Which Mountain?

Read‍

John 4:19-24 "'Sir,' the woman said, 'I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.' 'Woman,' Jesus replied, 'believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.'"

Think

The second the conversation gets personal, she changes the subject to theology.

Jesus has just shown her that he knows about her life. And her very next sentence is a centuries-old religious debate. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say it has to be Jerusalem.

It is a real question. Samaritans and Jews had argued about that for generations and it mattered to both sides. But look at when she asks it.

Sometimes a question is a question. Sometimes a question is a door being closed.

You have probably done a version of this. Somebody gets close to something real and suddenly you have a very interesting point to make about something else. It is not lying. It is just safer up there in the abstract, where nothing is about you.

Here is what makes this passage so useful. Jesus does not call her out for dodging.

He could have. He could have said we are not done talking about your life. Instead he takes her question seriously and answers it, and then he uses the answer to walk right back to where they were.

That is worth copying. When your friend asks you the huge question at the exact moment things get personal, you do not have to accuse them of avoiding anything. Just answer honestly and stay in the conversation.

And notice that Jesus does not do the thing we do, where we say it does not matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. Look at verse 22. "You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know." He tells her plainly that her side has this wrong. He is not rude about it and he does not soften it either.

Then he moves the entire question to different ground. A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

Neither one. He does not pick a side in the argument. He tells her the argument is about to stop being the point, because worship was never fundamentally about a location.

"The true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."

Sit on the last part of that. The Father seeks. God is looking for people. That is what he has been doing at this well all afternoon.

She asked which mountain. He told her that God is not standing on a mountain waiting to be visited. He is out looking for people, and one of them is standing in front of him holding a bucket.

So here is where this lands for a week about questions. You are going to run into people with real questions and you will not have all the answers. That is fine. But do not let a question move the conversation somewhere safe and leave it there.

Answer what you can. Say you do not know when you do not. And keep bringing it back to a person rather than a position, because that is what Jesus did with a woman who tried very hard to make it about a mountain.

What question have you been hiding behind because the honest conversation underneath it is harder?

Apply

Go back to the real thing – Think about the last time a conversation about God got personal and you changed the subject, in your own head or out loud. Go back to it today. Bring the actual thing to God instead of the safer version.

Pray

God, I am good at making this about ideas so it does not have to be about me. Thank you for taking my questions seriously without letting me hide behind them. You are looking for people, not arguments. Help me stop dodging. In Jesus' name. Amen.