We continue through the Psalms of Ascent: today, Psalm 122, and it’s no surprise that Peterson, in his essay on this psalm from A Long Obedience in the Same Direction calls it “Worship.” A long memorized verse:

I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up to the House of the Lord. (Psalm 122.1, KJV)

Here’s all of Psalm 122 in Peterson’s Message paraphrase:

• When they said, “Let’s go to the house of GOD,” my heart leaped for joy. And now we’re here, O Jerusalem, inside Jerusalem’s walls! (1, 2)
• Jerusalem, well-built city, built as a place for worship! The city to which the tribes ascend, all GOD’s tribes go up to worship, To give thanks to the name of GOD— this is what it means to be Israel. Thrones for righteous judgment are set there, famous David-thrones. (3 – 5)
• Pray for Jerusalem’s peace! Prosperity to all you Jerusalem-lovers! Friendly insiders, get along! Hostile outsiders, keep your distance! For the sake of my family and friends, I say it again: live in peace! For the sake of the house of our God, GOD, I’ll do my very best for you. (6 – 9)

Before I get to Peterson, let me share my immediate observation. “Pray for Jerusalem’s peace! … Friendly insiders, get along…live in peace! For the sake of the house of our God.”

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” is a rallying cry for all lovers of Israel. And it’s a good prayer. But a more immediate prayer is for the peace of our congregations!

Back to Peterson who equates, as most pastors do, “Let us go up to the house of the Lord” with attending church, and attending church equals worship. Without challenging that framework, let’s look at a few samples of what Peterson has to say.

Psalm 122 is the song of a person who decides to go to church and worship God. It is a sample of the complex, diverse and worldwide phenomenon of worship that is common to all Christians. It is an excellent instance of what happens when a person worships…Psalm 122 is the psalm of worship—a demonstration of what people of faith everywhere and always do: gather to an assigned place and worship their God.

I remember a Navigator colleague challenging me once on why Navigators should be ministering in churches (as opposed to “out there among the lost”). He said, “There aren’t 10 percent of the people in churches on Sunday morning.” I responded, “There aren’t 10 percent of the people anywhere, including on tennis courts where you like to minister!” Peterson goes farther:

An excellent way to test people’s values is to observe what we do when we don’t have to do anything, how we spend our leisure time, how we spend our extra money. Even in a time when church attendance is not considered to be on the upswing in the United States, the numbers are impressive. There are more people at worship on any given Sunday, for instance, than are at all the football games or on the golf links or fishing or taking walks in the woods. Worship is the single most popular act in this land. So when we hear the psalmist say, “When they said, ‘Let’s go to the house of GOD,’ my heart leaped for joy,” we are not listening to the phony enthusiasm of a propagandist drumming up business for worship; we are witnessing what is typical of most Christians in most places at most times. This is not an exception to which we aspire; it is an instance of the average.

He continues:

Why do we do it? …The psalm singles out three items:

• worship gives us a workable structure for life;
• worship nurtures our need to be in relationship with God;
• worship centers our attention on the decisions of God. (Bulleted for clarity)

Peterson expands on that second point by focusing on attending worship services as an act of obedience:

But very often we don’t feel like it, and so we say, “It would be dishonest for me to go to a place of worship and praise God when I don’t feel like it. I would be a hypocrite.” The psalm says, I don’t care whether you feel like it or not: as was decreed (RSV), “give thanks to the name of GOD.”

I have put great emphasis on the fact that Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But I have never said that we worship because we feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshiped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship. Feelings are important in many areas but completely unreliable in matters of faith. Paul Scherer is laconic:

“The Bible wastes very little time on the way we feel.”

My Alcoholics Anonymous friends tell me there’s a saying in AA that goes something like, “I don’t care how you feel, as you long as you stay sober.”

We live in what one writer has called the “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. (emphasis mine)

So the message is: participate in public worship. He concludes with:

It is inevitable that we ask regarding worship, is it worth it? Can you justify the time and energy and expense involved in gathering Christians together in worship? Well (and he quotes Charles Spurgeon):

look at the mower in the summer’s day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labour—is he a sluggard? He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe, with rink-atink, rink-atink, rink-atink. Is that idle music—is he wasting precious moments? How much he might have mowed while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe! But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives his strength to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him.

Public worship is sharpening the tool.

We must never be too busy to take time to sharpen the saw. – Stephen Covey

Therefore, I would add that one hour on Sunday is good but not enough. We can sharpen the saw and “go up to the house of the Lord daily,” inspired, in part perhaps, by our Sunday experience.

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. (Psalm 5.3, NIV)

PS Worshiping God at church on Sunday is good. Worshiping God through everyday service is better – see tomorrow’s blog!