The Cups From Both Rooms

For the caretaker who keeps ending up responsible for a question nobody gave him.

It's twenty to ten on a Wednesday, and there are two sets of cups on the same draining board.

The first group left at eight and stacked theirs neatly, the way that group always does. The second finished at half past nine and left theirs in a loose row, the way that group always does. Two congregations, one rented hall, two evenings a week, one sink.

He's the caretaker. He's been here eleven years, he has both sets of keys, and he knows a great deal about both rooms that neither would guess he knows. He knows which one runs over and which one starts late. He knows which one leaves the heating too high and which one always folds the chairs.

What he doesn't know, and what he finds himself thinking about with his hands in the water, is which of them he's supposed to think is right.

Nobody's ever asked him that. He's simply been standing between the two of them for eleven years, and somewhere in there he picked up the idea that standing in the middle means having to decide.

You've been carrying a decision that was never handed to you, about a table that was never yours. The written Word puts the bread in Christ's own hands before it was ever in a room's keeping, and the Holy Spirit makes that ownership real over the sink you're standing at tonight.

The Weight of Standing in the Middle

There's a particular exhaustion that belongs to the person who has both sets of keys.

You hear both rooms describe each other, usually kindly and always incompletely. You watch one group pray for something and the other group pray for the opposite thing, and you love people in both. You're trusted by everybody precisely because you've never said which side you're on, and that trust costs you something nobody sees.

After eleven years the neutrality stops feeling like peace and starts feeling like homelessness. You're welcome everywhere and you belong nowhere, and the only room where you can say anything honestly is the one with the mop in it.

That isn't cynicism, and it certainly isn't a lack of faith. It's what happens to anybody who's been standing between two tables long enough to assume that the standing is a verdict he owes somebody.

Whose Hands the Bread Was In

Here's the account of the night it was instituted, in its plainest form:

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.Luke 22:19 (KJV)

Count the hands in that sentence. He took the bread, gave thanks over it, broke it, then gave it away, and every one of those verbs belongs to Him. The disciples appear in the line only as the ones receiving.

There's no committee in it, no room, no arrangement and no discipline. All of that came later, developed by people trying to guard something precious, and I'm not sneering at a minute of it. But the origin is four verbs and one pair of hands.

You're standing in a hall where the bread's first owner has never changed hands. The written Word puts every verb of that night in Christ's grip, and the Holy Spirit keeps that ownership live in both rooms you hold keys for.

The Caretaker Was Never the Owner

Here's what I'd take out of that kitchen if I could carry only one thing.

There's a difference between the person who holds the keys and the person who owns the house. A caretaker locks up, sets the heating, knows where the stopcock is, and can tell you what happened in that building for eleven years. None of that makes it his, and the moment he starts feeling responsible for what the house is for, he's taken on a job that was never in his contract.

You've done exactly that with the question of the two tables. You hold the keys, so you assumed you also hold the verdict. You don't. The Owner has never once asked you to decide which of His rooms has understood Him best.

You can hold every key in the building and still not be the one who owns the table. The written Word keeps the bread in His hands from the first night onward, and the Holy Spirit is the one carrying the responsibility you've been trying to carry at a sink.

Nothing Here Rules on Either Room

Let me be plain, because there's a version of this message that would do harm and I refuse to write it.

I'm not telling you which group has it right, and I'm not hinting at it either. Both of those rooms are full of people who love Christ and who've thought about this with more care than a stranger writing to you can measure. Neither of them is a corruption of anything.

Where you approach and where you remain seated is not mine to say. That's between you, your own church and the Lord, and nothing in this message is a ruling on anybody's practice.

You can honor both rooms completely and still be free of deciding between them. Scripture answers whose it is and leaves the approaching alone, and the Holy Spirit gives you peace about the half that is fixed.

Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.