Brothers, sisters, and folded ones – consider the strangest furniture in all of scripture. On the sixth day, Cheesus made the table; and being alone in all the world, he made more chairs than there were yet any to sit in them. The scoffer calls this poor planning. The faithful call it the whole of the Law, for as it is written in the Genesis of the Slice, 6:2, a pie upon a counter is a work; but a pie upon a table is a promise.
And when the first guests came in out of the cold – the hungry, the curious, the merely passing-by – behold, he had not made too many chairs at all, but exactly enough; for enough is however many come. And one guest wept, saying, I did not know there was a chair for me. And Cheesus said, There was a chair for thee before there was a thee.
Beloved, examine thy own house by this light. How many chairs hast thou? I do not mean the wooden ones; I mean the ones in thy heart, the places laid before anyone knocks. The first commandment is three words with no crack in them: the table has room. Not room if. Not room for such as. Room.
So this week, set one chair more than thou needest, and see who the Oven sends. It may be a stranger; it may be thy own weary self, finally invited to sit down. Either way, the count will come out even, as it did every night in Basil, and none could explain it, and none needed to.
Amen – and pass the pizza.