“Who are you talking to?” “Nobody.” “Nobody? Really?” Actually, she doesn't usually say “nobody” when I am asking her who she is texting. She usually says “People.” Which is code for “you don’t need to know, dad.” And she is right, I probably don’t need to know. Maybe I’m just nosy. Maybe I’m all up in her grill, as they don’t really say anymore. Or maybe like dads universal I worry about those nobodies.
Don’t talk to strangers. That’s the mantra of our age. And it is understandable. Even a cursory reading of the newspaper would tell you that being away, paying attention, staying away from the unknown and the uncertain is a prudent way to live in our world today.
Yet, I wonder if we’ve gone overboard in our attempts to stay safe. I wonder if we’ve tarred everyone who is not like us as a potential threat instead of an opportunity to grow and expand our understanding a little bit more. I wonder if we’ve exaggerated the danger in order to keep our kids safe and now we live suspicious of the unnamed nobodies we pass by on a regular basis, no longer seeing them as people but as danger, as stranger, even as enemy.
Maybe that is safer, but it also seems like we have lost something significant here, an opportunity for relationship, for community. If Jesus had followed our rules of approaching strangers there are many wonderful encounters that we would never have in the gospels. Like the one from which our passage comes this week.
I purposely pulled out just a few verses from this long story so that we can focus on our theme. But the context of the encounter is crucial to understanding this text. Take a look at these verses and then reconstruct the whole story.
John 4:23-26 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, the one who is speaking to you."
The woman at the well. That is the usual title of this passage. But we might also call it the nobody at the well. But this nobody is not really a threat, for most folks she wouldn’t even register. They would overlook her as they passed by. As we passed by. Let’s be honest, we wouldn’t take notice of her either. And that is the way she preferred it. That’s why she came to well in the middle of the day, hoping to avoid being seen, hoping to avoid the sneers and the gossip and the barbed looks.
This isn’t the time to analyze this woman and what her true situation might have been, that would take more time that we want to give here. Suffice it to say, she was by choice a nobody. By choice and by circumstance. Pushed to the margins of a society that can be cruel at least as often as it is welcoming. She was a nobody who wanted to get her task accomplished and be on her way, when her whole life was turned upside down.
Encountering Jesus upsets our agendas. And it might explain why she (and we) tries to keep him at arms length in the conversation. Jesus is persistent, thank God, but it takes a while to break through the walls that she has created to protect herself. One of the ploys that she uses to distract him is to ask a question about worship. But Jesus uses that a means to get to the heart of what it is that he is trying to talk about with her.
Just when he gets to the crux of her social stigma, she diverts him by asking what appears to be a philosophical question about the geography of worship. “My ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say we have to worship in Jerusalem.” Not even a question, really. More like an accusation. You deny the tradition of my people. You think that you have all the answers and that we are just dumb hicks from the hills. You think you are better than us because you make all the rules and leave us out of the discussion.
Jesus takes this complaint hidden in a conversation starter and gently responds by teaching her about worship. He reminds her in his response that worship is not about us, but about God. Her statement/question is about our location. Where should we be to worship? His response is first that the object of worship is God (“true worshipers will worship the Father...”) She never talked about what is being worshiped. Jesus says that you cannot talk about worship without talking about the One being worshiped.
Having invoked the God we worship, Jesus then is ready to talk about geography. He doesn’t talk about it in the same way that the woman does, however. For her it is about the location of the body. For Jesus it is about the location of the soul. Or the self. Or the mind. It gets a little blurry, I must confess. Partly because Jesus would argue that the location of your body is also important. But not in terms of zip code. Instead Jesus wants to know whether our bodies are in the presence of God, or just occupying a pew.
Worship in spirit and truth. Another Johanine duality. (Sorry, gotta use that seminary jargon once in a while.) A little bible study exercise - read the Gospel of John, and the letters of John and see how many times there are concepts paired together. Light and dark, flesh and spirit, grace and truth, spirit and truth. Sometimes these dualities are opposites, sometimes they are complementary.
Last week we heard the prologue to John’s Gospel tell us that Christ meets us in truth, but that truth comes wrapped in grace, thankfully. So, if Christ meets us in truth, then in order to worship we must meet Christ in truth. To worship in truth is to bring the whole self into the act of worship. We don’t come half-heartedly, we don’t come with the distractions of mind and body, we don’t come wishing that we were somewhere else. We don’t come with the minutes measured out, ready to complain if the time we save for something else is used up in an act of worship. We don’t come with hearts segmented into devotions not all of which are open to God and to this moment of worship. We worship in truth, as whole persons.
Whole persons who sometimes feel like nobodies. Sometimes we don’t keep back something in order to spite God. Sometimes we are less than forthcoming in our worship because we don’t think we are worthy to worship. Sometimes we hold back because we don’t think God would really care if we were present or not, we don’t have anything to offer, or can be of any use or value to the kingdom. It is all for someone else, it sometimes seems to us. Which is no doubt the thought of the woman at the well that day that Jesus came for a drink. I’m not worthy.
That’s why the spirit. Spirit and truth. Spirit is about connection. About relationship. God is Spirit, Jesus said, that’s why we must worship in spirit. In relationship. It is not what we have to offer, it is that God seeks us to worship God. “The Father seeks such as these to worship him.” Jesus said.
It doesn’t matter that you feel like a nobody. It doesn’t matter that everyone else treats you like a nobody. God seeks you to worship. To be in relationship. You, the nobody at the well. The nobody in your office, or on your street. God is looking for you. Isn’t afraid of you, of reaching out to grab hold of you, to connect with you in real and significant ways. God wants to meet you where you live, where your hopes and dreams reside, and where your strengths and weaknesses - your successes and failures dog your heels. That’s the you that God wants to bring into worship. That’s the you God wants to fill, the thirst God wants to quench when we gather week by week to sing praise and encounter the word made flesh.
“Who you talking to?’ “Nobody.” In the throne room of heaven you’ll never a conversation like that. If asked God would always tell of the somebody who worships in spirit and in truth. And that somebody is you.
Shalom,
Derek
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