To Receive is to be Blessed

by Frances Young.

That heading might occasion some surprise. Surely “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20.35); and, according to Acts, Paul quoted that as a saying of Jesus (though it does not appear in the Gospels). That emphasis on giving is so engrained in our tradition, isn’t it? And yet giving can be terribly patronising – even controlling (cf. Mrs. Pardiggle in Dickens’ Bleak House); and receiving with grace can not only be a sign of deep humility but also a way of giving dignity to the one who offers some gift or service:

Brother, sister, let me serve you,
Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant too.[1]

The second half of the verse is surely as important as the first. How difficult I used to find it to accept help, to trust that another might be able to care for my severely disabled son … We surely need to distinguish between proper receiving, with grace and genuine gratitude, and taking, grasping or grabbing, the expression of selfish desire or self-concerned need or want.

And theologically there is even more to receiving than that – it surely lies at the heart of Christian worship. On one occasion recently my Call to Worship suggested something like that, and afterwards a member of the congregation said he couldn’t disagree more with my opening statement… But surely worship is fundamentally a response to God’s grace and blessing rather than something we DO, a task to be performed. The hymn quoted earlier ends thus:

When we sing to God in heaven
We shall find such harmony,
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.

Receiving lies at the heart of Christian prayer – receiving absolution, receiving grace, receiving the Spirit whereby we may say, “Abba, Father” and become new-born as children of God and heirs with Christ. (Romans 8.15-17)

Receiving lies at the heart of Christian identity – receiving from others by belonging, and also through an ecumenism stretching over time (tradition) as well as in the present (experience).

Receiving lies at the heart of doctrine, receiving the teaching which was early on distilled from scripture and the apostolic witness, embraced in the Creeds and embodied in the life of the Church  (after all, dogma (Greek) and doctrina (Latin) are simply the words for “teaching”)… We don’t make it up ourselves or simply read idiosyncratic beliefs out of scripture. Classic questions in our post-Enlightenment world can easily trip up and cause disquiet by putting the focus in the wrong place. We need an openness to receive, to let ourselves be drawn back to the tradition despite those questions. I shall never forget that moment in the vestry before leading a Carol Service: all those questions about the birth-narratives came welling up – the mistranslation of Isaiah 7.14 as parthenos (= virgin) provoking the development of that scientifically-dubious, quasi-pagan myth of a divine being having sexual intercourse with a human woman. But then – was it a Word of the Lord? – Luke’s picture of the Spirit overshadowing Mary recalled the Spirit hovering over the chaos in the Genesis creation-story. The story is about new creation, new birth, and the truth of new creation in Christ surely overtakes  whatever questions we might have about happened literally or scientifically – it has a superabundance of meaning that explodes our earthly categories …  Get the focus in the right place and it is possible to receive the tradition with intellectual humility …

I guess I’m not the only one who cannot give without receiving … nor the only one to have discovered that thanksgiving for all we have received (even from the things we find most difficult, not to mention the darkest things in our lives), lies at the heart of Christian spirituality – along with the trust that comes from accepting them with grace.

Visiting a synagogue once I was struck by the words on their Notice-sheet for the week: “We hallow God’s name by asking for bread.” The explanation was that the request acknowledges our utter dependence on God. That is the fundamental reason why I would continue to defend the claim that receiving lies at the heart of worship – for in God’s presence we find our self is put into perspective –  we empty ourselves to be filled with the Spirit. To receive is to be blessed, and then we can give …

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[1] Richard A. M. Gillard; Singing the Faith 611.