I am reading a book which talks about what is or isn’t the holiest hour of the week for church folks. The author does not believe it is Sunday morning at 11am or 1030 or whatever times your church has their Sunday worship service. I have thought about that statement and how very true it is at least of the churches I have been a member of. The last church I was a member in I even heard it said that you should leave your baggage at the door that church is no place for all that personal stuff. Now you need to know a little more about that church in order to appreciate that comment. We had a way of piling our baggage up in the sanctuary and then prying it all open and throwing it at one another so that statement about leaving baggage at the door might have been some good advice for that church. However it does seem wrong that the church is not the place for our baggage and for our honesty. Why is it that we put on our Sunday best before entering the church doors? Why is it when someone has the audacity to show up “just as the are” which is what the website and Facebook group says that the church welcomes, that people talk about them and whisper about them in not so good ways? The church really doesn’t want you to show up just as you are. They really would rather that you put on your Sunday best and leave your baggage at the door. Well, I don’t want to do church that way anymore. I don’t want to dig through my closet for my Sunday best. I want to come as I am. I want to bring my baggage and I want to dump it on the altar. I want to hear what the other church people really think. I want honesty. Do you think that after Jesus would preach to the large crowds of people that he and his disciples would go back to their campsite or upper room and talk about the people in the crowd? Do you think they were only honest when it was just the few of them? I hope not. I hope my faith is built on something more than pretty Sunday bonnets and nice pressed dressed pants. It is my experience that pretty Sunday services rarely if ever change our life for the better. I don’t often meet Jesus in that hour on Sunday where everyone is on their best behavior and all cleaned up. I have seen Jesus on Monday evening when friends have gathered to talk about what a long day they had a work. I’ve met up with Jesus at hospitals where people show up just as they are because when that person you love is in an emergency situation, your Sunday best is not what you need. You come as you are. You often run as you are. You don’t stop to make it all pretty. What is it that makes us more honest in that situation than when we meet up for church on Sunday morning? I think we are trying to dress up for God. We really don’t believe He loves us just as we are or that He made us just as we are or we wouldn’t try to dress up what we are. We know that person laying in the emergency room loves us no matter what so we come running just as we are. We might be dirty and tired but we come running. So I want that in a church. I want to know that I am loved just as I am. I don’t want to put on some Sunday Bonnet. Maybe everyone else will still be in his or her Sunday best but if I come then I am coming as I am. Just as I am.