DAVID'S EMAIL BIBLE STUDY:
BETTER Worship
A. BACKGROUND
... Last week we did the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. You should check out the old folk song, “Jesus Met the Woman at the Well.” Google it or search for it on YouTube. Samaria was a region within Israel, but with a long history of mutual hostility, disrespect, and prejudice with the larger Jewish population. But Jesus stops there and asks a Samaritan woman to fetch him water. Being there and doing so shows Jesus confronting prejudice head on. Last week we used this experience as a model for addressing racism and all the “isms” that turn person against person, people against people. Jesus went right at it and offered a way beyond it. So last week we applied the scripture to our struggle against racism. Today, let’s apply the scripture to the way beyond it.
C.
SUMMARY.
The overall story is simple. Jesus goes to a despised town, asks a despised woman for water, they engage in some strained give and take, and in the end the villagers believe in Jesus. Let’s summarize that “give and take.” The Samaritan woman mocks the Jewish Jesus for needing her help to get water. Jesus’ retort is to tell her that he had “living water” that would end her lifelong thirst (vs. 15). Later he declines his disciple’s offer of food because he has his own source of nourishment (vs. 32). The woman and Jesus also debate the right way to worship and Jesus’ answer is “worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth” (vs. 24).
D. KEY POINTS
1.
LIVING WATER. Humanity is a history of people seeking satisfaction: enough of this, that, or the other thing. Every kind of strife has roots in wanting satisfaction, fulfillment. Jesus begs us to reorient our goals because so many of our goals leave us unsatisfied when we achieve them. This pandemic death toll and shutdown is not the first crisis to get people to reevaluate priorities, what’s important. Jesus uses a very human example: thirst. We all need lots of water. How often those old cowboy movies were based on land rights, water access conflicts. Jesus takes that basic need and expands it to the larger issue of needs and wants.
Our world is driven by desire for things. Quite often, the desires get out of hand, the things don’t satisfy in a lasting way. Jesus offers the Samaritan woman – and us – a way of life not driven by desire, not controlled by things, not subject to constant replenishment. “Living Water” he calls it. It is a way of life made satisfying by our right relationship with God, with others, even with things. Christlikeness is Living Water.
2.
REAL Church. We’ve all had friends, family, co-workers, and strangers tell us that we need to quit our church and religion and join theirs. Because only theirs has the right doctrine, leader, politics, spirit, Bible, etc. Most churches, denominations, religions are a breakaway from some other church/denomination/religion. Half the Christians in the world, half the Jews, half the Hindus, etc., don’t consider the other half real Christians or full Jews or worthy Hindus. Heck, this encounter at the Samaritan well is between two Jews who don’t count the other as sufficiently Jewish. Thus, Jesus’ bottom line: real worship is in SPIRIT and in TRUTH. Not place. Not structure. Not tradition. These pandemic times test Jesus’ theory, don’t they?! Can we worship with our perfectly quaint, historic, New England church? Can we worship without each other near at hand? Or, can we access the right SPIRIT and embrace the desire for TRUTH while denied the delights of “corporate (meaning ‘in body’) worship”? If your answer is “no”, what about soldiers on the front line, sick people in the hospital, people who have to work Sundays, elderly shut-ins, police and fire on duty? A lovely church building makes worship lovely. SPIRIT and TRUTH make it worship.
