Forward Movement, the excellent resource for many things Episcopal, including the Forward Day by Day booklets many of you are familiar with, has once again challenged people to reflect on one word each day of Advent. Each word is taken from the Sunday liturgy – the prayers and readings for the Sunday in Advent for each of the 4 weeks of the Advent season. I am going to attempt (pray for me) to add a short reflection on each word each day of Advent. To subscribe to the Advent Word series from Forward Movement, click HERE.

December 1st – SAID

From the 1st Sunday of Advent lectionary readings: Psalm 122:1. “I was glad when they SAID to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord’.

Two interesting things in the Psalm verse. First it is a communal invite: let US go. Our faith is a communal faith, Jesus calls us (when 2 or 3 are gathered together) to community, the numbers don’t matter, but isolation, other than those moments of quiet prayer, is not the way. We need each other to both encourage and challenge one another. In this verse one group is encouraging someone to go with them on pilgrimage to a holy place, the house of the Lord. Calling one another to worship the holy one, together. It is fine to commune with God in nature, in your own quiet space, but from those experiences we must then be part of a community of faith, a community with plenty of faults, with people who annoy us and leaders who disappoint us. This is the way. Our Episcopal theology of the Eucharist (Holy Communion is such a great name for this!), we do not consider a Eucharist “valid” if the priest says the prayers alone. It takes a community praying together, offering “our selves, our souls and bodies”, for the ordinary elements of bread and wine to become the real presence of Christ.

Secondly, the group doing the invite (“us”) is quick to say where they want the one being invited to go – to the house of the Lord. This makes the one invited “glad”. As I said in my sermon Sunday, maybe not just glad but also relieved. Peer pressure can often find us going places we really don’t want to go or really should not go. We’ve all been there. There is a sense not just of joy over the invite, but perhaps also relief – I was GLAD when they told me where they wanted me to go with them! Perhaps you know someone who would be overjoyed with just such an invite. You could even warn them – we are sinners and hypocrites, yet we need one another, we need the love of one another along with the love of God. Come with us to the house of the Lord. Be welcome at the table of Christ. Let us go, together. Be glad they SAID let US go to God’s house.