Sometimes it's better to receive...

Today's readings: Psalms 102, 148; Isaiah 7:10-25; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5; Luke 22:14-30

How do you feel about being loved? The answer may depend on the kind of love we are talking about. Romantic love? Most of us are happy to receive it. Love in the form of mercy? We are often surprised by it, but almost always welcome it. How about love in the form of charity? Ah! That's a tougher one. As Christians, we are usually happy to dispense it, but many (most?) of us are far less comfortable on the receiving end. But wait ... if we believe receiving charity somehow diminishes us, what does that say about our true feelings about others who accept it? Are we thinking of them as equals? How we receive tells us about the underpinnings of our giving.

Before Jesus broke bread and poured wine at the Last Supper, he stripped to the waist and washed the feet of everyone present. Later he told them "the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves" (Luke 22:26). This passage is usually used to teach the importance of being servants, but it contains another, often overlooked lesson: we must be willing to be served. How does this idea sit with us -- particularly us capitalist, by-our-own-bootstraps, modern Americans? Not very well, that's how. We are immersed in a secular culture based on a merit mentality with an implicit asumption the virtuous are rewarded and the lazy and other "sinners" are not. We have to be deliberate about disentangling ourselves from this notion, or we can't truly be givers in a Christian sense; nor can we get past the insecurity (masquerading as pride) which prevents us from receiving with a glad heart.

The requirements we have chosen to place on all the communion tables that are heirs to that Last Supper say more about the people making the rules than the people they exclude. The necessary flip side of believing some are not welcome at the table is the idea that the rest have somehow earned an invitation. Christ's gifts to us can never be earned but are given freely. Until we believe it is acceptable - necessary - for us to receive love from God or people without earning it, we can't truly believe it for others. Let's receive joyfully!

Evening readings: Psalms 130, 16