Living Stones – Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Which mountain?
John 4:20
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.
The Samaritan woman, continuing her conversation with Jesus in John 4:1-26, is now the one who switches the subject of the conversation. Jesus got personal in asking her to call her husband and then revealed His prophetic credentials by telling her all about her relationship history.
This woman seized upon that revelation and quickly tried to get herself from under the pressure of facing her personal failings. She did this by moving into a discussion about comparative religion. After all, if this Man is a Prophet, what’s better to discuss than religion?
I have great admiration for this woman because of her knowledge and because of her tenacity. She knew the history of her people, “Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” She understood how that history affected their relationship with other peoples, particularly the Jews, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” And she knew and understood the religious difference of her place and time, “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
She knew and understood these things and was prepared and able to have a conversation about them with Jesus herself. In this regard, this woman should be an example to women in our churches everywhere. Women should take heed to Peter’s advice in 1 Peter 3:15 to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.”
Jesus is never arbitrary, He didn’t just happen upon this woman by accident. Jesus is always deliberate and leaves lessons for us at every step of the way. Jesus came to the well at a time of day when this woman, for all the obvious reasons, would come out. He chose a woman who was a sinner who needed to be saved by His grace. But He also chose a woman who understood her history, her religion and the times. And He chose a woman who was bold and capable of being a standard bearer for evangelists. It is amusing sometimes that all that is required to settle some argument about the role of women in the Christian church is to read the New Testament in its entirety.
Jesus also broke down barriers to speak to this woman. He broke down social, cultural, religious, ethnic, and geographical barriers. Imagine a Jewish Rabbi out, not only talking to a woman but a Samaritan woman at that. Even His disciples “marveled that He talked with a woman;” This too should be a lesson to us today in the midst of all of the ethnic and religious tensions we are living through here and around the world.
So, the woman, pressed by Jesus about her personal life, raises with Him the matter of a long-running dispute about the place of worship. The problem here is that the dispute over mountains essentially missed the problem. The matter of worship is a matter of truth and a matter of the spirit; it is not a matter of geography.
Too often we are tied to particular places and styles of worship that we lose the heart of worship. Many people believe that it’s their particular church or their particular denomination, or their particular style of worship that works.
One of my lifelong preacher friends used to tell a story that goes something like this – if you give a Bible to a man who never heard the gospel, and put that man on a deserted island by himself when you return that man would be a Baptist.
This woman that is so often ridiculed for her personal lifestyle history was privileged to speak to Jesus, Himself, face-to-face, and to receive one of the most profound declarations made in the Gospels. “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” We often quote this but forget to whom it was said.
Many of us in ministry are under the pressure to grow our churches, and that is a very good thing, but we must ensure that in seeking to grow the church we do not promote our place, and our style, and our building, and our preacher, above Jesus and a transformation of the heart.
God is now actively seeking “true worshipers [who] will worship the Father in spirit and truth;” we should ensure that we are calling others with the right focus.
Think on these things:
- Is your church able to share the Gospel with others despite dividing factors like race and gender?
- How much emphasis have you placed on the place, style, and ministers at your church when you are talking to others about your faith?
- What barriers have you crossed to share the gospel with others?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be worshippers who are worshipping the Father in spirit and truth and not be distracted by the trapping of the place of worship.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
