Is God Present in the Church?

March 23, 2025

The story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman is one of those stories that is found ONLY in John’s Gospel. And like the Nicodemus story, it is a story that gives us a new insight into Jesus’ teaching and into his own growing understanding of his mission.  In Mathew’s Gospel, when Jesus sends his disciples out to preach the Word of God, he specifically tells them:  “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Mathew 10:5).  But here, in this story, Jesus, in a sense, actively seeks out the Samaritan woman.

First, a little background as to why the Samaritans and the Jews were such enemies?  Both Samaritans and Jews claim Jacob, who was later given the name Israel, as their forefather, and so all of them were called Israelites. Jacob, or Israel, had twelve sons, and though initially it was Joseph (of the multicoloured coat) who played a prominent role in their history, later it was the tribe of Judah, the fourth son of Israel, which became the dominant tribe once they came back from Egypt and conquered the land of Canaan. And when the returning Israelities spread all over the land, it so happened that the tribe of Judah set up their homes in the south, while the Samaritans who were the descendants of Joseph and Ephraim (other sons of Israel) began living in the north.  Later the entire land was conquered by the Assyrians, who carted large numbers from both the northern and southern parts into captivity. By the generosity of a later Assyrian king  some Jews were allowed to return and re-establish themselves in their former places, and the descendants went back to where they were before they were taken captive to Assyria.  Each group then started claiming that the other was less faithful to Yahweh. Those in the southern parts, who claimed they belonged to the tribe of Judah, claimed that the Samaritans who settled in the north were not ‘faithful’ to Yahweh as they started marrying others who were not Israelites.  The Samaritans in turn claimed that the tribe of Judah followed the ‘false’ priest Eli who had set up an alternate altar to Yahweh at Shiloh and in doing so had downplayed the importance of Mount Gerizen, the original place of the Tabernacle which housed the Ark of the Covenant, the holiest of Jewish relics. Later when Solomon, who was of the tribe of Judah, built the temple in Jerusalem (in the southern part), the Ark of the Covenant  was moved there.  So both sides blamed the other for not keeping to Yahweh’s commands - one for marrying outside the Israeli faith, and the other for not retaining Mount Gerzeim as the place where the Ark was supposed to be kept, especially as the Samaritans claimed the high priest was of their tribe as the direct descendant of Aaron, the first priest of the Jews.  Consequently, the place to worship Yahweh was always a major point of contention between those of the tribe of Judah and the Samaritans.  So while the Jews and the Samaritans were related by blood, they hated each other primarily because they disagreed on what it meant to be faithful to Yahweh.

The story of the Samaritan woman plays an important role in John’s Gospel. Like Nicodemus, she is part of the group that are not normally within Jesus’ spheres or circles of influence, not part of the crowds that followed him.  With Nicodemus the teaching was that unless one was ‘born again’, i.e. unless one could open one’s mind to completely re-look at what it meant to be religious, one could not be saved.  With the Samaritan woman the teaching was that it is not the physical space but the heart where true worship of God takes place, and so true worship has nothing really to do with the place chosen to worship Yahweh.  

There is a story about Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, which is part historical and part metaphorical.   Nanak, it is reported, was always open to learn from any and every religion, like the mystic Ramakrishna in Hinduism.  So one day Nanak, with his Muslim companion Mardana, decided to visit the Kaaba, the holiest shrine for Muslims. And when they came close to the Kaaba, Nanak told Mardana that he wanted to sleep. But when he went to sleep, he happened to sleep with his leg pointing towards the Kaaba.  Soon somebody saw him and informed the priests who came with guards to correct this sacrilegious act.  When they confronted him, Nanak replied: “I was told by Mardana  that I should not do this as the Kaaba is the holiest place for Muslims. But my difficulty is, that I don’t know where to place my feet. For every place is holy.  But if you are skeptical please turn my feet wherever you want”. The priest then proceeded to turn Nanak’s feet in every direction, and (this is the metaphorical part) they were amazed that the Kaaba also moved to position itself exactly where Nanak’s feet were turned. Nanak was laughing and saying,  “Keep trying.  Don’t leave out any position.” When they tired out, he finally told them: “Every place is holy, the whole of existence is divine. It is not the Kaaba that is holy. Unless you realize that you are yourself filled with divinity, you will never find the divine.”  

This is very similar to Jesus’ response to the theological struggle between the Jews and the Samaritans as to whether it is at Jerusalem, or on Mt. Gerizen, where one could find God. So we hear Jesus (incidentally who was of the tribe of Judah) say in today’s Gospel: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks”.  

 

And this is essentially a message one finds in all major religions. There is a famous  poetic ‘war’ that is recounted between some Muslim poets that also depicts this same message:

 

Mirza Ghalib, a famous Urdu poet once wrote: 

Sharab peene de masjid me baith kar, Ya wo jagah bata, jaha par khuda nahi  

Let me sit in the mosque and drink, or find me a place where God is not present.

 

In response another poet,  Allama Iqbal wrote:

Masjid khuda ka ghar hai, koi peene ki jagah nahi, Kafir ke dil me ja, waha par khuda nahi  

A mosque is a house of God, not a place to drink. And if you want to find a place where God is not present, go to an unbeliever’s heart.  

 

Finally, still another poet, Ahmad Faraz responds:

Kafir ke dil se aaya hun main, ye dekhkar, khuda maajud waha bhi, use maalum nahi hai

I have come from the unbeliever’s heart, and I found that God is present there too; he just doesn’t know it.

 

All this is not to say that there aren’t certain places where we find it easier to lift our hearts to God.  I myself remember going to Notre Dame Cathedral many years ago, which had become quite a touristy place - with tourist groups chattering, and tourist brochures at the entrance.  And yet when I entered the place, I felt a calming peace.  And similarly there are a number of places where we may experience this energy that comes from years of people experiencing God - these could be certain churches, temples, mosques or other places of worship. But it is not the statue in the temple for Hindus, or the Ark of the Covenant for the Jews, or the Kaaba for the Muslims, or the tabernacle for Christians that makes these places holy. It is the experience of God that hallows that statue, that Ark, that Blessed Sacrament chapel, that Kaaba, - so that when new people come, they more easily experience God, and in a virtuous circle these new experiences actually enhance the ‘power’ of that place/object.  Consequently, over much time,  these holy ‘places/objects’ become, like a prism, a way to focus the multicoloured hues of God’s presence for us. But in recognizing this prism let us not forget that it is in our very selves and not in the relic or the tabernacle that the WORD of God is experienced, and truly becomes flesh. Let us not confuse the prism for the light.

First Reading: Exodus 17: 3-7

 

But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.  I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.  And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

 

Second Reading: Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8

 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 

Gospel: John 4: 5-42

 

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.  Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know that the Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.  Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.  Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”