Why is love so easy to give and so hard to receive?

I have been away. Doing shows. Finishing classwork. Graduating (what? yeah. I'm in the midst of that now). So this post is long overdue. My apologies.

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is to fulfil the scripture, “The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.” I tell you this now, before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am he. Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me

.’ - John 13:1-17

Until this Maundy Thursday, I had always read this scripture as "we should wash each other's feet, we should act as servants to each other". Which is, absolutely, a huge part of it. I summarized this for some friends of mine by saying that Maundy Thursday is the day when Jesus passes the torch. He says, "Alright, guys, I've been here loving you and caring for you and challenging you, but I'm about to not be around, so you're going to have to do this for each other now." (that's where we get "maundy" from "mandatum", the Latin for "commandment", Jesus giving the commandment for us to love each other.)

But this Maundy Thursday, I noticed Peter for the first time. Peter, the well-meaning but often misguided disciple who ended up being the rock the church was based on. The disciple with the most character development. Peter who refuses to let Christ wash his feet. And I realized that in any given foot-washing situation, I'm quite willing to wash someone else's feet… but completely unwilling to have my feet washed. I'm not going to inflict my beaten, smelly feet on anyone, especially not someone who I have such love and respect for. Which is exactly what Peter says to Jesus. And Jesus tells Peter, "If you don't let me wash your feet, you have no part in me. In any of this."

It is incredibly difficult to accept love. I think it is often more difficult to receive love, truly receive love, than to give it. Because while giving love is vulnerable, for fear of rejection, receiving love (which is different than reaching out and grabbing love, trying to take love) requires you to allow someone else inside of you, give them leave to affect you intimately--in fact, let go of control. And that's terrifying. I think a lot of us have no idea how to do it. I'm terrible at it. A lot of the people I know who are very good at giving love have a very hard time receiving it. For various reasons. We don't know how, the vulnerability required is scary. Mostly, I think, because we get caught up over what we "deserve" or not. "Deserve" is about as useless as "should". Both "deserve" and "should" are ideas we made up. According to some Christian doctrine, we don't deserve anything. We're all Totally Depraved, we're steeped in sin and deserve nothing, and so (some of us) reject everything that comes our way because we don't feel we "deserve it". Then, there's others who feel they absolutely deserve it and therefore take it ruthlessly. Also not the point.

Christ's coming wasn't about sanctifying us so that we deserved his love or sacrifice. Christ's coming was not a gift of mercy towards undeserving people. Christ's coming was, "Guys, get over that whole thing. Thinking about whether or not you deserve it just isn't helpful. There's life to be lived." ("I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." - John 10:10) Grace is that which frees us from thoughts of what we do or do not deserve, should or should not do, and allows us free movement, choices, mistakes, life. Grace is forgiveness that has already been bestowed. I read some philosophy for a class this semester, Hannah Arendt, who said that forgiveness was one of the ways we were able to make choices. Otherwise the irreversible effect of our actions would seem too much, it would freeze us in our tracks before we performed any action, but it is the existence of forgiveness that allows those strings to be loosened and for us to move forward without fear. I (and John Wesley) would call that grace. Prevenient grace, to be precise.

There's something about not accepting love that easily becomes romanticized. Starving artist who won't let anyone in. Wearing the scars of your self-deprecation. Dealing with your own problems, washing your own feet. But the fact of the matter is, no matter how much love is in the world, if we can't receive it, it doesn't matter. And that's the true problem. When we don't receive love, wearing our self-sufficient badges proudly, we are nullifying the presence of love in the world. Yes, we could always use more love in the world, but if we can't receive it, it doesn't matter. That's the story of the crucifixion. A man coming in and loving, deeply, truly, wholly, and the people he was trying to love rejecting it, lashing out against it in anger, screaming, "CRUCIFY HIM! We can't handle that!" In The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis speaks of God's love in The Problem of Pain, in a way that I've become obsessed with: "He has paid us the most intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense." And it truly can be an intolerable compliment we try to scratch off of our skin.

I can't believe that anyone is truly evil. I just can't. I have to assume that anyone who commits atrocious acts either hasn't been given the love that would have prevented that, or hasn't known how to accept that love. And so the love can never land, change, transform. It is negated. And no matter how much love I try to give to the world, I'm not helping if I can't receive love. I am, in fact, making the problem worse, and have no part in all of this, as Jesus says to Peter. He's teaching us not only to love, but to be loved. Not only to give, but to receive. Because the fact is, we have to be able to do both, because each one is dependent on the other. It's the only way this world will begin to heal.