there in the middle of the day. It was normal routine for people to collect water at either dawn or dusk to avoid the heat of the day. The woman came out at midday to avoid running into anyone.

• Jesus shouldn’t have spoken to the woman. As a Jew and a male, it was culturally wrong for him to strike up a conversation with a Samaritan woman.

Jews and Samaritans were at odds with each other because of how they understood the Scriptures.

Samaritans only gave the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, status as Holy Scripture. Jews added the rest of the Old Testament as we know it.

Jacob was the great man of God for the Samaritans, so Mount Gerizim was their holy place of worship. The Jews held King David up in this way, so the city he conquered, Jerusalem, was the site of God’s temple.

In all ancient religions, worship centred on sacrifice. The aim is to make a payment for your wrongdoings so that your god doesn’t smite you. The only payment that would be sufficient is with one’s own life, but we use the life of an animal instead and hope that works.

Only specific places, times, and people were considered holy enough to be involved in the rituals of worship. Gods are very picky and demanding.

In the times before Jesus, this is how it was with our own God as well. He laid down the law and the people had to follow if they wanted to survive.

The Samaritan woman is understandably very afraid and ashamed. Her complicated marital history means that she is seen socially as an outcast, but she would also fear that God is very angry with her. A price would need to be paid for her sin.

When Jesus asked her to go and fetch her husband, he knew full well what her history was like. He fully intended to expose her guilt in order to deal with it. However, he won’t get to deal with that guilt just yet.

Interestingly, when the woman runs back to town to tell everyone about her conversation with Jesus, her testimony is, “He told me all that I ever did.” Jesus didn’t even get to heal her and absolve her sin today, but she is still amazed at his divine knowledge and insight. His ability to reveal and expose sin is godly—something the Messiah does.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:12,13

Half of the work that Jesus does in us through his Word is this exposing of sin. You’ve got to open the closet and see the skeletons inside before you can clear them out. We tend to be too rushed when it comes to the prayer of confession in our worship services.

Back in the day, a Saturday night service used to be held before Sunday morning with the sole purpose of confessing sin. Then, when you come on Sunday, you’re thirsty for those words of absolution and then the Sacrament later on.

Private confession is also something we don’t tend to practice much in our church anymore. That is another very healthy practice where you actually get time to think about specific things you have or haven’t said, done, or thought, and name them specifically before God. Then, to be forgiven of those specific things is a very unique thing.

We call this work of exposing sin the work of the Law. The work of the Gospel, then, is the good news of God’s mercy, grace, and complete forgiveness.

That Gospel work was not possible in that old sacrificial system, though—something had to change.

Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Romans 5:6–10

Jesus put an end to the sacrificial system by becoming the ultimate sacrifice for all sin. To be justified means to pay the fair price. Our sin makes us unworthy and undeserving of the gift of life itself.

God did not demand more and more from us. Instead, he covered the cost for us by suffering death himself. That saves us from God’s anger and wrath, and it also eradicated the whole old way of worshipping God.

But don’t forget that Jesus didn’t just die—he rose again. His death satisfied the penalty for sin, but he then also defeated death itself and made new life possible.

4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Romans 6:4,5

By dying, rising, and then sending us his Spirit, Jesus didn’t remove our need to worship God—he renewed it.

We now worship “in spirit and truth”

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 is seeking such people to worship him.

John 4:23

We do things a certain way in the Lutheran church. We tend to not like the Catholics much, but we’ve forgotten why. The Anglicans seem to be alright. The Uniting Church is a bit of a mixed bag. The Baptists seem to attract lots of young people. The AOG’s have too many lights and not enough proper liturgy.

You Jews say Jerusalem is the holy mountain, but I was brought up to believe that was our mountain in Samaria.

Jesus doesn’t care much for holy mountains. He doesn’t care much about which denomination you were brought up in or which building you worship in. If we think we can contain the God of heaven and earth in our own buildings and institutions, we need to think again.

God is spirit. As such, he lives and works everywhere.

• He lives and works through physical means like water, bread, and wine.

• He also lives and works without physical means like words, actions, and even your thoughts.

• He promises to be present, through his Spirit, whenever even a small group of people are gathered in his name.

God is truth. As such, he reveals the truth to us through his Word in both Law and Gospel.

• He reveals the truth about our sin and his mercy.

• He reveals the truth about his Son and what he did for you.

• He reveals the truth about us, our churches, and our communities.

• He reveals the truth about his plans for our future with him and all his people.

When we worship in spirit and truth, we are not seeking to serve him with our sacrifices. We are coming together to be served by him. Worship is not something we do for God—it is a time to be in God’s presence, hearing and receiving from him.

Our songs of praise and prayers are just a tiny way to respond to his immense mercy and grace. They also help us to focus our minds and quiet our hearts to be able to hear and receive.

After the woman shared the news with the townspeople, they listened to his preaching for two days.

They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”

John 4:42

It is God’s Word, God’s truth, that brings this realisation about in people. May we also know with certainty that this is indeed the Saviour of the world. Amen.