I Apologize For My House Before You Sit Down

The sentence comes out before hello.

Somebody comes through the door and you say something about the state of the place, or you make a small joke about it, or you move something off a chair while apologizing for it having been there.

It is automatic. You have done it for years. And you have almost certainly never heard yourself do it, because a thing that happens every single time stops being audible to the person doing it.

Ask your wife. She has heard it four hundred times.

Here is what I want to look at today, and it is not the house.

That sentence is doing something to the room it is said in, and it is not the thing you intend by it. You intend it as courtesy. What it actually does is tell the person who has just arrived that the room they are standing in is not good enough, and that you already know, and that they should not mention it.

And from that moment they are managing you.

They came to see you and within four seconds their job has become to reassure you, and that is a different evening from the one either of you wanted.

Some have entertained angels anyway

There is a line in Hebrews about hospitality that has no conditions in it at all.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2, King James Version)

Unawares. That is the striking word. They did not know who had arrived, which means nothing was prepared specially, which means those rooms were in whatever state they were in.

The whole point of the sentence is that the hosting happened without the host knowing it was significant. There is no version of that story with forty minutes of preparation in it.

You are somebody's welcome and never their inspector, and no apology at a door has ever once been part of hospitality. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who has said the same sentence four hundred times, and Hebrews 13:2 records hosting that happened with nothing prepared and calls it entertaining angels.

And notice the instruction attached.

Be not forgetful. The thing you are warned about is not a room in the wrong state. It is forgetting to do it at all, which is exactly where a man who apologizes at the door eventually ends up.

You are being warned about stopping and never about the state of a hallway, and no room has ever once been the thing that was at risk. The written word makes the forgetting the danger and says nothing whatsoever about the furniture, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a man whose wife has heard that sentence four hundred times.

What the apology actually does

Let me be specific about the mechanics, because you intend the opposite of what happens.

You say it to put the other person at ease. What it does is introduce a subject that was not in the room. Before you spoke, they were taking their coat off. After you spoke, there is a topic, and the topic is your inadequacy, and they now have to handle it.

So the apology creates the awkwardness it was meant to prevent.

You have been creating the very thing you were trying to prevent, and it has never once been rudeness that made you do it. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who has been doing the opposite of what he meant for years, and Hebrews 13:2 has hosts who said nothing about their houses at all.

And there is a second effect, which is slower and worse.

Every time you say it, you confirm it to yourself. Four hundred repetitions of a sentence about your own house being not good enough, delivered in your own voice, in your own hallway, is not nothing. That is how a belief gets set.

You have been teaching yourself something in your own doorway, and four hundred repetitions have never once made it true. The written word puts the whole weight on doing it rather than on the state of the room, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a man who has been his own worst witness at his own front door.

One thing out, and one thing unsaid

So here is tonight, and there are two parts and the second one is the real one.

Leave one thing out on purpose and go to bed.

And the next time somebody comes through that door, do not say the sentence. Say hello and take their coat, and let the room be whatever it is.

You are able to open a door and say nothing about the room, and saying nothing has never once been a failure of manners. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a man standing in his own hallway with his mouth closed, and Hebrews 13:2 has hosts entertain without one word about their houses.

Expect it to be uncomfortable, because a four second habit does not go quietly.

There will be a pause where the sentence usually goes, and it will feel enormous to you and will be invisible to them, and then the evening will simply carry on.

You are leaving a gap that is enormous to you and invisible to them, and that gap has never once been noticed by a single guest. The written word warns only about forgetting to host at all, and the Spirit of God is the one present with a man taking a coat and saying nothing.