A Lesson on Worship
Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Habib
The story of the Samaritan woman is one of the most amazing stories of the Gospels. We see how she discovers that Jesus was somebody special. She first infers that He may be a prophet. She thinks it’s a conversation about water but then He says, “I will give you living water!” She inquiries about this water and He tells her to call her husband and He will tell her about this living water. He commends her for speaking honestly but then reveals that she has had five husbands and the one she is living with is not her husband.
Suddenly, lights are going off in her head and she begins thinking this Man is important. At this, she asks her first big question about worship – “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship” (John 4:20).
The Samaritans had left the worship of Jerusalem, they left the temple, they separated themselves from the Israelites, and they became people mixed with the Gentiles, they took some of the Jewish faith, but essentially, they left the worship of the temple.
This is important to understand, because the worship of the temple was everything. You couldn’t worship God outside the temple. God was in the temple – His presence was in the temple. Hence if you wanted to worship God, you had to go to the temple. This idea of personal prayer was not as developed. In the Jewish mind, prayer had a corporate appearance of worship.
She is not asking about personal prayer, she is asking about corporate prayer. She says “We worship here. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship, so tell me, what do You make of our worship? are the Jews right, and we are wrong? Can we both be right? Can we worship here, and can we worship there?” And Jesus responds in almost the most direct we hear from Him, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:21-24).”
In English, we read, “salvation is of the Jews.” The more accurate Greek translations is, “salvation is from the Jews,” meaning Jesus Christ came from the Jews, and not that salvation belongs to the Jews alone. Jesus does not leave the issue of living water and move on to a separate topic. He discusses the idea of living water that is eternal life, and we know the living water to be the Holy Spirit that is given to us. He is not speaking about corporate worship, but worshipping in spirit and in truth. God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
It is essential that when we pray, we first understand what we are doing. Too often when we speak about the divine liturgy – what we do here and now – we focus on symbols and we divide it into parts. But we need to look holistically, and not divide the liturgy into little pieces. We must understand the big picture, the direct implications the Eucharist has on our personal lives.
Christianity is a community of worship. The church is a community of the body of Christ. Our own personal bodies are members of the body of Christ. This is what comes first; before any theology, before any doctrine, any dogma, before any Creeds, before there was anything, that we have now in the church, we are a community of worship.
In the very first church of Acts, they would come together, united in the Spirit and they would pray. They would come together and enter the Spirit of praise and worship. Even immediately after Christ’s Resurrection, the disciples gathered in the upper room. During the 40 days after the Resurrection, and the 10 days between the Ascension and Pentecost, you never hear them say, “Okay guys, let’s get together for our mission statement, what’s our mission statement going to be? How are we going to advertise ourselves to the world, how are we going to explain ourselves to the world? What are we going to do, let’s divide up the tasks, the jobs, and who’s going to be here, or who is going to do this?”
But this is how we look at our service. Our first meetings are to organise tasks, when the early church spent their time together in prayer. The work of the church is to pray, and to be a worshipping community. Ask yourself, how am I part of the church? I may know theology, doctrine, dogma but I am first a worshipper of the church.
As a worshipper in the church, how do I attend the services? How do I participate in the services? How do I come to church? What do I seek when I am coming to church? This directly affects your personal life. Our personal devotion cannot be separated from the church.
“Personal devotion and community worship belong intimately together, and each of them is genuine and authentic, and truly Christian, only through the other.” – Georges Florovsky
When we come together to pray, it presupposes and requires that we pray as individuals. When we come together as a church, we are supposed to come as individuals who pray by themselves at home coming together to pray as a group. This isn’t the only time you should be praying. The church is a gathering of people who pray. Personal prayer itself, is only possible because we belong to the group, the community. Since no person is a Christian except as a member of the body, even in the solitude of our chamber, when we enter into the inner room, we pray as a member of the redeemed community as a church. And that when we worship God, in spirit or truth, we can’t worship in one way or the other.
I can’t say I come to church but my actual worship is when I am alone. My worship at church should reflect my worship at home. The problem is that we put one over the other. And both can turn over to something terrible. When personal prayer become, “I, me, I want this, I asked for this, I need this…” This is not a prayer of the church but a disconnection.
In church, we pray for, “Our fathers and brethren who have fallen asleep repose their souls.” And, “Heal those who are sick. Visit the sick among your people, heal them.” We do not pray on behalf of ourselves but on behalf of the entire church community and it’s important to understand that WE, as a community, are entering the church and pray with the church.
The most important parts of the Liturgy, when the priest calls for the Holy Spirit to come upon the bread and the wine to turn into the Body and the Blood. He doesn’t say “I” ask You. He says “WE” as a community, “ask You, to bring Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these things.”
As much as possible, we must participate fully as a community, to give us this idea that I’m not separate from the body of Christ, but that I’m part of the body of Christ and when I worship, and I worship with the body of Christ.
If we don’t understand the words we still should sing the words because there are three things that happen. First, we sing the words with our mouth. Then we bring our mind to where our mouth is so we concentrate on the words and then eventually our hearts. Our heart embraces the words, but it starts in that order. Don’t wait for your heart, and then for your mind, and then you’ll sing. You sing first and then your mind goes with your mouth, then your heart with your mind. Simple.
Every time the deacon says “let us attend”, or “let us pray”, it means something important is happening and we have to pay attention to what is happening. Even if I might not be in the very spiritual mood, I remember to pay attention to God. We’re in the house of God we’re not in the house of me or any of the other priests.
When you see people coming to church who haven’t been here in a long time, pray that God keeps them in the church. Don’t judge them. If you yourself haven’t come to church in a long time and you’re scared about coming when you just happen to be here today? Come to church with a sincere desire to be a true member of the Church of God, asking God for
forgiveness, which He is willing to give to everyone who seeks this repentance. But we have to actively live the life. You can’t just say forgive me, and then we go do what we want to do afterwards. The church becomes a standard in the way that we live our life. May God be glorified in His church and may He teaches always to worship Him in spirit and in truth now and ever and unto the ages of all ages. Amen.
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