I rejoiced when they said to me,
‘We are going to the House of the Lord.’Psalm 122:1
Do we rejoice when we are called to God’s house?
My hunch is that most of us gather because we feel like we have to. This feeling of duty might be due to a variety of things: upbringing, habit, friendships. None of these things are bad reasons to gather, they are just not conducive to rejoicing.
The ways that the psalmist describes encounters with God always grab my attention. There is joy, passion, and exuberance in these meetings. Something happens when human and divine meet, nothing is ever the same.
I believe that it is no different today. When we gather as God’s people we are invoking the divine to “show up,” pour out your Spirit we pray week after week. Do we realize what we are doing?
I think not . . .
If we did we would be rejoicing, we would be exuberant, we could not wait to get there. We would be constantly anticipating what God is going to do in us and in the world as we gather, as we serve, as we invoke the Spirit upon all flesh.