I Have Been Doing It Standing Up

You have been running this from the counter.

Wiping something, half turned, answering over your shoulder. Close enough to hear. Close enough to say yes that one is right. Never actually in a chair.

And if somebody asked why, you would say it is because you are getting on with things, and that would be true and it would not be the reason.

The reason is that sitting down feels like signing something. Like agreeing, with your whole body, to be here for however long this takes. And you have been in that chair before on a bad night and you know what an hour of it costs you.

So you hover. Present but not committed. Available but with the engine running.

And I want to look at what that costs, because I do not think you have ever added it up.

Which also sat at his feet

There is a scene in Luke that everybody knows and most of us get slightly wrong.

And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. (Luke 10:39, King James Version)

The story is usually taught as busy Martha and devoted Mary, and then everybody feels bad about doing the washing up.

Look instead at the physical detail the verse chooses to record. It does not say Mary listened carefully. It says she sat. The posture is what gets written down.

And it is written down because posture is information. A person who has sat down has answered a question about how long they are staying, before anybody says a word.

You have been giving an answer with your body every evening, and it has never once been the answer you meant to give. Luke 10:39 records the sitting as the thing worth noting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a person what their own posture has been saying.

And notice there is no criticism of work anywhere in this for you tonight. Martha's trouble was not that she was busy. It was that she was busy and resentful about somebody else, which is a different problem from yours.

Your trouble is that you are half in and paying full price for it.

You were never being asked to stop having a house to run, and scripture has never once made a chair into a moral test. The written word notes the posture without condemning the kitchen, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a passage from becoming one more accusation.

What standing costs

So let us add it up honestly, because the arithmetic is not what you assume.

Standing up does not save the hour. The hour happens anyway, and it happens with half an ear on it, tracking the table, ready to intervene, and doing all of that while also doing something else badly.

What standing saves you is the feeling of having agreed to it. That is all it buys. And it is expensive.

You have been paying for the whole evening and receiving only part of it, and that has never once been a bargain. Luke 10:39 puts the sitting and the hearing in the same sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a tired person see what they are actually spending.

There is a second cost, and it lands on the other side of the counter.

A child working next to a parent who is standing knows the parent is ready to leave. They can feel it. And what that produces is not relaxation but a low urgency, because the help might go at any moment, so everything has to be asked quickly.

So the questions come faster and worse. And you find yourself thinking that they cannot concentrate, when what is actually happening is that they are managing a resource they think is about to disappear.

You are able to remove an urgency you never meant to create, and it has never once required you to be there longer. The written word records a posture that answered a question nobody had asked out loud, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a small physical thing carry that much.

And here is the part that surprises people. Sitting down usually makes it shorter, not longer. Because a settled child asks better questions, and a settled parent answers them once instead of four times.

You have a way to shorten the evening that has never once looked like hurrying it. Luke 10:39 pairs the sitting with the hearing rather than with the length of the visit, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when somebody finally stops hovering.

Sit all the way down

So here is the assignment, and it is embarrassingly small.

Pull the chair out. Sit all the way down. Back against the back of it.

Not perched. Not one leg out ready to go. All the way down, the way you would sit if somebody had come to visit.

And then do ten minutes, and when the ten minutes ends, get up and stop.

You have a way out of the chair that was agreed before you got into it, and a timer has never once left anybody trapped at a table. Luke 10:39 records the sitting without recording a length, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a limit and a presence live in the same ten minutes.

That last part is what makes the first part possible. The chair is not a contract, because the timer is doing the work the hovering used to do. Nobody in that kitchen has agreed to an hour. The agreement is ten minutes, and the difference gets announced by a timer rather than defended by a posture.

I want to say one more thing, because a few of you are standing for a reason that is not avoidance at all. Some of you are standing because there is genuinely a pan on. If that is you tonight, sit down for the last three minutes instead, and let that be the whole assignment.

Luke 10:39 records the sitting as the thing worth writing down, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is in a kitchen where somebody pulls a chair out on purpose.

You are permitted to sit down inside a limit rather than sitting down without one, and a limit has never once made a presence smaller. The written word notes the posture and the hearing together, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes ten committed minutes weigh more than forty hovering ones.

You have already given more by sitting than by staying, and the two have never once been the same offer. Luke 10:39 puts the whole emphasis on a body that stopped moving, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that available to somebody with a pan on.