When the Samaritan woman came to the well with faith,
she beheld You, O Water of Wisdom.
You allowed her to drink in abundance and glorified her eternally,
for she inherited the heavenly kingdom

On this fourth weekend after Pascha, the Church would have us reflect on two readings. The Epistle, taken from Acts, shares the fact that it was in Antioch were the disciples were first called Christians. The Gospel, taken from the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, shares the story of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well. The challenge is to find a coherent message from the two readings.

As I reflected upon these two readings, it became obvious to me that the message is simply this: to be truly called a Christian one has to be an authentic worshiper who worships the Father in Spirit and truth. This insight, of course, only led me to yet another question: What does it mean to worship God in Spirit and truth? This, I must confess, was a much more difficult question to answer.

I found an answer that I felt was truly appropriate for me by looking again at the life of the man Jesus and how He worshiped God. Although He followed all of the rituals of His religion, Judaism, He also showed us how to worship God by literally and symbolically offering His very own life to God in thanksgiving for the gift of life. He focused all of His energies on making God’s Kingdom real. He worshiped God by how He lived. He was God-centered and made sure that all who came into contact with Him received unconditional love. He showed us that true worship of God is accomplished by living as a spiritual person who finds God’s presence in each and every other human being. He provided us with an image of how He worshiped by taking bread and wine, the symbols of life, and offering them to God with the statement that they were His own Body and Blood.

To accomplish this type of worship a person must allow God’s Spirit to direct his/her life. His Spirit provides the strength and power for us to love others, even our enemies, as ourselves. When we recognize that God’s Spirit is within us and that we can draw upon it to help us live a God-centered life, we can then worship God in Spirit and truth.

This approach to worship doesn’t happen just because we are baptized. It only happens when we voluntarily decide to live as Jesus lived. Let us truly decide to worship God in Spirit and truth, following and imitating Jesus!