the reunion of heart and head, continued

The Word for today:
John 4:1-26

Mark this: 4:22-24 --
You worship you know not what. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Yesterday, in a characteristically confrontational way, I addressed the pharisaic tendency to leave Jesus in the book, so to speak. Academic heads (like me) must be sure to live biblically as we study.

And I addressed the equally distasteful habit of many Christians who--loudly and demonstratively--profess their love for Jesus, but aren't curious enough about this love-of-their-lives to open his book and learn more about him. They believe the Bible--every word!--but will seldom open it to find out just what it is that they so fervently believe.

Jesus meets a Samaritan woman in our passage today. She is a worshiper according to the local traditions. Jesus does not deny that she worships. That she worships is not in dispute. But then Jesus hones in; first on her sin, and then on another spiritual problem: "You worship you know not what."

I typed that phrase in King James Version English because there is just no better way to say it. She worships, alright. But she worships in ignorance.

Then Jesus tells her, "They that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth."

What does it mean, to worship "in spirit and in truth"?

It means we've got to put our hearts into it, and we've got to put our heads into it.

Jumping up and down and banging the tambourine in ecstatic ignorance is not the worship God is seeking.

And learning for learning's sake, learning which is left in the ivory tower, is equally as useless.

Christian teachers and preachers have used the model of "the distance from the head to the heart." The illustration has served us well. It has pointed out dry and listless worship. It has challenged those who are hearers of the word to become doers of the word (1).

Today, Jesus is going in the opposite direction. He is not talking head to heart. He's talking heart to head. He's talking about worship, outwardly ecstatic as it may be, which is actually dead--because it is worship of ye know not what. It is the worship of a heart without a head.

So I proposed a new model yesterday, and I'll reiterate it today:

"God made the head and the heart. They are to be seamless, of a single piece.
The trick is not to stop being emotional. Be ever more emotional! But make sure you are using your head as well as your heart.
The trick is not to stop being academic. Be ever more academic! But make sure you are using your heart as well."

There's a picture above. I've used it two days in a row. It's a silly picture of a head that is a heart. It's a silly picture of a heart that is a head. It's a picture of the worshiper God is seeking.

Hold a self-reunion, the reunion of heart and head. Worship in spirit and in truth. Put your whole heart and your whole head into your relationship with Jesus.

(1) James 1:22