The Good Set Has Been In That Cupboard For Twenty Years

It came in a box and it has been in that cupboard since a year you can name in one syllable.

Twelve of everything. Wrapped. On the shelf above the everyday ones, at the back, where a person needs a chair to get to it properly.

And it has come out twice. You know exactly which two occasions.

Twenty years, twelve of everything, two uses.

I want to name what it has been waiting for, because when it is said out loud the shape of the thing changes.

It has been waiting for an occasion large enough to justify it.

And here is what nobody has said to you about that. The occasion has to be large enough to justify the set, and the set is now so unused that the bar has been going up for twenty years. It started as a dinner party. Somewhere around year eight it became a significant birthday. By now it would take a wedding, and there is not one coming, and if there were it would probably happen somewhere else.

The bar has risen with the years and it is now above anything that will actually occur.

So the set is safe, permanently, from ever being used.

I was afraid, and hid it in the earth

There is a moment at the end of the parable of the talents where the third servant explains himself, and his explanation is worth reading slowly.

And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. (Matthew 25:25, King James Version)

I was afraid, and went and hid it. And notice what he did not do.

He did not lose it. He did not spend it badly or waste it or damage it. He kept it perfectly, and he gives it back in exactly the condition he received it, and he says so with what sounds like a certain amount of confidence.

You are looking at somebody who kept something perfectly and was not commended for it, and a thing kept in perfect condition has never once been a thing well used. Matthew 25:25 has a man hand back an undamaged talent and get no credit for the condition, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so to a woman standing on a chair at a cupboard.

Now look at the reason he gives, because it is the whole of it.

I was afraid.

Not lazy. Not careless. Afraid. And the fear was about the thing being lost or damaged or spent wrongly, and the answer to that fear was to put it somewhere nothing could happen to it.

Which worked. Nothing happened to it. That was the problem.

You are dealing with a fear rather than a habit, and putting something somewhere nothing can happen to it has never once been the same as keeping it. The Spirit of God is the one who names the reason accurately without accusing anybody of not caring, and it is written in Matthew 25:25 that the reason he gave was that he was afraid.

Twenty years, and where it goes next

Now the practical part, and I am going to be direct because it is worth being.

That set is going to be inherited unused.

That is the actual trajectory. Twenty years in, two uses, with the bar rising. In fifteen more years somebody will open that cupboard and find twelve of everything, wrapped, and they will not know what to do with it and they will probably not want it, and the whole life of that object will have been a cupboard.

You have something in that cupboard whose whole life has been a cupboard, and a thing that was never used has never once been a thing that was enjoyed. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman where an object is actually heading, and Matthew 25:25 has a man hand back something undamaged and hear that the condition was not what was asked for.

And here is the part that matters. When somebody inherits it, what they inherit is not china. It is a story about a woman who had the best thing in the house and never once ate off it.

That is what gets passed down. Not the plates. The fact of them being unused.

You are able to pass on something used rather than something stored, and the story attached to an object has never once been about its condition. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a woman where a thing is currently heading, and Matthew 25:25 has a man return something in perfect condition and be told it was not the point.

And the other direction is available and it costs nothing.

One piece, out, this week, for something ordinary. And then it has been used. And then the set is a set that gets used, and the bar is gone, permanently, because a bar cannot survive one ordinary Tuesday underneath it.

You are one ordinary meal away from a set that gets used, and a twenty year bar has never once been able to survive one plate at a plain dinner. The Spirit of God is the one present at an unremarkable meal on good china, and it is written in Matthew 25:25 that the fear produced perfect condition and nothing else.

And this, plainly, in these words. That cupboard is not a report on you. Not on your generosity, not on your sense, not on whether you know how to enjoy anything. Twenty years of a wrapped set is not a verdict on the woman who wrapped it, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a cupboard, and what has been kept safe has never once been a measure of anybody. Matthew 25:25 puts the reason in the fear in Matthew 25, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the kitchen with you.

One piece, ordinary use

So here is the assignment, and the word ordinary is carrying it.

Take one piece of the good set out tonight and use it for something entirely ordinary this week.

One piece. Not the set, not four settings, not enough for anybody. One plate or one cup.

Get the chair. Reach in. Unwrap it. That will take a minute and it may be an odd minute.

You are able to take one piece out without a decision about the rest, and one plate off a shelf has never once been the beginning of anything anybody has to organize. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman gets a chair and reaches to the back of a cupboard, and Matthew 25:25 has the whole failure sitting in something being kept where nothing could happen to it.

Then use it for something ordinary. Deliberately ordinary. Toast. Soup out of a tin. Whatever Wednesday actually is in that house.

Not a nice meal. Not a small occasion arranged around it, because an occasion arranged around it is the bar reasserting itself in a smaller costume.

Ordinary. On a Wednesday. With nothing said about it.

And then wash it and put it in the everyday stack, and that is the whole thing, and the set is now a set that gets used.

You are ending a twenty year bar with a piece of toast, and something in the everyday stack has never once been safer in a cupboard nobody opens. The Spirit of God is the one present at a plain meal on a good plate, and it is written in Matthew 25:25 that the man who kept it perfectly was the one who had got it wrong.