As we begin Advent season, you have probably started to think about what Christmas gifts to give to others. But have you thought about what gifts you want to receive? Has a family member asked you to write a list of what you want? How do you feel about writing a list like that? It may be fun to think about things you will get, or things you need, but you could also have some strange feelings about making a wish list. If you are like some people I know, you might even say “Don’t get me anything.” It doesn’t seem right, does it, to go into the Christmas season only thinking about what you’re going to receive?
In our church service, we often repeat the phrase “it is better to give than to receive” before we collect the offering. I could also add “It is easier to give than to receive.” What do I mean by that? Well, think of how it feels to put money into the collection plate: for me, it’s just a feeling of simple pleasure and satisfaction. But what if we said to you, “Today we are giving all that money to you.” Would that bring up feelings that are a little more complicated? Would your first instinct be to refuse it?
Perhaps you’ve been in social situations where someone gave you a gift that you thought was a little too nice: it cost too much, or you didn’t get anything for them. A relative gives you something, and you don’t want to take it because you have a grudge against them. Someone gives you a gift that seems to suggest they want a romantic relationship with you. A salesperson gives you something for free, and you can recognizing it as just buttering you up so that they can get something from you. Gifts can have all kinds of strings attached. Even if someone convinces you that there are no strings attached, you can still feel that you don’t deserve that gift, that you’re not worthy, that it will make you look like a greedy person if you accept it. Receiving gifts can get very complicated!
Isn’t that interesting that there can be such a contrast between the simplicity of giving, and the complexity of receiving? But if no one was willing to receive gifts, then there couldn’t be an act of giving: the whole system would break down.
I’ve been talking about physical gifts, but we can also talk about more abstract kinds of gifts, gifts that you may or may not call “spiritual.” Those can be equally fraught, and bring up equally complicated feelings. Imagine a situation like this: perhaps it has actually happened to you, perhaps you have dreamed about it, or perhaps you’ve just experienced a miniature version of it. But the situation is an award banquet. You have worked hard at your job, and you think you’ve done well at it. In this case, other people agree with you. In fact, someone stands up and gives a five-minute speech about how great you are, and what marvelous things you’ve done, and then they give you a shiny trophy. Then the audience erupts into applause, and a few people even start standing. How do you feel while people are clapping for you?
There are many possible reactions you could have. One is to want to just shrivel up and die, and wait impatiently for that applause to end. The audience is clapping because they want you to feel good, but instead you are miserable. Another reaction you could have is to think to yourself, “I deserve this! Yes, I am as great as they say!” You might even think that speech was not long enough, and they left a lot of stuff out, and you look around and count the people who aren’t standing up. But if you notice thoughts like that creeping into your mind, there may be alarm bells going off in other parts of your mind – recognizing that this is not good for your spiritual welfare. Another reaction you could have is to think: “That person who gave the speech about me – I wonder what they’re up to? What were their motives? Am I now indebted to them?” If the occasion was your retirement, another possible reaction you could have is, “They have to say that – they don’t mean it. It’s just obligatory.”
Maybe you don’t think of that as spiritual, but let’s talk about something that is definitely spiritual: love. What if the gift someone gives you is to say “I love you.” After all, what is the giving of gifts all about except for expressing love to each other? How do you feel when someone says those three magic words to you? Do you feel you don’t deserve it? Do you feel like it has strings attached? Do you feel like you must say the same thing back, even if you’re not feeling it? In the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, there’s a scene where Princess Leia calls out to Han Solo, “I love you!” And the original script had him saying back to her, “I love you too.” But Harrison Ford knew his character well, and knew that he wouldn’t say that, so he had them change the line to “I know.” People laughed in the theater when they heard that: talk about arrogant! You’re not supposed to just receive the gift of love: you’re supposed to give it back.
Three Bible Stories About Receiving Gifts
As we are entering Advent season, it’s worth thinking about why we give gifts to each other at all. I think you would agree that it’s because it’s an image of God’s gifts to us. It is a time to reflect on all that God gives to us, and how we can receive those gifts into our hearts. I love the fact that in our calendar, the beginning of Advent comes right after Thanksgiving, a reminder that they follow from each other. We can be thankful not only that Jesus was born into the world, but also strive to have Jesus be born into our hearts. But just like the gifts I was talking about, receiving the Lord into our hearts can be complicated.
Let’s look at three Bible characters who received gifts, and how they each responded. Each story teaches us about the complication of receiving gifts that I’ve alluded to. The Old Testament reading told the story of Joseph being reunited with his brothers in Egypt, which is a mostly joyous story. When the brothers discover that it is Joseph they have been talking to, they are relieved that he doesn’t seem to hold a grudge against them for selling him off into slavery. And he gives them lavish gifts as they leave Egypt – but he also included another “gift” they didn’t know about, a silver cup, slipped into the youngest brother’s sack. That was definitely a gift with strings attached: Joseph’s steward tracked them down and accused them of theft, and even threatened their life. It was a case of entrapment for ulterior motives, and it made them feel like they were deeply indebted to him.
Can God’s love feel like that? When you are told that God loves you fully and completely, does that feel like a trap? That you now owe God – and maybe it’s a debt you don’t want to have? Now you are obligated to be good for all eternity? Some people feel trapped in relationships: what if the one who trapped you is omniscient and omnipotent? Does that make it difficult for you to want to receive that love? It’s worth noting in the Joseph story that that was not the end of the story, by the way: in the end, they were all free to go.
