Monday's Message

“The gift is indistinguishable from the giver” – was an interesting idea that I heard over the past week.  When someone gives you something it’s actually a gift of themselves that is being given and is symbolic of that person actually giving themselves to you as much as it is the giving of the ‘thing’.

Giving and receiving is an act of kindness that we all do.  I never really thought of the act of giving a material thing as the symbolic manifestation of the act of giving of oneself.  In as much as the gift is presented by the individual; in some manner, it’s really the individual giving the gift of themselves to the other.  As I pondered this, I realized how true this is.  We give to others for any number of reasons; but, in the end, it is really ourselves that we are giving.  And, most often, we give to show gratitude.  The process of giving is in fact a demonstration of our ability to give as much as it is in performing the act, we are really demonstrating gratitude in the ability to be able to give to another.  What an interesting twist of events – we give many times because we’re grateful for something that someone does for us; but, in the end, we are demonstrating gratitude for our ability to be grateful and to be able to demonstrate that.

So, what is inferred in the act of receiving a gift – we are receiving that person, accepting that person, and should be grateful in our ability to be able to accept from another.

So, this week, when someone gives you something, accept gratefully, accept with the knowledge that you are receiving a part of that person and relish in your ability to demonstrate gratitude for that opportunity.  Giving and receiving are as much the same act for without one, the other cannot happen – I realize it’s a circular thought; but, as we say, “it’s a gift that keeps giving.”

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,
“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”
He replied to him,
“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”
Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

Then he told them a parable.
“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.
He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,
for I do not have space to store my harvest?’
And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:
I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.
There I shall store all my grain and other goods
and I shall say to myself, ‘Now as for you,
you have so many good things stored up for many years,
rest, eat, drink, be merry!'”

But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God.”