Painting by Simon Dewey

I don’t think it was noontime. There, I’ve said it. I’ve offered up my red herring, my distracting observation that will keep you from reading on to my main point. In John chapter 4, I think that John was using Roman time when he says “the sixth hour.” It was probably 6 p.m.

But that’s not actually what I wanted to write about. As I’ve heard this story retold, many feel that the woman became flustered when Jesus spoke about her 5-and-a-half husbands and that she proceeded to ask a totally irrelevant question, bringing up a popular debate without any real significance. “The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”” (John 4:19-20 ESV)

I think that this question is not just trivia for this woman. It’s not just a smoke screen. I think she’s finally met a real prophet, and she finally gets to ask the question that’s been bothering her for a long time: Do we proskuneo to this mountain or to Jerusalem? My extremely limited Greek studies tell me that proskuneo refers to a physical worship, usually meaning a bowing down. [Interestingly enough, the writers of the New Testament never use it to describe what Christians did in the first century; that may be because of Jesus’ comments in this passage] She’s asking a question about physical worship.

I think this woman wants to know where to pray to. Remember that the Old Testament talks about praying toward the temple in order to have one’s prayers heard (1 Kings 8:29-30, 35; 2 Chronicles 6:38). Remember that Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem while in Babylonia (Daniel 6:10). I think this woman wanted to pray to God so that her prayers would be heard, but she didn’t know which direction to pray. Jesus tells her that God is spirit (not a physical God that lives in a temple) and is worshiped in spirit and in truth, not by bowing down in a certain way or in a certain direction.

I think the question that this woman asked was the question: how do I worship God?