The take-away lesson is that God’s love does not have strings attached: does not obligate us to act in any particular way. In fact, if we choose hell, He will love us just the same. The Lord wants us to be happy, and if we can receive His love, that will lead to happiness – and a feeling of freedom. But if we reject His love … well, He leaves us in freedom to do that too.
The second story is our New Testament reading about the disciple Peter, who reacted so negatively when Jesus offered to wash his feet. He flatly rejected that gift of the foot-washing, shouting “You shall never wash my feet!” What is that about? My interpretation is that it was all about Peter’s feelings of self-worth; that he knew he wasn’t worthy of that gift. How could he possibly let the Messiah himself wash his feet, and sit there thinking “I deserve this!” He just couldn’t, so the only way out that he saw was to refuse the gift. It was as if he was saying, “I am not worthy of God’s love.” That’s such a universal feeling, isn’t it? How can any human being say, “I am worthy of the love and admiration of the creator of the universe?”
But Jesus chided him a little, saying “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” The actual verse doesn’t say how he said it: scolding? Gentle? But it is the truth: if you do not accept the Lord’s love, you cannot be conjoined with the Divine, which is what we are born to do. In other words, those thoughts about being undeserving are actually a block to our becoming an angel, and we must find a way to cast that thought from our mind. Human kind has struggled for centuries with that conundrum: yes, we are undeserving, but that should not lead to us rejecting the gifts God has in store for us. For some religions, that led to an emphasis on grace; for others, a belief in predestination; for others, it led people to think that they should lead a life of self-flagellation and denial of pleasures. For some people, it led them to think that they themselves are divine, equal to God. But it is a struggle we must all work through.
Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to just not think about it. Ignorance is bliss.
This leads to the third Biblical character I want to talk about. Well, is he even a Biblical character? He is never named, and in fact, we know nothing about him at all. I am talking about the innkeeper in the nativity story – although it never actually mentions an innkeeper. It’s just inferred from the phrase “There was no room for them in the inn.” But I think about that person a lot.
What is he a symbol of? You could say he is a representation of your life being crowded with too many unimportant, worldly things, leaving no room for Jesus in your heart. But let’s put ourselves in his shoes for a minute.
First, I would say that he had no idea who Mary and Joseph were, or the nature of the baby that was about to be born. If he had any inkling that this baby was to be the Messiah, he surely would have moved other people aside to make room for them. As I like to say, it’s not that he had no room for anyone; he did make room for who he thought were the important people who showed up for the census. He was just wrong about who the important people were.
But imagine for a second if he did realize what was going on: that the Messiah was about to be born in his inn! Again, I can imagine several different reactions. The most plausible seems to be that he would have said, like Peter, “I’m not worthy! You should go somewhere more important to deliver the baby; give birth in a fancier inn, or the royal palace, or the temple!” That would have still meant he wouldn’t accept Joseph and Mary into his inn.
Or he could have become extremely conceited, and gone around crowing, “Look, everyone! The Savior is being born in my inn! He chose me!” He could have let the thought that he was deserving of being the place of the Messiah’s birth infect his heart. That would not have gone well. It is clearly better if he stays ignorant, and just lets things happen without his interference.
The Intellect vs. A Still, Simple Heart
Another way to interpret what the innkeeper represents is to think of him as your intellectual mind. How can the mind resolve the paradox of deserving the gift of the Divine? I don’t think it can. Thinking too hard about whether you deserve God’s infinite love can just tie you up in knots.
What should you do instead? Be still, and receive that love with a child’s heart. Small children don’t worry about whether they deserve gifts, they aren’t suspicious that there are strings attached: they just accept the gift with joy. If the gift is love, they don’t think about negative implications or whether this will mean enslavement, or whether it is right or not right to give the love back. They just accept it.
So I totally understand why the innkeeper was never told what was going on that night. But who was told about the birth of Christ? The simplest people – the shepherds, who were probably mostly children. What did those young shepherds do when they got to the manger? Well, if that hymn is accurate, they didn’t “do” anything at all. They were just silent. They just watched in stillness.
Likewise, if the idea of receiving God’s love sets your mind spinning or brings up negative emotions, stop thinking. Just let yourself feel joy that God loves you. Accept the gift without worry.
And remember that when friends and family members give you gifts, it’s good practice for learning how to accept God’s love.
READINGS
Old Testament
Genesis 44:1-13
Now Joseph gave these instructions to the steward of his house: “Fill the men’s sacks with as much food as they can carry, and put each man’s silver in the mouth of his sack. Then put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one’s sack, along with the silver for his grain.” And he did as Joseph said. As morning dawned, the men were sent on their way with their donkeys. They had not gone far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, “Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid good with evil? Isn’t this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination? This is a wicked thing you have done.’” When he caught up with them, he repeated these words to them. But they said to him, “Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do anything like that! We even brought back to you from the land of Canaan the silver we found inside the mouths of our sacks. So why would we steal silver or gold from your master’s house? If any of your servants is found to have it, he will die; and the rest of us will become my lord’s slaves.” “Very well, then,” he said, “let it be as you say. Whoever is found to have it will become my slave; the rest of you will be free from blame.” Each of them quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened it. Then the steward proceeded to search, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin’s sack. At this, they tore their clothes. Then they all loaded their donkeys and returned to the city.
New Testament
John 13:1-8
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”
Reading from Emanuel Swedenborg’s Secrets of Heaven, #2041
It needs to be known that heavenly love constantly flows into us from the Lord, and nothing hinders it, blocks it, or keeps it from being accepted but the obsessions of those two loves—self-love, and love of the material world—and the distortions that come from them.