Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Author Mirabai Starr describes how the histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have been shaped by people who were brave enough to listen to and obey God’s call:
Not all prophets do as they are told. Not at first, anyway. When the call comes, most of them turn left and then right: “Who, me?” they murmur. If the call is a true one, the voice of the Holy Spirit will roar: “Yes, you!”
Even then, the prophet will haggle with the Holy One. “There must be someone better suited to speak for the Divine.” But the God of Love is a patient God. The God of Love calls once, twice, three times. Only then does the prophet square her shoulders, gird her loins, open her hands, and say, “Hineni. Here I am.”
The history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam abounds with accounts of great beings who trembled when they were confronted with the presence of the Divine and given a task of global dimensions. Traditionally, this reluctance is implied, rather than stated, yet when we read the scriptures with an open heart, we can feel the anguish behind the submission.
Responding to God’s call always comes at a cost:
It is said that the Divine does not choose the wealthy and powerful to be prophets. [God] picks farmers and illiterate caravan drivers, orphans and poor Jewish virgins. [God] favors the ones who stand up…, talk back…, the ones who challenge the divine directive. When the angel of the Lord told the matriarch Sarah that she was going to become the mother of many nations, Sarah laughed. She was long past the age of childbearing, and the patriarch Abraham was even older. When her son was born the following year, they named him Isaac, which means “laughter.”…
“The prophets of Israel,” Karen Armstrong writes in A History of God, “experienced their God as a physical pain that wrenched their every limb and filled them with pain and elation.” Adrienne von Speyr says that the prophets are “inconsolable.” It is easy to see why they might have been reluctant to answer the call.
It is not only the biblical prophets who paid this price for responding to the divine summons. Prominent modern activists, imbued with the teachings of the God of Love, risked their lives on behalf of the most vulnerable among us….
Countless women and men—known and unknown—stand up every day to give voice to the voiceless—not because it seems like the right thing to do, but because they have no choice: The call comes storming through the gates of their hearts like an invading army, and they stand aside. In the act of surrendering to the Divine, the prophet relinquishes comfort, control, and any hope of being understood.
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| JAN 21, 2026. Skye Jethani Neither on This Mountain Nor on That One |
 There is an old axiom in the real estate business that applies just as well to the ancient theology of temples: “Location, location, location.” As we explored in our Old Testament study of temples, ancient Near Eastern people believed the barrier between the heavens and the earth, between the domain of the gods and of people, was thinner in certain locations. This is why temples were often built on mountaintops or “high places.”Likewise, it was believed that a particular deity could be properly worshiped and encountered only in a specific location. Ancient temples did not function like wifi hotspots where any worshipper could log on to commune with any god they liked. Instead, temples were like dedicated networks where only the deity residing in that temple could be accessed. In other words, no one entered the temple of Artemis with the intent of worshipping Zeus.The importance of temples and their locations explains the deep division that existed between Jews and Samaritans in the first century. The Jews, of course, believed that YHWH could only be properly worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem. This was where David had built his capital a millennium earlier, where he had brought the Ark of the Covenant, and where his son, Solomon, had built a permanent temple for God’s presence to dwell.The Samaritans, however, rejected the legitimacy of the temple in Jerusalem. They saw its construction by Solomon as a political project to solidify the power of David’s dynasty, and not a location chosen by the Lord. Therefore, based on a different reading of the Torah, the Samaritans argued that Mount Gerizim was the proper location of YHWH’s presence and the only legitimate place to worship him. This deep division is highlighted in John 4 when Jesus passed through Samaria and talked with a woman there beside a well. Recognizing that Jesus was a Jew, she was surprised that he would strike up a conversation with her. After all, the bitter disagreement between their communities about the proper location for God’s temple had gotten violent over the centuries, with each side considering the other heretical and even subhuman.The Samaritan woman addressed the division directly. “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem” (John 4:20). With his response, we see Jesus repeating a tension first seen in John 2 when he drove the animals and merchants out of the temple courtyard. On the one hand, Jesus affirms the legitimacy of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Basically, he says the Samaritans are mistaken about Mount Gerizim being the proper location. But, on the other hand, Jesus is quick to dismiss both locations. Right after affirming the temple in Jerusalem, he says it’s irrelevant because the time has come “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth” rather than on this mountain or that one.With one sentence, Jesus dismissed a violent, 800-year-old theological division as moot. The place to truly encounter God was now wherever Jesus was, and the true worshippers—the real people of God—are neither Jews nor Samaritans, but anyone from any nation who humbly comes to him. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well is yet another example of John’s gospel declaring Jesus is the true temple of God who welcomes all people into the presence of his Father. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 4:1-26 WEEKLY PRAYER. From Anselm (1033 – 1109) God of love, whose compassion never fails; we bring before you the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the weak, the despondency of the weary, the failing powers of the aged. O Lord, draw near to each; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. |
