We believe that God is Spirit, everywhere, at all times and in all places. When Jesus was talking to the Woman of Samaria, people thought a god dwelt in his temple and people went there to worship. Where they worshiped mattered. Worship at an empty temple was nothing.
When this Gospel was written circa AD 90 neither of these locations was existent as a place to worship. The shrine on Mt Gerizim was destroyed in 128 BCE. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. And where was the dwelling of God if the temple had been destroyed? Where then should you worship?
Accepting and anticipating these realities, Jesus answers the question: Where is the Father? “The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.” The Father seeks those who are not bound to either geographic boundaries or building sites for true and proper worship. The dispersed people of the early Church were marked and known to each other by their religious practice and worship. They worshipped the Father in spirit and in truth in the places they had been sent.
What we believe is embedded in our worship. Our actions and words of worship are the witness that testifies to our belief. Our worship calls us to remembrance of our faith in the Persons of the Trinity. We worship in spirit and in truth. The location of our worship is in ‘the temple of his body’ (John 2:21). The Risen Christ is the true locus of the Spirit of God.
The healing of the little boy shows us how God’s life-giving power is not bound by location. It was at the hour when Jesus had said to the dad, ‘Your son will live,’ that the child began to recover. We believe this sign—God is Spirit, unlimited and unconfined by time or space. We believe and we worship in spirit and in truth.
Margaret Ashby is a collage artist, gardener, and retired pastor. It is her great delight to cut things apart and glue them together. Worship is purpose; prayer is our essential job.
To Consider
1. The Gospel according to John is written in the context of the biblical history of Israel and the 400+ years between Malachi and Matthew. To learn the background of the enmity between Israel and Samaria read I Kings 17: 24-41. The Books of the Maccabees also has good background information on the tumultuous events of the invasions and occupation of the Roman Empire.
2. As you reflect on the last two years, how has your faith been a ‘spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ not dependent on a particular building or gathering? Take some time to make a list of all the ways you have developed to worship in spirit and in truth while church services have been suspended and to write a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God.
Prayer
Father God, Spirit of Holiness: according to Jesus’ promise he abides with his Church on earth even to the end of the ages so that we may worship in spirit and in truth at all times and in all places forever and ever. Amen.