An open invitation

I feel like one of the most joy-inducing questions you can hear from friends at the end of a visit—especially if you’ve been there a few days and, like fish, you most likely “stink”—is, “When can you come back?” It means they’re glad to be with you and long to be with you again. You have an open invitation.

This thought makes me smile often as I gather with a small group offriends for Morning Prayer several days a week. The first thing that happens in The Daily Office after confessing our sin, and being reminded of God’s invincible and inexhaustible absolution, is the “recitation as reminder” of an open invitation from God to us; The Venite (a.k.a. Psalm 95). Venite is Latin for the first two words of the Psalm, “O come...”. We’re responding to an open invitation. God is glad to be with us!

This is not a small thing.

When you look for them, you’ll find these kinds of invitations throughout the Scriptures. It’s not surprising then, that when Jesus sought to describe his heart’s essence to his followers (the one and only time this happens in the Gospels), he embedded it in an open invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)