Lent 3A (John 4:5-26)

We certainly know God is not stuck in one place. We know there’s no one designated site to worship God. Yet, this isn’t the case for both Jews and Samaritans. A major disagreement between them is over where God chose the dwelling site. The question at stake is “Where is God to be worshiped?” For Samaritans, it’s Mt. Gerizim whereas for Jews it’s Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. So, the meat of this quite feisty, contentious, and even humorous encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in the lesson today centers around where God is and how God is worshiped according to Jesus.

God’s presence is God’s kingdom as we heard from last Sunday’s lesson in which we were introduced to another encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus in today’s lesson goes further than the location of God as he denies both Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Zion as God’s dwelling place and thus frees God from any limitation created by humans. No one person or site owns God. No monopoly on God. As God is boundless, our worship of God can become boundless. God can be present and worshiped anywhere anytime. 

Unlocking God may help Jesus to redefine God as the Spirit or the Breath. This may be the reason why those who see the presence of God and live in the kingdom of God can and should be born of the Breath. What used to be from dust to dust is now from breath to breath. Recollect the moment when the risen Christ breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22) Receive the Breath of God! How are we then to worship God who is the Breath? Let me rephrase this question. How are we to live with God who is the Breath so that God’s presence is real in our lives, not just in one specific place? 

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, “...those who worship him [God] must worship in spirit and truth.” What does worshiping God in spirit and truth look like? This sounds like an instruction for proper worship yet is difficult to decipher what it actually means. What do “spirit and truth” mean? Let’s keep in mind that these are the words translated into English from Greek. “Spirit” is from pneuma, πνεύματι, and “truth” is from aletheia, ἀλήθεια. “Pneuma” can be translated as breath or wind. For our case, let’s go with “breath.” For aletheia, we take a literal approach. To translate it as truth is an interpreted choice because there’s no English word that means the same as aletheia. Its literal meaning is “un-forgetting” as a faculty of memory which is not merely remembering but intentionally holding something in mind and awakening to that which one cares the most. 

With this newly adopted translation approach, Jesus’ instruction of boundless worship based on the boundless presence of God becomes like this: “...those who worship God must worship in breath and unforgetting.” Let’s polish it a bit and simplify it: “Worship God through your breath with unforgetfulness.” In this approach, what matters is two-fold: 1) paying attention to the breath as the Breath of God coming in, which is how God is present bodily, and 2) discerning what to un-forget. 

The first one is about changing our perception of breathing, not merely as the air coming in and out of the lungs but the Breath of God communing with us and giving us life. In both physiological and spiritual senses, every cell of the body is sustained by the breath. 

The second principle of worship requires discernment. The act of un-forgetting is to discern what to keep in mind, what to recall, and remember intentionally. We recollect from the past skillful and unskillful actions to act in the present skillfully. While using our own breath as an anchor to be present to God’s presence, our act of worship which is beyond time and space is to continue skillful actions and avoid unskillful ones. This may be what St. Paul means by “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17) and “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

In this worship of God through breath with unforgetfulness, we live in the kingdom of God where all become anointed like the risen Christ. May we un-forget our breath through which God invites us to God’s presence and kingdom. 
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