Not One Of My Mugs Has A Match

Open the cupboard and count them.

There is the one from a wedding favor. Two from the set that used to be four. One with a company name on it that came home from somebody's work. The huge one nobody likes. The chipped one you keep because it holds the right amount. The one a child painted at some point.

Eleven mugs, no two the same.

And when somebody comes over, there is a small decision that happens in your kitchen that nobody else in the world knows about. You stand at the cupboard with your back to them and choose which one is least embarrassing.

That is a strange thing to do about a cup of coffee, and it is worth looking at, and I am not going to pretend it is silly, because it is not silly. It is a real thing that happens in real kitchens every day and almost nobody says it out loud.

So here is what I want to do with the next fifteen minutes.

I want to look at what a cup handed to a person actually is in Scripture, because it turns up in a surprising place and it is treated with a seriousness that will change what is happening in that cupboard.

And then we are going to put three of them on the counter on purpose, and you are going to drink out of one of them in front of somebody.

A cup of water in my name

There is a line in Mark where Jesus is talking about small things and he picks the smallest one available.

For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. (Mark 9:41, King James Version)

A cup of water. Not a meal. Not hospitality on a scale that requires preparation. The smallest possible act of giving somebody something to drink.

You are performing the exact act Jesus stopped to mention by name, and the cup it is handed in has never once been the part He commented on. Mark 9:41 names the giving of a cup and says nothing whatever about the vessel, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that in a kitchen with a cupboard door open.

Now look at what makes it count in that verse, because He is precise about it.

In my name. Because ye belong to Christ. Those are the two conditions, and they are the only two, and there is not a third one about the crockery.

I say that lightly and I mean it seriously. Jesus had the opportunity, in that sentence, to attach a standard to the act of handing somebody a drink. He named the giving. He named whose name it is done in. He stopped there.

You have the two things that verse actually requires, and a mismatched cupboard has never once come between a person and the thing Christ promised to reward. The Spirit of God is the one who makes an ordinary drink into what Mark 9:41 describes, and it is written in that verse that the reward is not lost.

What the cupboard actually holds

Let me go through those eleven again, and this time name the source.

The wedding favor is a day somebody stood up at. The two that survive from a set of four are eleven years of one household. The one with the company name came home in somebody's bag. The chipped one holds the right amount and has been kept for that reason, which is a decision. The painted one was made by a child who is now considerably taller.

Not one of those mugs is a failure to have a set. Every one of them is an event.

You are opening a cupboard full of events, and a shelf of singles has never once been the same thing as a shelf of leftovers. The Holy Spirit is the one who reads a household's objects as a history, and Mark 9:41 puts the whole weight of the act in the name it is done in.

And here is what the choosing at the cupboard door costs, which is the thing I actually want to reach.

It is not that the guest notices the mug. They do not. Nobody has ever driven home thinking about somebody else's crockery.

It is that for about four seconds, in your own kitchen, with your back to a person you like, you were managing an impression instead of making a drink. And that four seconds happens every single time, and over years it means that having somebody over always includes one small moment of being on the back foot in your own house.

You are able to hand somebody a cup without a decision behind your back, and four seconds of choosing has never once made a drink more welcome. The Spirit of God is the one who takes the calculation out of a small act of kindness, and it is written in Mark 9:41 that a cup of water given in His name loses nothing.

And this, plainly. A cupboard of singles is not a report on you. Not on your home, not on your standard, not on how well you are doing. Eleven unmatched mugs are not a verdict on the woman standing at the cupboard, and I am not going to let them be read that way while she is reaching for one.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a cupboard, and what a household drinks out of has never once been a statement about who lives there. Mark 9:41 makes the name the thing that counts in Mark 9, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is standing in the kitchen with you.

Three on the counter, and drink out of one

So here is the assignment.

Put three mugs that do not match on the counter together on purpose tonight, and use one of them yourself in front of somebody.

Three, from three different sources, as unlike each other as possible. The painted one. The company one. The chipped one you actually like.

Out on the counter, not in the cupboard. Arranged, spaced, standing there like they are meant to be there.

You are putting the whole cupboard on show by choice rather than hiding one at a time, and three unmatched mugs on a counter have never once made a kitchen look worse than a closed door. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman stops managing an impression in her own house, and Mark 9:41 attaches the reward to the name and to nothing else.

Then the second half, and it is the part that does the work.

Drink out of one of them in front of somebody. The chipped one, ideally, or the one you would never hand a guest.

Not as a statement. Do not say anything about it. Just use it, in front of another person, in the ordinary way that a woman uses a mug in her own kitchen.

Because the four seconds at the cupboard door is a habit, and habits are not argued out of anybody. They are replaced by a different action done once and then again.

You are replacing a four second habit with an ordinary act, and one mug used in front of somebody has never once been too small a thing to break a nine year reflex. The Spirit of God is the one present in a plain moment in a kitchen, and it is written in Mark 9:41 that the giving of a cup in His name is what is counted.