LEARNING HOW TO RECEIVE

The church is really good at reminding us that it is better to give than to receive. We take up collections every Sunday, have special offerings to purchase a new organ or to build a home for a family. We ask for funds on a regular basis for the Rector to use for helping others and ask for donations to support children in other lands so that they can have a decent education -- and the list seems go on and on and on.

We have bake sales and bazaars, book sales and rummage sales, car washes and spaghetti dinners, and anything else anyone can think of to raise needed monies for needed causes. Then, of course, there is the annual Every Member Canvas that is fast approaching.

All this is not a criticism. It is simply the truth. There are better ways, I suspect, to raise funds, but that is not my issue at the moment. Nor do I wish to debate the fact that it is better to give than to receive. It truly is and we all know it.

But sometimes we can get the impression that there is something wrong in receiving; we sometimes give that impression as well. We sometimes believe that if we are on the receiving end of someone else's giving, we are somehow inferior to, that we are of lesser worth than, the giver. That is nonsense, of course, but we do sometimes give that impression as givers and have that feeling as receivers.

We also often feel that when given a gift, we have to reciprocate somehow in some way. We find it difficult, at times, believing that a gift is given with no strings attached, that it is given simply out of the love.

Neither giving nor receiving comes easy. Why that is true, I am not sure. But I do find it to be true. As children we have to be taught to share our toys with others. In fact, as children we find it easier to take than to give, to hoard rather than to share. It takes a lot of time and teaching for us to realize how good it is to share what we have, share from our abundance with those who have less.

What we then assume is that because it is good to give, it must be bad, or at least not as good, to receive. So now we have to learn how to receive and learn that it is just as good to receive as it is to give and that there is nothing wrong with being on the receiving end. That is a truly difficult lesson to learn.

We are on the receiving end more often than we think. We receive gifts of love, kindness and caring; we receive homecooked meals and calls and letters. We receive everyday gifts every day. We receive perhaps as much as we give, and maybe even more.

What we fail to understand, I think, is that a gift is a gift is a gift. Difference in kind or degree or need makes no difference. It makes no difference if I need a meal because I can no longer cook than if I need a hug because I just need one. Gifts are gifts. It does not really matter who gives them or how much we need them. We simply need to receive them thankfully and joyfully.