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In the time of Jesus, life was a long climb toward status. Even though most folks were poor, they seemed alert to any slight or any step upward. This generation relaxed some of the outward  signs of status. The girls watch Mad Men, about an ad agency in the early sixties with all sorts of signs of status, when women wore gloves and pearls and men wore hats, before the casual revolution. We don't put the stress on honor and status that was present in the time of Jesus. Perhaps the best example is being herded into the pens called coach on the airline and that Eden that is closed off from the common herd, first-class. A Seinfeld episode had Jerry getting massage, champagne and sundaes as he sat next to a model, while Elaine had all the indignities of coach. We do have a quest for status -still there in computers, cell phones, houses, body image come as you are as a rule-We may arrive at church come as you are, but we leave changed. Come as you are and too great a moral tolerance. the cult of the casual includes a casual attitude toward how we are to live.

 

God's complaint is the sound of a hurt, neglected  spouse. It sounds like a bewildered cry, look at all I've done for you. It sounds like a spouse looking back with fondness on the happy early days of a marriage. Saralyn was telling me that the late author Robert Parker and his spouse Joan went to great expense making their home essentially two functioning houses where their lives did not connect very much or often. Here God is yearning for the days of the wilderness, when life with a newly freed people was fresh and new. Notice that in Jeremiah, God notes that not only have the people forgotten, but even the priests do not turn to God in prayer. They complain just like everyone else but don't bother to turn that complaint into lament.

 

Christians have emphasized hospitality toward each other, even of strangers,  but what of God? God opens time and space for creation to exist  and then to live.How does that affect God? In Jesus Christ even the divine life is made to live in communion with a human being. We open the doors of perception to almost anything except God. God we shut out unless we are in extremis. We are inhospitable to the presence of God in terms of time. Put differently, we don;t invite God into our daily lives. Hebrews says , let mutual love continue. That mutuality applies to our relations with God as well.  Let's extend the banquet image of Jesus here. We invite all sorts of folks into our lives, but we neglect to invite God.Couples spend hours looking at invitation fonts and choosing cakes and selecting flowers, but not much thought goes into the wedding service, except that it should be short, but I have yet to hear anyone worry about the length of time for the reception. More and more people skip the wedding but show up at the reception, elegantly clad in t-shirt. In worship we get a framework fo rinviting god into our lives, live for a while in the presence of God. We may arrive in worship come as you are, but  we do not leave as we were. Come as you are should be less about dress and more about our condition: happy, in love, grieving or sick. Know this. God accepts us and loves us as we are. God is always at work bringing the best out in us and hopes to have us look for the best in others.