A Fourth Church Sermon by Victoria G. Curtiss

July 11, 2010 | 4:00 p.m.

The Mutuality of Love

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Romans 12:9–13

We are called to “love one another with mutual affection” according to today’s scripture. Christians are to show love for one another from both directions. That’s like saying “enjoy chocolate.” Who needs to be told to enjoy chocolate? Similarly, who needs to be told to be kind to those who have been kind to you or share an encouraging word with another who’s always been there for you. When someone has cared for us, our natural inclination is to return the gift. Yet here it is in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome: “love one another with mutual affection.”

Perhaps the instruction comes because mutuality rarely occurs like a hug, when both people move towards one another at the same time and you can’t really tell who is giving and who is receiving. We experience love more often by taking turns. Sometimes I am the giver, and sometimes I am the receiver. Mutuality is about the flow of love back and forth. And many of us can get stuck in being primarily the giver or primarily the receiver.

It’s not enough to be only a receiver. We all have a little part in ourselves that would love to be taken care of. But if we are only receivers, we never grow up. When we put others in a position of only receiving, we diminish their growth and offend their dignity. We have learned that missionary and outreach work is far more effective through partnership with gifted people already on site. Research shows that for people who have faced hardship, the most significant factors in helping increase their resiliency are supportive relationships and the opportunity to give of themselves to others. One of the biggest losses for people who are aged or poor is their sense they don’t have much to give to others. One year at Christmastime in Washington, D.C., a number of department stores decided to donate hundreds of poinsettia plants to the homeless to sell. Much to their surprise, the homeless persons gave them all away. They wanted the joy of giving. It’s not enough only to receive.

It’s also not enough only to give. If one only gives with nothing in return, resentment grows over being taken for granted. Exhaustion comes. Or one simply misses out on the full spectrum of what love has to offer. Now there are many times in which we receive far more while giving to another than what we have extended to them, which is good, because there are people whose ability, stage, or circumstance in life is such that they can’t reciprocate. We discover one of the paradoxes of loving, which is that in giving we sometimes receive more back. That’s what those who are engaged in tutoring or visit people in the hospital say.

For most of us, what is hardest with mutuality is being on the receiving end. A family in one of my previous churches, the Spencers, discovered what it’s like to be on the receiving end of support from others. Their house burned down one night, and from the start their neighbors, family, friends, coworkers, school parents, classmates, and church all wanted to help them. In our congregation alone, the day after the fire, there was an immediate plan implemented to provide meals, donate furniture and household items, and collect funds to replace toys, books, and videos for the family. We so wanted to give of ourselves to the Spencers, who had given so much to others for many years. The father had quietly entered our church kitchen on Wednesday nights for years and washed hundreds of dishes. The two high school youth were always there when the youth group had work days to raise money for mission trips and helped clean up when other youth disappeared. Both parents are physicians—she is an eye doctor and he is a neurosurgeon—who have dedicated their lives to serve others. It’s no wonder so many wanted to give back to them.

When I asked the father how he was doing a week after the fire, his face got a pained look. He said, “It’s hard, because you just can’t reciprocate. Just saying thank you is so empty, it’s so inadequate. . . . I find it very uncomfortable to be on the receiving end.”

Lots of us can identify with that discomfort. Even though we all need support and love from others, some of us don’t feel entitled to receive. We haven’t earned it. Receiving may be especially uncomfortable if you were raised in the church. In my church growing up, a banner hung in the sanctuary that said J-O-Y—J for Jesus, O for Others, and Y for Yourself—and that was the order in which you were supposed to love. Paying attention to your own needs felt self-indulgent. And those of us who are Anglo-Saxon Americans were likely raised to be self-sufficient and stoic. Plus, we Midwesterners hold our pain in privacy. We get a heavy dose of being taught to rely on ourselves. We hang onto our independence and dread the day when our capacity to take care of ourselves ends. We don’t want to be a burden to others.

But no one who offered support to the Spencers felt like it was a burden. To the contrary, we felt a great need to reach out, for we felt their loss as our own. We can only imagine what it would be like to suddenly lose our home and most of our possessions in a fire, to have everything turned upside down overnight. Even the children of the church felt it. The youngest daughter of the family had a new sixth-grade friend who became like a mother hen and put together a little care package for her. Her longtime friend decided to give her the Target gift cards worth $30 that he received for his birthday. The paradox of receiving is that you are actually giving a gift to others by allowing them to show love. God calls us to be receivers as well as givers, not always because we need it, but because others need to give.

There is a wonderful film I recommend to you called The Winter Guest. It revolves around a relationship between an adult woman, played by Emma Thompson, and her elderly mother, played by Emma’s actual mother. Both women are stubbornly independent, but both need support. The mother is becoming more frail physically, and the daughter is in grief over her husband, who has recently died. The mother comes to be with her daughter, even though in some ways the daughter would rather be left alone. The daughter doesn’t completely hid her desire to be alone, which leads her mother to say, “Don’t tell me you don’t need me. . . . You’re the one who taught me how to care.”

There is far more joy and meaning in mutually loving one another than in our each trying to make it alone. We would do well to practice being both receivers and givers, even if it makes us uncomfortable. We may struggle, feeling like we could never reciprocate when love is offered us. But don’t we live with that every day? God blesses us with the joy of being alive, the wonder of being loved, in a life rich with art and music, beautiful creation, children and tenderness. We can never feel worthy to receive all this. And yet, God gives to us abundantly. It’s not a question of worthiness. It is all gift. Even God wants us to enjoy receiving. Enjoy chocolate. Enjoy this mystery.