The trouble withungracious
gift-receiving

Reflections on the church

Several years ago, while participating in Christmas celebrations and preparing to preach on Christmas Eve, I discovered I have a significant spiritual problem.
Since that discovery of my own lack of spiritual well-being, I have learned that my spiritual problem may be a common one.
Having this problem can be problematic throughout the year, but it is especially harmful at Christmas.
What I discovered is that I am a gracious gift-giver but that I am not a gracious gift-receiver. I delight in seeing your face light up when I have offered a gift that truly pleases you, and I am actually willing to cross the desert in the middle of winter to offer that gift to you.
I love giving gifts. Even if it is stressful to search for the right one in the right size, shape or color at this season of the year, I am happy to do so as a gracious gift-giver.
However, I don’t receive gifts well. I usually argue about what trouble you went to and how you spent too much. I get embarrassed if the gift-giving focuses a lot of attention on me.
Worst of all, I show my surprise, displeasure or ambivalence sometimes about the gift I have been given because it may not suit me exactly, and I am ashamed because the gift-giver surely detects that.
I would just rather give than receive.
But that is not always a good thing. What does it mean spiritually if I have trouble receiving gifts from others? I’m too good to take what others offer? I have no need for what others offer? I’d rather be independent than dependent? In control rather than not? Strong enough to give rather than vulnerable enough to receive?
The Advent/Christmas season isn’t simply a season of giving. It is a season of receiving. If I am incapable of being a gracious gift-receiver, how can I graciously receive the greatest gift of all—-the gift of the Christ child? This child was “born that we no more may die.”
In this season I am constantly reminded to receive the grace God offers the world, that God offers me, through him. The gift of the Christ child is freely given by the gracious gift-giver who desires only that I graciously receive this gift.
What usually happens in this season is that some spiritual experience breaks down barriers and brings me to tears. I realize that once again I have received this greatest gift of all.
“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given;
“So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
“No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
“Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”
P.S.: Speaking of gracious gifts, thank you, dear colleagues in the Corpus Christi District for the generous Christmas gift you have given me. (I am tempted here to argue that you shouldn’t have done that.)