Neither in This Mountain

He has been going to sort out a corner of that house for about two years.

The plan is quite specific. The little room at the back that currently has the tumble dryer in it and a bike. Clear it, paint it, one chair, a small table, maybe a shelf. Somewhere set apart. Somewhere that is for this and not for anything else.

He is not being precious. He has been in places that felt holy, an old chapel on a hill, a church he stood in once at seven in the morning with nobody else there, and something happened to him in both and he has never forgotten it. He wants that, and he wants it in his own house, and he thinks he is right to want it.

The problem is the kitchen. The kitchen is where he actually is. The kitchen has the dishwasher running and a calendar with somebody's dentist appointment on it, and every time he has thought about praying in the kitchen a small voice has said not here, and he has left it, and two years have gone by with a bike in the back room.

That is your house. That is your bike. And I want to speak to that, because Jesus was asked precisely this question by a woman at a well and He took the whole thing off the table.

He took the question away

She asks Him the great local dispute: which mountain is the right one. His answer does not settle it. It dissolves it.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.John 4:21-23

Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem.

Read who He rules out. Not her mountain only. Jerusalem too. He removes the temple from the question, the one place on earth with a genuine, God-given claim to being the location, and He does it in the same breath.

And then: the hour cometh, and now is. Not eventually. Already. The new arrangement was live while He was sitting on the edge of a well in the middle of the afternoon talking to a stranger.

You are not standing in the wrong place. Not waiting for somewhere to be set apart first. The written word takes location out of the question entirely, including the location that had the best claim of all, and the Holy Spirit is the One who makes that live in a man in a kitchen with a dishwasher running.

Now let me say something about the chapel on the hill, because none of this makes that nonsense.

Something did happen to you in there, and it was real, and God is entirely capable of meeting a man in a building at seven in the morning. Places do carry something. That is not the error.

The error is the conclusion you drew afterwards, which was that the room did it, and that you therefore need to manufacture one before anything can happen.

You are not required to build a venue. The written word puts true worship in spirit and in truth rather than in an address. The Holy Spirit is not waiting for the tumble dryer to be moved.

And now the two years, which is the real cost here.

Not the bike, and not the paint. Two years in which a man who genuinely wants this has not done it, because a small voice in a kitchen kept saying not here, and he believed it every time.

You are able to meet Him where you actually stand. The hour cometh, and now is, and now covered a woman at a well with a water pot in her hands. The Holy Spirit has been in that kitchen every time you decided it was the wrong room.