That's ours!

It was reported on the late news last night that fighting broke out in Bethlehem in the Christan church there as they prepared for the festival to celebrate the birth of Jesus. But it wasn't Christans defending their building against other opposing religions. It was amongst the clerics of the different factions within the Christian faith - Christian cleric against Christian cleric, fighting with the brooms they had been using to clean and prepare the church! They each had their own small patch of the church building that they were preparing and apparently one section inadvertently strayed into someone else's patch. Eventually the local police were brought in to break up the fighting and calm the situation.

We may smile but even in this country, how often have we heard a denomination referred to as 'my/our church' and I have known some who would not dream of entering into the building of another denomination that they considered somehow not as good, holy or right in their ways or beliefs, they interpret Scripture differently or they emphasise something others consider not quite as important.

But I am reminded of David who wrote a song 'The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.' (Psalm 24:1)

Many years later Jesus, talking to the woman at the well said, 'Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ... ... Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.'

It seems to me that when a particular place, whether building or location, becomes more important than the worship itself, then in defending the plot, humanity has actually lost the plot. Christians believe that God is everywhere and yet we seem to regard some places as more holy than others even within the same building. I'm sure it must sadden God when He looks and knows that after over 2000 years of Jesus uttering those words, his creation still struggles to grasp the truth of them.