Reflections on True Worship

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4 (ESV)

What is meant by worshiping "in the Spirit and in truth"? Truth is not capitalized. It is not prefaced by the article "the." I'm used to understanding this verse in terms of worshiping as the Spirit leads grounded, rooted, established, growing out of the Truth of Who God is. But is that what this passage is saying? I mean, it makes sense. But it seems a little too removed from the situation at hand, too academic. The story of the woman at the well encountering Jesus is powerful and intimate. Jesus opens by displaying his own needs--he is tired, and he is thirsty. Against all cultural bounds, he asks the woman there for a drink. Which quickly turns into a discussion about spirituality, Jewish history, and eternal thirst. Jesus sees straight into her heart, sees her need and desire. Immediately following these verses, Jesus discloses to her that he himself is the long-awaited and desired Messiah. This story is full of heart-communication. (Yes, I just made that up. But it fits.) "Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know..." It is true that there is a mind-knowing, communicated in French using the verb <savoir>, and a heart-knowing, communicated with the verb <<connaitre>>. I don't know Greek, so I can't tell you what the verb is in this verse. (If anyone would like to enlighten me, I'd love to hear it!) I feel like the context, including the interaction that is happening, the desire being answered with these statements, God's desire for worshipers who worship "in the Spirit and in truth", lends itself to more the heart-knowing usage of the word know here. In which case, an exhortation to worship in the Spirit and in truth given to mean Spirit-led and Truth-grounded, while accurate, feels a little..stilted, academic, heady to me. I could be wrong here. I really could. I'm just thinking about this, and I'd love feedback here. What if, what if, "in truth" means "in sincerity"? What if this is an exhortation to be led by the Spirit (who communicates Truth) and to be honest and sincere in worship? Without pretenses or pretexts?

Closet Racist?

InterVarsity is committed to multi-ethnicity.  And that's great.  
But it scares the daylights out of me.

Not because I'm scared of other cultures.  Culture is fascinating!  It really is.  What I'm scared of is not knowing how to talk about it.  I'm scared of asking questions poorly.  I'm scared of offending someone.

I'm guilty of the "What language do you speak in__?" question.  I asked it, hesitantly, cautiously with a disclaimer ("This a going to be a really stupid question, but..") to a Bosnian student of mine.  Because I honestly had no idea.  I didn't even know there was such a language as Bosnian (I was thinking Arabic?).  I'm guilty of wanting to ask the "Where are you from, really?" question, because I don't know how to ask about their heritage.  I guess that's a much more loaded, offensive question than it had occurred to me.

We did an exercise at IVLI (many summers ago) where we broke off into groups based on our ethnicity, and discussed a worksheet about our family, the foods we eat, what we do when someone encounters hardship, things like that.  And then we came back together.  We shared our answers to some of the questions with the rest of the group.  We were asked about our strengths and our weaknesses.  And what I noticed (that I remember, at least) was that my ethnic group (white) was very hesitant about culture.  Several of us, including myself, prefaced a discussion of our strengths with "I don't know if this is a strength or not, but..."  I remember the worksheet being difficult for me to fill out, because I didn't feel like I had traditions.  Or culture.  Or anything exciting to offer about my heritage.  Because more than anything, I feel like my story is not "American" or "white," but "divorced suburban middle class."  If ethnicity and culture are passed down in your family...a broken family means incomplete transference.  My best friend is from rural America.  Her family has it's dirty laundry, too, believe me.  But she has *stories.* She has history.  She has *family.*  They have family recipes, and her grandmother taught her to quilt and knit.  She has a book-A BOOK-of her family, including maps of how the parcels of land has been passed through the family.  I know where my parents were born.  I have no idea how a girl from the Bronx met a man from DC and decided to move to a Maryland suburb.  I'm old enough now to want to know these things, but because their marriage dissolved while I was relatively young (11), I hardly have an opportunity to ask.  What I know about my family's history would fill one sheet of notebook paper, while she has a book.  I envy my friend's family.  But I am blessed that they have taken me in as one their own.  Her grandmother quilted me a blanket for Christmas when we were in college, and were still newly best friends.  This year, having graduated college four years ago and our friendship sustained across 300 miles for as long, her grandmother knitted me an afghan as an apartment warming gift.  Somehow, tucked into the twirls and knots of yarn is a declaration of acceptance and belonging.  

I digress...Culture-crossing.  I love listening to people's stories.  I'm curious about what people think and feel, and their choices in response to those things.  I'm fascinated by different rituals and perceptions of things.  I'm curious about South Asia and Russia, and their stories and histories.  But I don't know how to be.  I don't know how to ask questions.  Making friends is not easy for me.  I feel like I am generally an awkward person.  Crossing cultures? So much room for Stupid Rachel to glow with radioactivity!! I fear offending the other person, and hurting them.  

And maybe in this, too, is a sense of having nothing to offer back in return.  They could tell me about the ceremony of turning 13 and all the preparation and planning and drama...and I could tell them, what?  That my transition into womanhood entailed a really really awkward conversation with my dad in the car on the way to a doctor's appointment in which I told him that I had gotten my first period?  The celebratory response to which was an invitation to dinner with the family, that had nothing to do with anything?  My culture pales (ha, pun not intended) to others.  Or maybe I just don't understand it.  Maybe I need the richness of other cultures to spur me to consider and see the richness of my own.