Daily Lesson for August 10, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 16 through 24:

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

I have been at this pastoring thing for 11 years now and there is something I have noticed at every church and in every community I've been it: it's always easier to argue about worship style than it is to get to the truth of their own moral failures.

I mean, it's just a given; almost everybody wants to talk about the music genre, but nobody wants to talk about who they've slept with. Like the woman in today's lesson, we want to talk about worship on this or that mountain but in fact it's really a distraction and tactic of avoidance to keep us from having to honestly deal with our issues. We like to talk about the spirit of worship and whether or not it's in the room on Sunday. But the truth of what is going on in our lives Monday through Saturday is a little too personal. Better to stick to criticizing the worship pastor's choices than take a look at our own. This is classic scapegoating.

Jesus says God is pleased with worship that is spirit-filled. But spirit alone is not enough.  What really pleases God, Jesus says, is a people who worship in spirit and also in truth.