What shall I wear?
It’s a question that never crossed my mind when I turned up to a fancy dress party in plain clothes. Embarassing. It seems to be a question that never crossed the mind of the guest who was caught out at the wedding (Matthew 22:1-14).
He could have argued back. Jesus had, after all, told people not to worry about what to wear (Matthew 6:31), but there he was just tipping his head towards Eden where the boy and girl were unashamed by being in the all-together (Genesis 2:25). At the other bookend (Revelation 21:2) we are shown what we’ll look like when all-together we are got ready by God. “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride for her husband.”
There is a dressing down for those who worry about what they wear, and those who aren’t ready in time. Jesus reminds us that God clothes us. The guest who hadn’t dressed properly wasn’t clothed in righteousness.
There are various dressing prayers. David Adam has a dresing prayer based on St Patrick’s Breastplate. And Jan Richardson has this blessing in her Painted Prayerbook:
In your mercy
clothe me
in your protection
cloak me
in your care
enfold me
in your grace
array me.
With your justice
dress me
for your labor
garb me
by your love
envelop me
and fit me
for your work.
Photo by Paul Vlaar (http://www.neep.net/photo/london/show.php?12881) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Grits and Grains 