Psalm Meditation 896
Proper 15
August 20, 2017

Psalm 122
1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
2 Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.
3 Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together.
4 To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
5 For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.
7 Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
8 For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.”
9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.
(NRSV)

With a central place for worship, everyone was expected to make the trip to Jerusalem at least once a year. So it was a great occasion when so many people gathered into one place for the common purpose of worship. There were smaller weekly gatherings in peoples’ homes, the big deal was the annual gathering. It was exciting, it was something anticipated from the time one returned home one year until time to go again the next.

Certainly there were some for whom the annual trip was a burden and a bore, looked forward to as if it were an onerous task. I can imagine that there were some glares and stares exchanged between people of the two groups as they passed each other on the roads and in the streets. No matter the event or occasion there will be those who long for and those who dread it. Worship, birthdays, dental work just to name a few.

There are events that I dread that turn out to be redemptive experiences. There are events to which I look forward that turn out to be everything I had hoped they would be. Of course a few that are disappointing for a variety of reasons. Know this, boring or blessing, cathartic or catatonic, healing or hellish, God is in the midst of us in every event. Sometimes close, sometimes distant; God is in the midst of us.

August 14, 2017
LCM