THE GRACE TO RECEIVE

December 28, 1986, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Scripture

Isaiah 63:7-9
Matthew 2:1-12

"0 the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge
of God! low unsearchable are his. judgments and how
inscrutable his ways!" ~-Romans 11:33 (RSV)

There is a wonderful paragraph in Thomas Hardy's, The Return of the
Native, on the subject of churchgoing at Christmas. Hardy wrote:

"In an ordinary village or country town one:'can safely calculate
that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday contiguous, any native home for
the holidays, who has not through age or ennui lost the appetite for seeing
and being seen, will turn up in some pew or other, shining with hope, self-
consciousness, and new clothes. Thus the congregation on Christmas morning
is mostly a Tussaud collection of celebrities who have been born in the
neighborhood.”

So, here we are: collection of neighborhood celebrities -— at least
some of you- shining with new clothes, seeing old friends...and how good
and pleasant it is.

But there is something else on the agenda this day. In fact,
theologically it is one of my favorites, along with the Sunday after
Easter. To be sure, there is a sense of let down, or relief. We actually
made it, fought the fight and ran the race: actually bought and wrapped all
the presents, addressed the cards, baked the cookies, trimmed the tree,
sang the songs, attended the parties, ate and drank far too much. The date
to which we have been pointing with fidelity and intense devotion came and
went last Thursday. And here we are, in the aftermath, not only relieved,
but with some burden of responsibility resting on those of us who believe
the feast represents something more than a year end festival, to say or do
something — by way of response, somehow to come up, at least with a
respectable "thank you" for instance.

Elementary good manners dictate that gratitude be expressed when one
receives a gift. One of the very first social niceties we teach our
children is to say “thank you." It's more than social grace, of’ course.
The hope is that people who know to say “thank you" will also learn the
experience, the feeling of gratitude: in fact, will come to exhibit a life
position which is gracious, open to gifts from others, receptive to other

people and what they have to offer and want to give, a life that knows how
to be a gracious receiver, that knows how very much of life is a gift, and
that to live it one must, in a sense, know gratitude.

Yet sometimes, when we are given a particularly generous gift, or a
particularly unexpected gift, our cultivated graciousness disappears and we
say something like "Oh, you shouldn't have - you really shouldn't have
done that - that wasn't necessary."

We have all been guilty of that momentary lapse, perhaps fairly
recently. You may have said something like that a mere 72 hours ago. Some
of us do it habitually. You know people, and so do I, to whom it is
virtually impossible ta give a gift, or even to pay a compliment. “The
meal was wonderful — Oh, it was nothing: Congratulations! - Lot's of
people could have done it: You look great - I'd look better if I lost 10
pounds." I've caught myself doing that, and I have concluded that “you
shouldn't have" is one of the most graceless things we can say to one
another. Who, after all, wants to be told that he shouldn't feel what he
feels and should not express how he feels. Professor Fred Craddock asks

how it would feel to receive a thank you note that read as follows -— "Dear
Mary: Thanks for the gift, but I want you to know that I didn't need it.
In fact, I don't need anything. Sincerely yours, John." That is exactly

what. we. say to one another on occasion.

i suggest that what appears to be a minor social faux pas, may be
indicative of a major spiritual problem: that our occasional inability to
deal with a generous and unexpected gift may say something about our
ability or willingness to be recipients of that gift which we have spent a
month anticipating, the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Let's explore it for a minute. What is it that motivates us sometime
to respond to generosity. with the presumptuous suggestion that we know
better than the giver what he or she should have done and that, besides,
the gift wasn't necessary ~ which means we don't want it, or don't want to
deal with it, or don't want to deal with the giver?

Perhaps we don't like gifts. The simple fact is that we do. We like
surprises. Part of the universal appeal of Christmas is the promise of
receiving and giving unexpected presents. Part of the lovely anticipation
for me is that Santa is not usually limited by the mundane ordinariness of
my list, but comes up with unexpected and wonderful surprises. In fact,
there is something deep within us, I believe, that watches and waits for
noveity. Philosopher Sam Keen wrote about it in his book Apology for
Wonder in a paragraph I think about nearly every morning of my life. He
wrote: “Unless we are exceptionally gifted with a strong propensity to
wonder, life easily becomes stale and boring. We long for a surprise that
will bring refreshment and novelty. A touch of this love of the surprising
is probably seen in the expectation with which we wait for the morning
mail. Who knows what will come?" (Apology for Wonder, p. 28-29). I do
that. Even though the reality will be bills and advertisements, I watch
for the mail.

We do like gifts.

