Amy Sander Montanez is a writer, teacher, therapist, retreat leader, and spiritual director who attends Trinity Cathedral, Columbia. She is the winner of the 2007 Polly Bond Award of Excellence for Devotional / Inspirational Writing from Episcopal Communicators.

In the Moment—One Pilgrim's Attempt to Be Present

By Amy Sander Montanez, D. Min.

Jesus, the Great Receiver

It is better to give than to receive.
Jesus gave his life for us so that we may have eternal life.
Giving back to the world is the key to a well-lived life.
There are two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers.

I am fifty years old now, and I have been well schooled in the statements listed above. I give in many different ways, as I’m sure you do, and I encourage others to do the same. I give of myself for a living. Giving is modeled by Jesus, all the great saints, and all of my mentors. I know about giving and about self-sacrifice. In fact, I’ve walked the fine line of being “given out” before because of the amount of giving that seemed required in my life at different times.

©Photographer: Valery Shanin. Agency: Dreamstime.com.

And so it was a great challenge for me when Mark Yaconelli, the keynote speaker at a retreat sponsored by “Companions on the Inner Way”, asked us to consider Jesus as the “Great Receiver.” If you want to know how to receive, Yaconelli suggested, look at Jesus. When a woman wants to pour expensive oil over his head he says, “Yes! How wonderful! I will receive this gift.” When someone wants to wash his feet his says, “What a beautiful act of kindness and comfort. Yes, please continue.” When God opens the heavens and says, “You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,” Jesus says “Yes! Yes! Yes! I will receive this affirmation.”

How well do I receive? I can receive a compliment now, although I’ve had to work on that over the years. I learned how to receive meals from others when my daughter had surgery. I love receiving a caring, thoughtful phone call or a gift.

If I keep on digging down, I have to ask myself, “How well do I receive the amazing gift of every day life? What do I do with the gift of good health? In what ways do I fully receive the love of my family and friends?”

And deeper, “Can I receive the gift of God’s unconditional love for me? Do I really believe in the gift of my baptism, that I belong to a communion of saints and I really am one of them? Can I acknowledge and receive the gifts God planted in me at my making and own them without apology or a need to make them less or different than they are? Do I believe that I am enough, just the way I am?”

The therapist in me knows how important it is for people to receive. When a child offers love to a parent and that love is not received, it does great damage. Children need to know that their love matters, that their love makes an impact on their parents, that their parents are actually affected by the love that is given. After all, love is all a child has to give. The same is true in a partnership. If a partner cannot receive love that is being given, the energy that we call love is thwarted and diminished. Aging parents often have a hard time receiving love in the form of help. Pride gets in the way, and fear of losing independence, and the love and help that is offered is often deftly batted away. Love is a circuit, much like electricity, and if either end of the circuit, the giving or the receiving end is damaged, then you have a short circuit. I know it is important to receive.

But I had never thought about looking to Jesus as a model of receiving. I am now wondering about all the ways Jesus received the love of his earthly father and mother and about the ways he received the love of his followers. I am wondering what Jesus felt like when he received the affirmation and love of God. How did it transform him? When he went off to pray by himself, was it to receive? Did he, like I do, weaken at the knees when truly receiving all of the abundance in the many forms that it is offered in life?

How can I better receive the love of God? Can I believe that I am enough? I am playing with/praying with these notions this fall as I think of Jesus as a model for receiving.

At the time of our offering on Sunday we sang hymn 424 in the Episcopal hymnal. These are the words to verse three, which struck me this time to be about receiving.

For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us,
For the truths that still confound us,
Most of all that love has found us,
Thanks be to God.

I will be praying with these ideas this fall. Receiving requires a softening, an allowing, an inviting. Moment by moment, softening to this gift that is life, looking to Jesus as a model of receiving, I invite you to join me.

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