I Kept The Dead One For A Month

It has been four weeks and it is still in the pot.

Brown, dry, entirely finished, standing in the middle of the soil in exactly the position it died in. And you have been past it several times a day for a month.

You have not decided to keep it. That is worth saying. Nobody sat down and resolved that the dead thing would stay. It has stayed by a long series of small moments in which the hand did not go out.

And around week two, a second thing started, which is that the not doing it became a thing in itself. Now it is not just a dead plant. It is a dead plant you have failed to deal with for a month, and the failing has become the larger object.

You are not weak for having left it there, and four weeks of not touching something has never once been a failure of nerve.

Let me say what I think has actually kept your hand off it, because I do not think it is squeamishness and I do not think it is laziness.

While it is in the pot, it is still a plant. A dead one, but a plant, in the place where a plant goes.

The moment it comes out, it is refuse. It goes in a bag or on a heap and it becomes material, and there is a threshold there that people feel and rarely name.

You have not been avoiding a task. You have been avoiding a reclassification.

By this time he stinketh

There is a moment at the tomb of Lazarus where somebody says the plain physical thing out loud, and the gospel keeps it in.

Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. (John 11:39, King James Version)

By this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

Now, that is an extraordinary thing to find in the text. It is blunt, it is physical, and it is not softened by anybody. Martha says the practical and unpleasant fact, out loud, in front of everybody.

And nobody rebukes her for saying it.

You are looking at a passage where the plain hard fact is said out loud and left standing, and Scripture has never once required somebody to be delicate about a dead thing. John 11:39 keeps Martha's sentence exactly as she said it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman who has not been able to touch a pot for a month.

And notice what she is actually objecting to. She is not objecting to hope. She is objecting to the stone being moved, which is to say she is objecting to the thing being made visible and physical and present in the room.

That is your threshold. Not the death. The handling of it.

You are standing at the same threshold rather than at a different one, and a reluctance to handle a thing has never once been a reluctance to accept it. The Holy Spirit is the one who understands what a person is actually stuck at, and the written word records the objection to the stone rather than to the fact.

And then look at what is asked of her, because it is small. Take ye away the stone.

That is all. She is not asked to believe anything at that moment, or to say anything, or to feel differently. She is asked for one physical action, and the rest of it is not hers.

You are being asked for one action and not for a state of mind, and a physical thing done has never once required the feelings to have arrived first. The Spirit of God is the one who does what follows, and the word puts a single practical instruction in front of her and nothing else.

Taking it out is not the ending

Let me be practical, because the reclassification is the actual obstacle and it can be dismantled.

Here is what most people do, and what has been assumed: the plant comes out, the pot gets washed, the pot goes in the cupboard, and the whole episode is closed and filed.

That is what has been standing in front of you. Not the handling of a dead stem. The closing.

You are dreading a conclusion rather than a task, and taking a thing out of a pot has never once been the same act as closing something. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a job from a meaning, and John 11:39 asks for a stone to be moved without that being the end of anything.

And that is not what I am going to ask you to do, because it is the wrong shape.

Take the dead thing out, and keep the pot. Keep it out on the counter or the sill, empty, in the place where it has been.

Which means nothing gets closed. The pot stays in service. The episode does not get filed, because there is still an object standing there with a future attached to it rather than a past.

You are able to do the necessary part without doing the final part, and an emptied pot has never once been the same thing as a finished matter. The Spirit of God is the one who leaves somebody with what is still in use, and the written word asks for one action and holds the rest open.

Take it out and keep the pot

So here is the assignment.

Take the dead thing out of the pot and keep the pot.

Both halves are real instructions. Pull the stem, roots and all if it comes, and put it in the bin or on the heap. Then put the pot back exactly where it was, with the soil still in it.

You are able to do a two minute job that has been standing for a month, and one plant lifted out has never once been the size of the thing four weeks made it. John 11:39 asks Martha to move a stone and asks nothing else of her, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that counter while a woman puts her hand in.

Do not wash the pot. Do not empty the soil out. Do not put it away in a cupboard.

That is what keeps this from being a closing. An empty pot with soil in it, standing where it always stood, is a pot waiting for something. A washed pot in a cupboard is a matter concluded, and concluding is the part you have been rightly hesitant about.

You are keeping the thing in service rather than putting it away, and a pot left standing has never once been an object with nothing ahead of it. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a future attached to something ordinary, and the word gives Martha one instruction and does not tell her how the story ends.

And do not plant anything in it this week. There is no hurry, and hurrying would make this about replacing rather than about clearing.