The Cup Beside the Houseplant

For the one who set it out and then stood still for a very long time.

What, exactly, were you waiting to hear before you'd pick it up?

There's a small plate on the windowsill with a piece of bread on it, and a cup standing beside it. Behind both of them is a houseplant that needs watering and has needed it for a fortnight.

You set them out about twenty minutes ago. You had thought about it for most of the afternoon, which is unusual for you, and then you did it quickly, before anything in you had a chance to produce a reason for stopping.

Then you stood there. Twenty minutes, near enough, with your arms folded, looking at a piece of bread on a windowsill in a flat where nobody else lives.

It has been six years since you last received anything. You couldn't say precisely why the run stopped, only that a gap opened at some point, that the gap then became a length of time, and that the length of time eventually became its own reason for never starting again.

He gave the thanks Himself, and you've been waiting to hear something that was already said at the table. The written word puts the thanksgiving in His hands, and the Spirit has not asked you to supply it.

What You Were Waiting to Hear

Work out the content of the missing words, because until you've named them they keep their authority.

You were waiting for a sentence of permission delivered in an authoritative voice. Something formal, said over the bread by somebody appointed to say it, which converts an ordinary piece of bread on a windowsill into the thing you remember from twenty years of rooms.

That's a reasonable expectation and it comes from experience. Every time you received anything, in every room you ever received it, words were said first by somebody standing at the front, and the words always came before the taking.

So your body has learned an order of operations, which is words first and then bread. With the first part unavailable, the second part has stalled for six years.

Your six years are an order of operations rather than a refusal. The written word supplies the words that were said first, and the Spirit brings them to a windowsill.

When He Had Given Thanks

Here's the verse, and the clause to stop at is the one about who gave thanks.

And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.1 Corinthians 11:24 (KJV)

When he had given thanks. He gave them. Not a representative, not an appointed figure standing at the front, not anybody in the room except the one whose body was about to be broken.

The thanksgiving that establishes this was given once, by Him, at that table. It isn't a formula that requires re-issuing by an authorized person before each occasion, and there's nothing in the verse that suggests otherwise.

Paul said that to a congregation who'd made a considerable mess of the whole thing, and it carries across to a windowsill with a houseplant behind it.

The thanks were given once, by Him, and were never assigned to anybody else. The written word records who gave them, and the Spirit has not moved that to another office.

Six Years Is Not a Disqualification

Deal with the length of time directly, because it's become an argument in its own right.

You have started to treat the six years as evidence against yourself. A person who has been away that long must surely have drifted, and a person who has drifted should presumably re-establish something before presuming to take anything at all.

Nothing in the text supports that. There's no waiting period, no restoration process specified, and no suggestion that a gap creates a debt that must be paid down before the bread becomes available again.

The Corinthians Paul was addressing were not in good standing by any measure. They were getting drunk at it, humiliating the poorer members, and dividing themselves into factions. He corrected them sharply and then told them how to do it properly, which is not how anybody treats people who have forfeited a right.

Read that chapter through and notice that the remedy is never withdrawal. The remedy is always instruction, aimed at people who are going to carry on doing this because it belongs to them.

A gap has never been treated as a debt that must be paid down first. The written word corrects and then instructs, and the Spirit has kept the bread available throughout your six years.

I Am Not Telling You Six Years Was Nothing

Be honest, because pretending the gap didn't matter would be its own kind of dishonesty.

Something was lost in those years and you know what it was a great deal better than I do. It is worth grieving properly, and it is worth asking, at some point and with somebody, how the gap first opened and whether any of that is still live.

Nor am I telling you that you should stay on a windowsill forever. If a table with others at it becomes possible, take it.

What I want off you is the six years of waiting. Not the seriousness. Not the honesty about how long it's been.

Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.

Written by Zariah This message is free. Nothing here is locked, nothing is for sale, and nothing is being asked of you.