Receiving Until It Hurts
Philippians 4: 10 – 20
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Daniel T. Hans
November 25, 2007

Which is harder: to give or to receive?   Paul tells the Philippians that, considerate as their gift is, he really doesn’t need it because he has learned to get along with or without. Certainly, Paul wants the Philippian Christians to know that God’s grace is sufficient to meet all needs.  However, I wonder what those Philippians, who scrimped and saved to supply the gift for Paul, think when he says, “You didn’t need to give this to me” and he means it!

What would we think, if we gave someone a costly gift, he looked at it and said, “I can’t accept this”, handed it back to us and then walked away? Or how would we feel if we dipped deeply into our savings to send someone in need some money only to receive a note saying: “Thanks for the gift but I want you to know I really don’t need it; in fact, I don’t anything from anyone”?

Such responses to gifts are not uncommon today. Why is that?  It goes back to my earlier question: Which is harder: to give or to receive?  Before you answer that question let me tell you a story that, while not true in its details, is very true in its message.

Once there were two men who lived in a small town in the South.  They were as different as night and day.  So different from each other were they that even their names reflected the variance.  In the South it is customary to call people by an abbreviated version of their first and middle names.  For example, someone named William Robert Smith would be Billy Bob Smith.  This custom held true for the two men of whom I speak.

One man’s name was Cecil Lester Giver.  To the town folk he was Cec Les Giver.  The other man’s name reflected an additional southern custom of using an old family last name as a first name.  He was Haverford Benjamin Given, better known as Have Ben Given. These two, Cec Les Giver and Have Ben Given, had adjoining lots in a comfortable middle class neighborhood.  They also were members of the same church.    But with these affinities and with the spelling of their names any similarity between the two ended.

Mr. Cec Les Giver was known by everyone in his church and town as a very giving person - generous to a fault.  Each fall during the church’s stewardship campaign, he was the one who urged and even badgered his congregation to give until it hurt.  In fact, that was his personal motto: “Give until it hurts.”  And he did just that.  The problem was that his giving hurt those around him.  You see, the more Cec Les Giver gave, the more unpleasant he became and the more determined he was to give even more next time. There seemed to be some invisible force driving him to give and give.  Surprisingly, the more he gave to others the smaller his love became.  Cec Les Giver was far from a cheerful giver.

One other observation must be shared about Mr. Cec Les Giver.  While he could and would give to any cause that caught his fancy, he seemed unwilling or unable to give anything to himself.  Beyond that, he was unwilling or unable to be given anything by anyone.  It wasn’t that he had no needs.  It seemed he had no ability to receive.  If, as it is said, the person who goes through life unwilling to give is unfortunate, what is to be said about the person who goes through life unable to receive?

No one knows for sure, but some have wondered if this inability to receive was not the cause for Cec Les Giver’s distrust and disdain for his neighbor, Have Ben Given.  You see, Mr. Have Ben Given had no problem receiving gifts and enjoying them.  He was a recent widower.  So, people from the church and neighborhood frequently delivered casseroles and other food to his house. Whenever gifts came to his door, he greeted them with joyful thanks.  That meant a lot to those bringing the gifts.  Have Ben Given had an uncanny way of making everyone who helped him feel good about their help.  Those who knew him well described Have Ben Given with two words: joyful and thankful.

Of all the causes to which his neighbor Cec Les Giver gave, Have Ben Given was not one of them.  When Cec Les Giver’s wife suggested they invite their neighbor for a meal, he vetoed the idea, claiming: “Anyone who so gladly and continually receives gifts from others must be a lazy, weak free-loader.  Hasn’t Have Ben Given ever read in the Bible that ‘It’s more blessed to give than to receive’?”

As I pointed out already, the spelling of their names, Given and Giver, was quite similar.  Because of this, their names appeared next to each other in the church directory.  Thanksgiving Day was approaching and a new deacon in the church had been assigned to deliver a fruit basket to widower Have Ben Given.  In looking up his address in the directory, the deacon mistakenly copied down Cec Les Giver’s address and took the fruit to Mr. Giver instead of Mr. Given.

Well, by the way Cec Les Giver chewed out the pastor the next day, you would have thought that deacon had committed the unpardonable sin!
The church’s pastor was Sheila Beatrice Heard.  Her nickname?  She Be Heard!  Mr. Giver stormed into the office of Rev. Heard shouting that he had never been so insulted in all his life.  “How could anyone mistake me for that free-loading Haverford Benjamin Given?!” demanded Mr. Giver. “Why, I’ll bet he doesn’t even pledge to this church - and if he does, I’m sure it isn’t much!  When he puts his hand out to others it is always empty.  When I extend my hand to others, it has something in it!”  Although she did not share the information, Rev. Heard knew that Have Ben Given has one of the biggest contributors to the church and that Cec Les Giver was not.

Cec Les Giver continued his tirade, “This church would be much more Christian if you preached more sermons on Acts 20: 35.  In case you don’t know that verse let me quote it to you: ‘It’s more blessed to give than to receive.’  I recite that verse every morning.”  Cec Les Giver then added his interpretation, “That verse means that we in the church must give until it hurts.”

