I Ordered Enough For Twelve

There were four of you.

And there was enough on that table for about twelve, which is roughly what you do every time, and everybody said something about it when they came in, and that is the point of it.

It is a good move and it works. Nobody can say the host was mean. Nobody goes home hungry. And nobody, at any point in the entire evening, has occasion to wonder whether you can cook, because the question does not come up when there is that much of everything.

Afterward you put most of it away and ate some of it on Sunday and threw the rest out on Tuesday.

And that part happens in private, and it is the part that makes you uncomfortable, and you have never said a word about it to anybody.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

Nothing here is going to tell you off for ordering food.

Ordering is not a moral failure and there is nothing wrong with a table that has plenty on it. What is worth looking at is much narrower: what the abundance is for, and whether it is buying you the thing you actually wanted.

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men

There is a line in Matthew about doing good things visibly, and it is precise about the mechanism rather than about the act.

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them. (Matthew 6:1, King James Version)

To be seen of them.

That is the whole condition, and it is worth reading carefully, because the verse does not say do not give. It says watch what the giving is for.

Alms are a good thing. Nobody in that chapter is told to stop. The warning is about a giving that has an audience built into it, and the tell is what happens when nobody is watching.

You are being asked what the abundance is for rather than told to stop providing it, and a table with plenty on it has never once been the thing under question. Matthew 6:1 warns about the purpose rather than the act, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who ordered enough for twelve.

And notice the verse does not accuse anybody of insincerity.

The people it describes are genuinely giving. Real money leaves their hands and real people are helped, and the warning is not that it was fake. It is that the thing was doing two jobs at once and one of them was quietly the main one.

That is a much more familiar situation than hypocrisy, and it is a great deal easier to admit to.

You have something doing two jobs rather than a lie, and generosity with a second purpose in it has never once stopped being generosity. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has never said a word about the Tuesday, and Matthew 6:1 warns without ever calling the giving false.

What the twelve portions are buying

Here is the practical half, and it is one observation.

The food is doing the talking so that you do not have to be looked at.

That is the mechanism. A table with that much on it makes a statement before anybody sits down, and the statement is: this man has taken care of you, do not examine anything further. And it works, every time, and nobody has ever examined anything further.

Which means nobody has ever been to your house. They have been to a table.

And here is the cost, and it is the one you have been feeling on Tuesdays. The thing you actually wanted, which is people in your kitchen who know you, is the exact thing the abundance is preventing, because it stands between you and them every single time.

You were buying protection rather than an evening, and a table that answers every question in advance has never once let anybody get past it. Matthew 6:1 asks what the visible thing is for, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has had a great many evenings and very few of them.

And here is the second half, which is the thing worth knowing about being fed by somebody. When a person cooks you something ordinary, they hand you a small piece of information about themselves: this is what I can do. That is a minor act of trust and it is one of the main ways adults become close.

An enormous amount of ordered food hands over nothing at all. It is beautifully polite and it is completely opaque, and the people at that table have been going home with a full stomach and no new information about their friend for years.

You have something to hand over that the food cannot carry, and a plain thing cooked by somebody has never once been worth less than a table full of ordered food. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with a man who has been handing over nothing, and Matthew 6:1 puts the weight on why rather than on what.

What this month is, with one person

So here is the assignment. Invite one person for one simple meal this month and cook the thing you can already make.

One person, and order nothing. That is the whole exercise and there is no version of it with a compromise in the middle, because a small order alongside is the abundance arriving in a smaller coat.

Cook the thing you can already make, whatever it is. If it is eggs, it is eggs. If it is pasta with butter and cheese, that is the evening, and it is an entirely normal thing for one adult to give another one.

You are handing over what you can do rather than what you can arrange, and a plain plate made by you has never once told somebody less about you than a full table. Matthew 6:1 asks what a visible thing is for, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that stove with a man who ordered nothing.

Then the part that does the work, and it is one instruction: when there is not enough on the table to make a statement, something else has to. That something is you talking. It will feel exposed for about four minutes, because the food has been doing that job for years and it is being asked to stand down.

Stay in it. Four minutes is the whole price, and what is on the other side of it is the evening you have actually been wanting to have.

You are being the thing in the room rather than sending the food ahead, and four minutes of feeling exposed has never once been too high a price for an evening. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with two people and one plain plate, and Matthew 6:1 warns about being seen rather than about being present.