Thy Seat Will Be Empty

Third row of the loft, and she stood on the end because she is tall and because she could see the door from there, which mattered to her for reasons she never explained to anybody.

Thirty one years in that choir. She came in at twenty two, a week after she married, and she sang at more funerals in that town than she can count, including her own mother's, which she did without breaking, and there are people who still bring that up.

She told God she would sing there until she could not stand up. She said it plainly, on a Wednesday, walking home from practice in the dark. That is the kind of promise a plain woman makes, and she is a plain woman, and she meant every syllable of it.

Six years ago there was a disagreement.

It was about the music, which is what these things are always about and never about. There were two evenings of it and some things were said that she is not proud of, and a man who had done nothing wrong got caught in the middle of it, and she stopped going. She did not resign. She simply was not there the following Wednesday, and then not the one after, and by the fourth week there was no way to walk back in that would not have been an event.

She goes to that church. She sits in the pews now, on the left, and she watches the loft and she does not sing, and if you sat next to her you would notice that her mouth does not move at all, which is a strange discipline for a woman who sang for thirty one years.

And what she is sure about, the way you are sure of a thing you have never checked, is that her robe went to somebody else within the year. That is how choirs work. There are only so many robes.

You may be sure of something you have never checked. You may be sitting in a pew of some kind, watching a loft of some kind, entirely certain about a thing that nobody has ever actually told you.

A place described from the outside

There is a small sentence in 1 Samuel that I have never heard anybody preach and it has stayed with me for years, and it is about a seat.

David is in trouble with the king and he does not know how much trouble. Jonathan is trying to find out. And Jonathan says to him: tomorrow is the new moon, and there is a feast, and here is how we will discover what your position actually is.

Then Jonathan said to David, To morrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.1 Samuel 20:18

You have a place that Scripture describes as empty rather than as taken. 1 Samuel 20:18 makes the gap itself the evidence, because a space where a person belongs speaks for itself, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has kept that seat for six years.

Empty, not filled

Read the two words at the end and notice what they are not.

Thy seat will be empty. Not: thy seat will be taken. Not: somebody will be sitting in your place. Empty.

That is what a kept place looks like from the outside, and it is worth stopping on, because it is the whole of what you have got wrong. You have assumed that the two options are occupied and mine, and that if it is not mine it must be occupied. But a seat can be neither. A seat can just be empty, and an empty seat at a table is a very loud object.

And notice why it matters in the story. The emptiness is the evidence. It is the thing that will show them what is true. Nobody has to say anything, because a gap where a person belongs speaks for itself.

You are missed by the arithmetic of the room and not by anybody's speech about you. 1 Samuel 20:18 is where that is written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes it out of a conversation between two young men and lays it on a woman sitting on the left with her mouth closed.

Now, I am not going to tell you the choir has been standing in a gap for six years. They have not. Somebody has been on the end of the third row and singing the line you used to sing and doing it well, and a choir that left a hole out of sentiment would be a bad choir.

But a robe is not a place. That is the confusion and it has cost you six years of Wednesdays. A robe is a garment on a hook and there are only so many of them and of course they are all in use. A place is what you are in a room, and it is not made of cloth.

You have a place in that house that no garment has ever been able to hold or hand on. Scripture describes David's place as empty and not as filled while another man ate the food and drank the wine, and the Spirit of God has kept that distinction true for you every Wednesday you did not walk in.

What plain women know

I am going to say one more thing and then get out of the way, and it is the thing my own mother would have said, which is to be honest about the disagreement.

You said things you are not proud of. Fine. So did other people. A man got caught in the middle and that was hard on him, and if the Lord puts something in front of you about that, do it.

But notice how neatly a person can hide behind their own guilt. It has been six years. If it were only the wrong you did, you would have gone back in month two and apologized and been miserable for two weeks and got on with it, because that is exactly what you are like. You have stayed away because walking in after four weeks would have been an event, and after six years it would be a bigger one, and a plain woman would rather do almost anything than be an event.

You are held in that room by something older than your dignity, and it was never yours to forfeit by being embarrassed. The word puts it plainly, and that is what an empty seat means when God is the one who keeps the house, and His Spirit has been sitting in that pew on the left with you the entire time.