He turned to leave, then stopped and added, “And another thing, this church would be more Christian if we spent less time praising and thanking God in our Sunday worship and concentrated instead on the needs of the world around us.  In fact, if we were truly people living under the cross, we wouldn’t even meet for worship this coming Thanksgiving Sunday.  Instead, we’d use that time to engage in some project to help others.”  And with that, Cec Les Giver walked out of the pastor’s office.

Alone again at her desk, Rev. Heard looked down at the words she had scribbled in preparation for Sunday’s Thanksgiving sermon.  She reread a question she had framed: Must we be able to give before we can receive or must we first be able to receive before we can truly give?  It was the old debate all over again.  Must we give to others in order to receive God’s love or must we first receive God’s love in order to be able to give to others with joy?

Further down the page she reviewed two little formulas she had composed.  (1) With grace, there can always be giving from gratitude.       (2) Without grace, there can only be giving from guilt.  The faces of Mr. Given and Mr. Giver came to mind as she thought, “Have Ben Given illustrates how a person who has learned to receive is able to give with a sense of freeing gratitude.  There is joy in his giving.  Cec Les Giver proves that when one is unable to receive he is able to give only out a sense of driving guilt.  There is no joy, no thanks in his giving.  These two men would make a great story,” thought Rev. Heard.  But she didn’t think the pulpit was the place to tell stories so she went back to writing her sermon.

Rev. Heard knew that in time Cec Les Giver’s anger over the fruit basket incident would subside, but she had no idea how to help him discover there can be joy in giving, a joy that comes from realizing we all have been given.  One thing she knew to be a given for all people:
          We are never able to give until we learn to receive. 
          True giving arises from gratitude for the grace we have received.

She thought about the Bible verse: It is more blessed to give than to receive.  “That is true,” she thought, “but, in our self-sufficient, autonomy-worshiping culture it is easier to give than to receive, easier to give to others than to receive from them, easier to give to God than to receive from God.”  When Thanksgiving Sunday arrived, Rev. She Be Heard was a bit anxious about her sermon on “our gratitude handicap”.  She worried about how would she be heard given the recent incident with Mr. Giver.

Have Ben Given was in church that morning with a smile on his face, freely receiving and giving handshakes of welcome.  Cec Les Giver was also present, even though he objected to any special emphasis on giving thanks.
As the congregation sang the opening hymn, Now Thank We All Our God, Cec Les Giver stood silently, staring at the words of the hymn as if those expressions of gratitude were in a language foreign to him.

When the time came for the sermon, he casually glanced at the title: Receiving Until It Hurts.  “What a contradiction,” he thought.  “A good Christian sermon would be titled Giving Until It Hurts.”  Rev. She Be Heard began her message with a simple declaration.  “It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but it is also a whole lot easier.” (Fred Craddock, Preaching)  She paused a moment then said it again.  “It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but it is also a whole lot easier.”

“Easier to give than to receive?” puzzled Cec Les Giver.  “How can that be possible?  Easier to give than to receive?”    His mind began to work double time.    He thought of the people to whom he would be serving turkey dinner later that week at the Homeless Shelter.  “For whom is it easier?” he wondered. He had always assumed it was easier to receive that meal than to give it.  But, having never been on the receiving end, how could he say?
“What would it be like,” he wondered, “to have no resources except the charity of others?”

He looked around at the people in the church.  He saw his neighbor, Have Ben Given.  He pictured all the meals people had given Given, all the meals Given had so gladly received.  “For whom is it easier?” he wondered.  “To receive a meal is one more reminder of this widower’s loneliness.  Perhaps, it is easier to give than to receive in some cases.”  But he quickly reminded himself, “What about Jesus’ words: It’s more blessed to give than to receive?”

His eyes focused on the cross, that ultimate symbol of giving, the object which best expressed his “give until it hurts” motto.  “For whom was the cross easier?” he pondered.  He had always concluded it is easier to receive God’s love than to give it.  But suddenly, he realized the cost involved in receiving.  Receiving is an expression of admitted need and accepted dependency.  “Is it possible to be so brash as to think one doesn’t need God’s love, doesn’t depend upon divine grace?”  He was the answer to his own question and he knew it!

His thoughts were interrupted by She Be Heard’s invitation to pray.  The sermon was over!  “Must have been one of Rev. Heard’s rare short sermons,” he mumbled to himself.  As soon as the minister ended her prayer, Cec Les Giver rose to his feet and said, “Excuse me, Pastor.  Since it is Thanksgiving Sunday, I wonder if we could sing again the hymn Now Thank We All Our God?”  Pleasantly surprised, both pastor and congregation nodded with approval.

As the music started, Cec Les Giver looked around the congregation.  His glance met the eyes of his neighbor, Have Ben Given, standing across the aisle from him.  Each smiled at the other.  Each started toward the other.  But then against his nature, Cec Les Giver stopped and stayed in his pew, allowing Have Ben Given to approach him.  The latter put his arm around the shoulder of the former.

Accepting that hug, that gift, was one of the hardest things Cec Les Giver had ever done.  And yet he stood there and received the hug until---until it hurt.  With tears filling his eyes, he joined Have Ben Given in singing

Return to the Sermons Menu