Worship in Spirit and Truth – It’s Not What You Think

A dear, wise friend once posed a critical question to me early in my ministry.  “What is worship?”  I struggled then to answer and continue to ponder to this day.  What is it?  Is it our weekly gathering that happens in a sanctuary?  Of course!  But is there more?  We seem to fill the worship event with personal preferences, ancient traditions, and the latest fads.  In the midst of that, could we miss the point?  Do we worship because we’ve gathered or do we gather because we’ve worshipped?

My search for the essence of worship has led me repeatedly to John 4 and Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well.  I’ll summarize the encounter.  An adulterous, outcast woman goes the well alone in the heat of the day to avoid the crowds.  She has a chance meeting with Jesus, who willingly breaks numerous social norms by asking her for a drink.  Jesus offers her “living water” and upon learning that it perfectly quenches thirst, she mockingly asks him for a drink.  Jesus then gently reveals his knowledge of her adultery.  She diverts the conversation toward the hot topic of worship.  Here’s the rest:

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”   Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour 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, because salvation is from the Jews.  But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.” – John 4:20-24 (CSB)

Here we have the only explicit definition of worship from Jesus’ lips.  We worship the Father in Spirit and truth.  Sounds great!  Those must be the basic requirements for our worship gatherings.  Be spiritual and tell the truth and we’ll be fine… but that’s never satisfied.  In this passage Jesus also removed the requirement of location.  No mountain or city or temple should be the exclusive place of worship.  Neither should our sanctuary imprison our worship.  Spirit and truth burns daily in our hearts, not just our weekly liturgy.

What if this whole story is a demonstration of the new worship?  It makes sense.  Jesus’ interactions with this woman are beautiful expressions of spirit and truth.  Since God is love his spirit is love.  Jesus loved this woman even though she was an outcast and carrying many layers of shame.  He didn’t condemn her.  Risking his own social status he patiently spoke the truth into her troubled heart and offered her something that would quench her insatiable inner thirst – Forgiveness – Spirit and truth.

Jesus said it.  Worship doesn’t just belong on a mountain or in a temple.  It belongs in our everyday interactions with those caught in the tangled web of this sinful world and their poor choices.  We worship when we see the person before the sin.  We worship when we reserve judgement and listen.  We worship when we patiently love them even when they resist.  We worship when we tell them the truth of how God wants them to live, even if it hurts to hear it.  We worship when we don’t condemn them for it, but offer them forgiveness.  We worship by presenting our bodies as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1).  We worship because God’s spirit and truth is exactly what this desperate world needs.

This is worship.  If we all worship in this way outside of our services, think of the beauty of what happens when we come together!  With bolder praise and deeper prayers we take a weeks-worth of worship and channel it into one powerful release of Spirit and truth.  This is worship.