12-28-86

Perhaps it is that receiving a gift makes us feel indebted to the
giver and carries with it the responsibility to reciprocate. An unexpected
gift means your own gift list expands. To receive a Christmas card often
means adding another name to your own list. Sometimes I muse that if
everyone thought that way, the law of mathematic probabilities would soon
require that everyone in the world be on everyone else's Christmas card
list. Russell Baker has a funny piece in the New York Times Magazine this
morning about the round-robin dynamics of reciprocal dinner invitations.

There is serious theology here - and-sericus psychology. Paul
Tournier, in his excellent book Guilt & Grace, wrote a chapter, “Everything
Must Be Paid For." Tournier, a physician, counselor and theologian,
wondered why so few Christians seemed free, confident and joyous after 20
centuries of the church talking about the free gift cof Salvation. He
concluded that the reason is "a deep psychological attitude, the idea
deeply engraved in the heart - that everything must be paid for." (Guilt &
Grace, p. 174).

Tournier observed the presence of this motif in all religion. In his
medical practice he observed the great difficulty many people have
believing that they are acceptable to other people. He quoted a patient who
responded to Dr. Tournier's assurances that others accepted him, that God
accepted him by saying, “But that's too easy." -Tournier believed that many
jilnesses resulted from individuals trying to pay off a sense of
indebtedness. He wrote, " It's a form of punishment which the sufferer
administers to himself, and it goes on repeating itself indefinitely with a
kind of inexorable fatality." {p. 175}

We do like to receive gifts, but when we feel that receiving places
us in debt to the giver, we deal with it by saying: "You shouldn't have -
that wasn't necessary."

The reverse is true. If receiving a gift places us in debt, then
giving can make us the beneficiary of someone else's indebtedness.
Advertising sometimes comes right out and says it. - "How can she resist, if

_ you give her diamonds? He'll do what you wish if you give him a watch."

And those are the only conditions in‘which “you shouldn't have done it" is
the appropriate thing to say: It may be more blessed to give than to
receive, but it's certainly easier. to feel. smug than to feel: grateful to
someone who is trying to manipulate you.

"You shouldn't have done it" may, of course, be an accurate
description of how we feel about ourselves. We may respond that way
because we feel truly undeserving, or are undeserving. A friend of mine
took time off from work to attend a national church meeting. He was
conservative in dress, life style, political cutlook. His assigned: seat
was beside a young woman who was dramatically opposite to him, a single
mother, with her child with her, constantly interrupting the order of the
meeting, her dress and life style: mostly counter-culture, her political
opinions way out in left field, at least by his criteria. Over the course
of the several day meeting, he had expressed his displeasure to her in many
ways. As often happens at these gatherings, there was a closing communion,
and when it came time to pass the peace, she said - "I know that you don't
approve of me and don't like me and I'm sorry about that.. I really wish to

12-28-86

give you the gift of peace of Jesus Christ." He didn't deserve that and he
knew. it, and it was such a moving experience that he talked about it for
months and even wore a "God. Loves You.& So.Do I" button. to Rotary.

Sometimes we don't deserve the gift. And sometimes there is a deeper
crisis, a permanent poverty of the spirit, a terrible lack of self esteen,
an inability to know that anyone could love us. Sometimes — all of us —
have difficulty believing that anyone could care for us, be affectionate to
us. Sometimes we simply can't cope with and don't understand that someone
can love.us for who we are, accept us as we are, like to look at us, be
with us, give gifts to us for the simple joy the. giver receives. Sometimes
that is utterly incomprehensible to us. Sometimes our opinion of ourselves
is so low that we are confessing something very painful and intimate when
we say “You shouldn't have done that." It is so deep within us that
sometimes we cannot receive the gift because it. would contradict our
feelings of unworthiness.

And sometimes we are not able to be gracious recipients because
there is a sense in which the giver always comes in the gift. We must
deal, not simply with the object, but with the caring and love of the other
person, There are times when we would rather not do that, when we would
prefer to stay at arm's length and not get-too close. "You shouldn't have
done that" really means "You shouldn't have come this close. I shouldn't
be opening myself. to. you."

in retrospect, I often wonder with a bit of regret - what parents
mean, when they take small children Christmas shopping, tell them what to
buy, give them the money,. manage the whole process and then without really
intending it - dismiss as meaningless the treasures aver which a child has
been slaving at school for weeks. The home-made card, with misshapen
nativity and misspelled message contains the person, in a way the slick
Hallmark never can: the popsicle. stick pencil holder is still around long
after the socks and handkerchiefs have been gone and forgotten. What a
good lesson to learn to deal with the person in these gifts.

