Email Link
Facebook
Twitter
DiggWhen is Receiving More Important than Giving?
A letter from the Rev. Canon James H. Cooper, D. Min., rector of the Parish of Trinity Church Wall Street, first published in Trinity News , our parish magazine. Use the "Share your thoughts" link to let us know you'd like to receive a free subscription.
Parishes are a means to show people that everyone is loved by God. The good news is that God’s love is freely given. The challenge is for us to feel that love, and to live our lives accordingly.
If anyone knew God’s thoughts on love, it was Jesus. It was in Jesus’ job description to tell us where we should direct our love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” he said. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Looking at these directives, the parts about loving God and other people are explicit. What’s implicit is that we must love ourselves, too. We love our neighbors, but only as we love ourselves. It seems that in Jesus’ mind, self-esteem and esteem for others were linked.
Did Jesus come right out and say “Love yourself as God loves you”? No, but I think it’s implied. I wonder if Jesus believed we love ourselves because he knew we are already so loved by God.
By suggesting that there is an ultimate case when receiving is more important than giving, I am simply suggesting that you are the focus of God’s love. It’s all about you. You come first in God’s eyes.
But after risking the thought that God loves us comes the responsibility to realize we need to love other people as we are loved. In our parish and yours, we will be judged by how deeply and effectively we have loved our neighbors as ourselves.
This makes receiving God’s love a profoundly active experience. We have to work at it. And in accepting the qualities of God’s love, we risk possessing the power to change the world.
Faithfully,
The Rev. Canon James H. Cooper, D. Min
