The Meal Already Eaten

The guests have eaten. That is the thing about this evening that everybody in the room understands except Karim.

They ate well. They ate for two hours. The bread went round three times and the lentils were finished and somebody wiped the pot out with the last of the flatbread, which is the sincerest review a cook ever gets. They are sitting back now with tea, and the youngest is asleep across two laps, and the conversation has reached the stage where nobody is really saying anything and nobody wants to leave.

And Karim is at the stove with his back to the room, starting something else.

His sister has already told him to sit down twice. His mother has told him once, which counted for more. He said he was only heating something, and then he got the onions out, and now there is a pan going, and everyone can hear it, and there is a particular quality to the silence in that room, because they all know what this is and none of them will say it.

Karim does not believe the meal happened.

He knows they ate. He watched them eat. But somewhere underneath that, in a place he could not explain if you asked him kindly, he does not believe he has fed anybody, and so he is going to cook again, because cooking again is the only thing that has ever quieted it, and it quiets it for about forty minutes.

His mother watches him for a while from the cushions. Then she says his name, once, and when he turns round she says: "Habibi. They are full. Come and be full with them."

And I am going to say the same thing to you, because you have your own stove.

You have prayed that prayer again. Maybe last night, maybe this morning in the car. And you did it for the same reason Karim gets the onions out: not because you decided anything was wrong, but because saying it again is the only thing that quiets the noise, and it quiets it for about forty minutes.

One offering, and the word for what it did

Let me say the pit plainly, and let me first say what it is not, because you have been ashamed of it and the shame is misplaced.

It is not greed and it is not unbelief in God. You believe in God enormously. It is that you cannot get the finishing to stay finished on your side of it. And nobody has ever been able to shame a person out of this. Being told to stop praying it only adds a second thing to worry about, so we are not going to do that, and nothing here is going to forbid you to pray.

What we are going to do is read one sentence with a word in it that settles the whole question.

For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.Hebrews 10:14

Take the sentence apart slowly, because every phrase in it is load-bearing.

By one offering. One. The whole argument of that chapter is that the old sacrifices had to be repeated precisely because they never finished anything, and this one did not have to be repeated because it did.

He hath perfected. Past tense, completed. Not is perfecting, not will perfect if it takes.

For ever. This is the phrase that meets you at the stove. Not for a while. Not until the noise comes back at eleven at night. For ever.

You have been perfected forever by one offering, and it is already done, and the forever in it was written for exactly the hour when it stops feeling done. I am not comforting a tired man in his own kitchen. It is written in Hebrews 10:14, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries a sentence about one offering to a man who has the onions out again.

What the repeating is actually saying

Now here is the part that is worth seeing clearly, and it is not a rebuke.

When Karim cooks again, he is not insulting his guests. He is telling the truth about himself: that he cannot believe he has given enough. The cooking is a confession, and it is an honest one, and it deserves to be answered rather than scolded.

But watch what it does to the room. Every one of those guests is full, and every one of them is now sitting there unable to enjoy being full, because the host will not sit down. The repeating does not add hospitality. It takes the meal off the table and puts it back in the pot.

You are not adding anything to a finished work by going back to it, and it is already complete, and the completeness is His and not something you are propping up. Scripture says that where there is remission of sins there is no more offering for sin (Hebrews 10:18), and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a sentence about offerings arrive as permission to sit down.

Sit down and be fed by the one you keep serving

And here is the turn, and it is the tender part.

Karim's mother did not say, stop cooking. She said, come and be full with them. She moved him from one side of the table to the other.

That is what is being offered here. Not a rule against praying, but an invitation to a different position: from the one who keeps producing the meal to the one who eats it. Because underneath all this repeating is a man who has never once sat down at a table where he was not responsible for the food.

You are invited to eat, and the table is already laid, and it was laid by somebody who did all of the cooking. It is written that He has perfected forever those who are being made holy, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a man by the arm at his own stove and turns him toward the cushions.