And perhaps we think we don't need gifts. Perhaps we believe that
misguided. bit of cultural folk voodoo that suggests that independence,
autonomy, self reliance are the psychological goals to which we should
aspire, so that ideally we need no one and want no thing. How limiting it
is intellectually when we fail to discover somewhere along the line - that
there is a lot of knowledge and wisdom out there that others are ina
position to give us. How restrictive not to know one's own intellectual
limits. How limiting when we can learn nothing. The best and most
enriching education is the one that instills respect and modesty before the
knowledge and wisdom I do not have yet, the otherness of the whole body of
knowledge, art, music, and literature which is not mine, but someone
else's to give to me as a gift. How sad to be closed to the gift of
learning from others.

"You shouldn't have done that," we say on occasion and what we mean
to say is:

I don't want to feel indebted -

12-28-86

I don't deserve your gift -
I don't want to deal with you -
I don't need anything/I don't need you.

The Gospel of Christmas is the announcement that a gift has been
given; a most extravagant gift. In fact, we have not done anything to
deserve this gift. We have not earned it. This gift is given out of the
extravagant love of God. The incredible suggestion of Christianity is that
it gives God pleasure to give this gift. The name for it is grace. It is
expressed, perhaps most completely, simply and eloquently in the birth of
Jesus Christ. And what a Christian Christmas ought to be is an utterly

joyful and grateful celebration. Yet it is just here, where the Christian
faith is at its simplest; and clearest - gift giving and grateful response
- that many of us stumble. "That's too easy: there’ must be a catch to it,

some conditions attached to the good news. Surely we have to do something
to receive God's love. Surely you don't mean that it is without
obligation." Tournier observed, "The very people who long most arduously
for grace have the greatest difficulty accepting it." And Professor
Craddock quips — "It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but it is
also a whale of a lot easier.“ ;

I have always been intrigued with the fact that throughout his
career, Karl] Barth - arguably the most influential Christian thinker in
this century — used to go to the Basel jail.on Sunday morning to lead
worship. His sermons, preached to the prisoners, were frequently on grace.
In one of them he said:

“Is it not a pity that we rebel against this very truth in the depth
of our hearts? ‘Indeed we dislike hearing that we are saved by grace, and
by grace alone. We do not appreciate that God does not owe us anything,
that we are bound to live from his goodness alone, that’ we are left with
nothing but the great humility, the thankfulness of the child presented
with many gifts." (Good News to the Captives, p. 40). ‘What a wonderful
image and what an appropriate posture for those who know that they have
been blessed by an amazing prace - the child overwhelmed by the gifts
given.

"OQ the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways," our first
serious theologian declared: St. Paul, near the end of his life, writing a
theological position paper to introduce himself to the believers in the
city of Rome, penned an elaborate and at times almost exasperatingly
complex exposition of the Gospel, The Letter to the Romans. in it he deais
with every objection, every argument against the faith he can think of.

And throughout, the adhesive that keeps it together - the great, great
mystery which rendered even Paul speechless ~ was the grace of God, the
undeserved and unearned good will of God, the mercy of God's response to
people who disobey, or are careless, callous, indifferent, and ungrateful.
The consistent mystery is the amazing grace of God's love in Jesus Christ.

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?" Paul asked, “or who has given a
gift to Him that he might be repaid?"

12-28-86

No one obviously. God is the giver. We are the recipients. In
Barth's unforgettable image, “Each one can only fold his hands in great
lowliness of heart and be thankful like a child.“ (Ibid, p. 39)

The very essence of this matter, this church business, this
institutional religion that can become so elaborate, so structured, so
properly dignified, and solemnly orthodox, sometimes.so pompous and so
silly - the essence of it is a gift - an extravagant and undeserved gift.

The essence of the matter is that it is a gift we need. If you asked
a secular sociologist, or psychologist what we need to be whole human
beings, the answers would probably be that we need love, security, freedom;
that they are connected - that without these, people are a lot less than
they could be... The goodness of the good news is that we need the love of
the God who created us in order to be fully human, We need the security
God's love. gives in order. to be fully loving in. our relationships. We need
the freedom from fear God's love gives in order to live intentionally and
joyfully.

The essence of the matter is a gift given. And the task of
believing, of being a Christian, of living as a disciple - begins with the
gracious reception of this gift and the gratitude it calls forth.

Christmas, slightly faded this morning, but not yet gone, is the gift
given and the personal response, a thank you to God. ;

A Scottish poet, George MacDonald, wrote, “For the real good of every
gift it is essential, first, that. the giver be in the gift - as.God always
is ~ and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift."

That is the potential whenever we give gifts: not just objects
transferred, ownership changed - but. persons offered and accepted in new
and. living relationships. And that potential is in the very air at
Christmas. a ;

A gift has been given
unto us, a child has been born,
- and his name is Emmanuel -
God with us.

it-is the selfhood of .God - the reality and personhood of God offered
in Jesus Christ. [t is a gift. It is always unexpected. It is never
deserved... It is for everyone - everyone who. knows how to receive. It is

our salvation.

Amen.

12-28-86