I Serve And I Never Receive

She is the one with the tissues.

Not metaphorically. She has an actual pack in her actual bag and it has been there for nine years, and there is a particular movement she does, a half turn and a reach, that about forty women in that congregation would recognize instantly.

She is also the one who stands behind. When somebody goes up to the front, she goes up too and she stands behind them and puts one hand between their shoulder blades and she does not say anything, and it is one of the most useful things that happens in that building on any given Sunday and nobody has ever put it on a schedule.

And in nine years, not once has anybody stood behind her.

That is not a complaint about them. She would want that written down twice. They would. Of course they would. There are women in that room who would drop everything, and one of them, a large woman called Marlene who does not miss much, has asked her directly three times, in three different years, in the same words: and who is holding you up, baby?

And she has said, all three times, some version of oh, I am all right, with a laugh in it, and moved.

She is fifty-seven.

The last time she received anything in that building, and she can date it, was nine years ago in the week after the thing happened. And for about eleven days people carried her, and she let them, and then on the twelfth day she got up and made a decision she has never described to anybody, including herself, in plain words.

The decision was: never again from this side.

She has been on the other side ever since, and she is extraordinary at it, and it is not fake, and every hand between every set of shoulder blades has been real.

And there is a thing that happens about twice a year, usually somewhere quiet, and it goes: if they knew the whole of it, would they still come and get me.

What the serving has been doing

I want to say something at the start about the serving itself, because you are going to spend this whole page braced for me to call it a fraud and I am not going to.

Nine years of a hand between shoulder blades is nine years of the real thing. Nothing on this page takes that off you, and the forty women who know the tissue movement are not mistaken about you, and God has not been reading it as performance.

What we are looking at is not whether it is genuine. It is what else it is doing.

Because a woman who is always the one arriving is a woman who is never the one being arrived at, and after nine years that is not a role any more, it is a wall, and it is a very good one, because nobody in the world can object to it. You cannot be accused of hiding while you are demonstrably helping.

Now here is where you are actually being invited, and I want you to notice the posture in it.

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.Hebrews 10:22

Let us draw near. That is a movement toward, not a standing behind, and the writer puts it in the first person plural, which means the person writing includes himself among those who need to do it.

And look at what makes it possible. Not readiness. Not worthiness. A heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, which is something done to a person, and a body washed, which is also something done to a person. Both are passive. Neither is achieved by serving anybody.

You are invited to draw near, in full assurance, with a conscience that has already been dealt with, and that is not encouragement for a woman with a pack of tissues, it is what is written, and the Holy Spirit is the reason it is landing on the twelfth day rather than on your extensive working knowledge of Hebrews.

Now let me go at the decision, because you named it and it deserves to be met.

Never again from this side.

You made that at fifty-seven minus nine, on the twelfth day, after eleven days of being carried, and I want to say the obvious thing about it: nobody makes that decision unless being carried cost them something. Eleven days of receiving did something to you that you did not have a category for, and you closed the door rather than find out what it was.

That is not weakness. It is what a competent woman does with an unbearable variable.

But it has cost you nine years of one half of the church's life, and Scripture puts drawing near in the imperative, and the Spirit of God has been in you the whole nine years, standing behind forty women, being the very thing you would not receive.

I want to say something about Marlene, because she is the most interesting person in your account.

She has asked you three times, in three different years, in the same words. You have been noticed, accurately, by somebody who does not miss much, three separate times. That is not an accident and it is not nothing, and God does not usually send the same question three times through the same large woman by coincidence.

And here is the last of it. You are welcome to draw near as the one who is carried and not only as the one who carries. The word says the hearts are sprinkled and the bodies washed and the drawing near is done in full assurance, and the Spirit is the seal on all of it, and the question you visit twice a year, if they knew the whole of it, was answered before you asked it, in a sentence about a conscience that has already been dealt with.

And if what is on you is heavier than this, if it has got as far as not wanting to be here at all, please tell one human being today. A doctor, a crisis line in your own country, one person who can sit with you. That is not a detour from any of this. It is part of it, and you are worth the phone call.

You are invited to draw near, in full assurance, with a conscience that has already been dealt with. Scripture says the hearts are sprinkled and the bodies washed, both done to a person, and the Holy Spirit is the one who did the sprinkling nine years ago.