At times, it’s more blessed to receive

By Patricia Templeton, reprint from AJC
Every Sunday of my childhood, my priest would stand before our congregation just before the offering was taken up and say these words, “Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, how he said it was more blessed to give than to receive.”

It wasn’t until years later in seminary that I realized there is no record in scripture of Jesus actually saying those words. What we have is Paul, who never met the earthly Jesus, attributing the words to him.

So maybe Jesus said it and maybe he didn’t. Whatever. Regardless of who said it the sentiment is deeply ingrained in not only most Christians, but most Americans.
Giving is good. Receiving, not so much.

But an experience my family had two summers ago changed the truth of that sentiment for me. My husband unexpectedly had to undergo major surgery with a significant recovery time.

I’ve spent much of the last two decades being with people going through similar situations. When the roles were reversed, I was very uncomfortable.

“No, that’s OK, I’ll be fine,” I said, when members of the congregation offered to sit with me in the hospital during the surgery. “No, we won’t need food,” I assured others. “Really, I’ve got the child care under control.”

In every case, my parishioners looked at me, nodded and went ahead mobilizing support for my family.

And thank God they did.

Here is what I learned from that experience. Yes, it is blessed to give. But there are times when it is also a true blessing to receive.

Every person who came to the hospital, every meal delivered to our door, every card and e-mail and call and prayer, every offer to entertain our son, was a tangible blessing, a reminder that we were loved.

I have no doubt that all of those tangible blessings hastened my husband’s recovery and helped all of us through a difficult period in our lives.

I learned something else, too. Having experienced the blessing of receiving makes me want to share that blessing with others. That, in a nutshell, is the theology of giving.

There are many reasons for people to be altruistic, to give, to do good deeds or be concerned for the welfare of others. Sometimes we do good because it makes us feel good. Sometimes we do it out of guilt or in the secret hopes that we are earning our way to salvation. Sometimes we may do it with the hope that when we are in need someone will help us. Sometimes, if we are honest, we do it because it makes us feel superior, or in control.

But for people of faith, scripture gives another motivation for doing good and for giving — we do it in grateful response to the blessings we have received.
It’s a theology that began with the biblical patriarch Abraham. I’m going to make of you a great people, God tells him. Your descendants will inhabit a land flowing with milk and honey. They will be greatly blessed.

But, God adds, with great blessing comes great responsibility. The blessings aren’t to be hoarded away, they are to be shared with the world.

It’s a theme God comes back to again and again. It’s a theology with which Jesus, a great Jewish teacher, was quite familiar. Love one another as God loves you, he tells his followers. Do good in grateful response to the love and blessings that God has given you.

Several weeks ago our son, now 9, asked me, “Mama, do you remember when Dad was in the hospital?”

“Yes, I remember,” I responded.

“Do you know what was really cool about that?” he asked. “People brought us a lot of free food for a long time.”

The blessings of two years ago continue. A time that I feared would be burned into my child’s psyche as an awful memory was transformed into something “really cool” by the love shown to us.

And so on this day of Thanksgiving, I beg to differ with Paul and Jesus. It is, indeed, a blessing to give. But today I am deeply grateful for the blessings I have received.

The Rev. Patricia Templeton is rector of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.