““Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.”
John 4:19-22 NLT
There is something within human beings that makes them want to worship. This is something God has wired within us. The need to worship is in our DNA. Sadly, in our secular society, this God-given gift is distorted and focused on the wrong things. So we have the Saturday afternoon worship of a football team. Hobbies can become the focus of our worship. Some nations encourage the worship of their leaders. A common line in romance fiction is “he worships the ground she walks on”. Even the gender and sex ideologies common today can become worshipped by their activists. But none of these objects of worships – call them “idols” – will ever replace the deep inner desire to worship our Creator God.
The countryside in the UK is dotted around with mostly elderly but generally lovely “places of worship”. Our parish churches are a legacy from past times when people were more faithful and knew the proper focus of their worship. But more and more of our churches are closing down as people turn their backs on God. Most people now consider that we are living in a post-Christian age, whatever that means, and these places of worship are becoming nothing more than mausoleums, or turned into carpet warehouses or night clubs. Some, such as a church near me, are being allowed to crumble and collapse through neglect. Two more have been converted to houses, with one in the bizarre position of having a graveyard instead of a garden. No problems with noisy neighbours though.
But Jesus, in His conversation with the Samaritan woman, floated the idea that worship is to become independent of the traditional venues so valued by the Jews and Samaritans. And we see the abandonment of elderly and difficult to heat buildings today, with Christians in the UK meeting in industrial units, in schools and leisure centres, and, of course, in people’s homes. We’re perhaps returning to the early Church model as described in Acts 5:42 and elsewhere, ”And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”“
God is everywhere, and not just behind a table in an old musty building, even if the table is covered with an ornate cloth embroidered with gold lace. Stained glass windows may look very impressive but they matter little to the God who looks into our hearts. So we pilgrims worship God and God alone. There is nothing else that can be allowed to take His place. We read what Jesus said to the devil in Luke 4:8, “Jesus replied, “The Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’” Instead of worshipping in a temple or church somewhere, we must perhaps rather consider the temple within us. ”Don’t you realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? …” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
God does not need the worship of us pilgrims. He never has done and never will. But He has created us in His image to worship Him, because it does something within our spirits. The communion spirit to Spirit comes alive in our worship. There is no better place to be than worshipping in God’s presence.
Father God. We worship You today, because You are worthy. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 