Sunday, March 08, 2026
Sunday Reflection: Not on the mountain, or in Jerusalem...
In John 4, Jesus has the longest conversation in the Gospels: his discussion with the Samaritan woman at the well. There is a lot going on there, but I want to talk about this part of the discussion:
The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
This exchange sometimes gets forgotten in larger discussions of this passage, but it has always meant a lot to me. When I was young, people told me that we encounter God in church, but that never seemed right to me. Rather, it seemed that what happened in church was that we encountered each other while seeking God, which is profoundly different. My Holy Spirit moments, those glimpses of the divine, are (at least for me) rarely during a church service.
I believe that we are meant to worship communally, and I have always been a church-goer. But I have never given the speakers at church--Priests and Ministers-- a status of anything beyond fellow traveler. Certainly, there is a lot to learn from fellow travelers! But... God is in church and out of church and in the most unlikely places.
What Jesus said marked a breaking point from traditional Judaism, too, where many of the Mosaic laws involved actions at the Temple, and for whom there was the very real belief of God's actual and constant presence there. How transgressive, then, was what Jesus said!
And transgressive Jesus, who opens up the world to us, is the at the heart of my faith.
