Make Ready Quickly

Tonight is a pot of lentil soup, and it is here because it is the cheapest thing I know that stretches without getting worse.

Onion, carrot and any celery, chopped small and softened in oil with a little salt. A cup of red lentils, stirred through. Twice as much water or stock as lentils, plus a bit more, and a can of tomatoes if you have one. Lid on, low heat, twenty-five minutes, stirring now and then so it does not catch. Salt it properly at the end and put lemon in it if there is a lemon, which sounds like nothing and changes everything.

It costs almost nothing, it will feed six, and if somebody unexpected turns up you add water and it is still good. That is the entire reason I chose it.

Now, why this article exists.

There is somebody you have been meaning to feed. You know who. It might be the man on his own since his wife went, or the couple who have just had a baby, or the person at work who mentioned something in passing four months ago and you have thought about it ever since.

And you have not done it. Not because you do not care. Because you are waiting until you can do it properly.

Abraham did not tidy up

There is a scene in Genesis that I love because of how fast everything moves in it.

Abraham is sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day and three visitors appear. He does not know who they are yet. He runs to meet them, and then this happens.

And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. (Genesis 18:6, King James Version)

Make ready quickly.

Count the speed in that chapter. He ran to meet them. He hastened into the tent. He ran to the herd. Everything in the passage is at a sprint, and none of it is preparation in the sense we mean it. Nothing was ready. There was no plan. There were three unexpected people and a man moving very fast to put food in front of them.

He did not apologize for the tent and he did not postpone it to a better week.

You are able to do this unprepared, and God has never once asked for a tidy house before He asked for an open door. Genesis 18:6 has a man start cooking at a sprint for people who arrived with no warning at all, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes the shame out of hosting somebody badly.

You have everything this needs already, and readiness has never once been the condition of hospitality. Genesis 18:6 has a man run and say make ready quickly rather than wait until the house was fit, and the Spirit of God is the one who gets somebody moving before the conditions are right.

What proper is actually costing

I want to name the waiting, because it looks like consideration and it is not quite that.

Doing it properly means: when the house is right, when I have time to make something good, when I am not this tired, when I have the right dishes, when I am less embarrassed about the state of the front room.

Every single one of those is about how you will be seen. Not one of them is about the person who needs feeding.

And I say that as gently as I can, because I do not think it is vanity. It is usually that somebody who has been fed badly by life themselves is frightened of offering something inadequate. But the effect is the same: a person who needs a meal does not get one, for four months, while somebody kind waits to be presentable.

You are not being asked to be impressive, and nobody hungry has ever once needed you to be. The written word says make ready quickly, which is speed rather than polish, and the Spirit of God is the one who separates real hospitality from performance.

The soup is deliberately humble

There is a reason I gave you lentils and not something better.

If I give you a recipe you are proud of, you will wait for an occasion worthy of it. If I give you a pot of lentil soup, you can take it round on a Tuesday in a jar with the lid on wrong and nobody, including you, will treat it as a performance.

Cheap food travels. That is a practical fact and it is also the whole point. The bar is low on purpose, because a low bar is the only kind you actually step over, and Genesis 18:6 has bread thrown together on a hearth rather than a banquet booked in advance, which is the Holy Spirit setting the bar rather than me.

And here is what I have watched happen a hundred times: the food is almost never the thing people remember. It is that somebody came. The soup is a reason to be at the door, and the door is the entire event.

You are carrying a reason to knock, and the food has never once been the thing that mattered most. Genesis 18:6 has bread made in a hurry on a hearth rather than a banquet arranged in advance, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns an ordinary pot into a doorway.

You are able to set one more plate tonight, and God has never once asked a person to be prepared before He asked them to open a door. The written word has a meal thrown together at speed for three strangers and treats it as the good version, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an unplanned plate an ordinary act.