Reciprocity
Today's gospel reading struck a nerve with me. Here it is (Lk 14:12-14) ...
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. He said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Reciprocity ... in kind responses of individuals towards the actions of others. Sounds good, doesn't it ... you never need to worry about giving, as you will always get back in propertion to what you gave. The thing is, there are some who can't respond in kind, and when you intereact with them, what you must give is a gift in the true sense of the word ... no strings attached. It may not seem worth it to give without getting something back, and neither is it easy to receive when you can't return the favor ... sometimes, accepting a gift is even harder than giving it, whether we're talking about material objects, or an invitation to friendship.
This all reminds me of an article by James Alsison about belonging. He makes the point that while reciprocity is fundamental to the way belonging usually works for us, Jesus does away with reciprocity. Here below is a bit from the article ...
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... there is a certain stability to belonging. The stability is actually a constantly shifting stability, and it requires constant energy to stay still, but we know how it works. We imitate, and then we fall out, we find new models to imitate, or people imitate us. We learn the rules of surviving in the group, and they are really quite simple. We can sum them up normally in one word: reciprocity. I give, and I expect to be given. I invite, and I expect to be invited. If I do something hostile, I expect hostility to be meted back to me, so I take measures to avoid it, or shift responsibility somewhere else. There is in fact a constant circle of reciprocity going on in any form of belonging ....
Well, into this world of relative stability, of mostly controlled imitation and rivalry, hospitality and vengeance, Christ comes crashing like a comet which has strayed out of some distant galaxy. And his invitation to discipleship is a terrible gash, forever ruining the relative stability of the party. If I have taken my time to get around to talking about discipleship of Christ, it is because I wanted to bring out just how weird a thing it is. For its key feature is that it undoes the central rule of logic which governs all induction into belonging: it undoes reciprocity ....
So, the first rule of reciprocity is already pre-broken. Gratuitous benevolence has started to turn reciprocity on its head. He has done something for us which no one could ever repay, or return. And he is not remotely interested in our repaying or returning it anyhow. What he asks us to do is to multiply the gratuity, by doing other gratuitous things to and for others without any hope of repayment. Notice what this looks like: a command to create gratuity rather than expect reciprocity, so:
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14)
and also, the reverse of that, a command not to engage in expected negative reciprocity, but instead to be gratuitous:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil… You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:38-39a, 43-45)
And of course this is massively destabilizing to any form of human belonging. In fact, it reveals quite to what an extent all our discipleships and all our belongings, all our constructions of identity are based on, dependent on - which means secretly run by, - death, and its fear. But this is where we start in discipleship of Christ: we start from death having been rendered moot as a factor in our construction of identity by Jesus having occupied the place of shame and death without being run by it, and having been witnessed on the third day and thereafter as being a dead man who, without ceasing to be dead, was alive.
Discipleship of Christ is the process by which that protagonism of gratuity which he inaugurated by going to death for us, and which we sometimes call the giving of the Holy Spirit, reaches us and enables us to start to live as if death, fear, ignominy and shame were not. Which means that it first reaches us, and can only reach us, as a certain rupture of our stability, a certain enabling us to stand loose from our previous belonging, and a certain breaking of heart which usually goes by the name of “the forgiveness of sins”. Discipleship of Christ presupposes us being in the process of being forgiven as our access to being re-created ...
***********************
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. He said to the host who invited him, “When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Reciprocity ... in kind responses of individuals towards the actions of others. Sounds good, doesn't it ... you never need to worry about giving, as you will always get back in propertion to what you gave. The thing is, there are some who can't respond in kind, and when you intereact with them, what you must give is a gift in the true sense of the word ... no strings attached. It may not seem worth it to give without getting something back, and neither is it easy to receive when you can't return the favor ... sometimes, accepting a gift is even harder than giving it, whether we're talking about material objects, or an invitation to friendship.
This all reminds me of an article by James Alsison about belonging. He makes the point that while reciprocity is fundamental to the way belonging usually works for us, Jesus does away with reciprocity. Here below is a bit from the article ...
********************
... there is a certain stability to belonging. The stability is actually a constantly shifting stability, and it requires constant energy to stay still, but we know how it works. We imitate, and then we fall out, we find new models to imitate, or people imitate us. We learn the rules of surviving in the group, and they are really quite simple. We can sum them up normally in one word: reciprocity. I give, and I expect to be given. I invite, and I expect to be invited. If I do something hostile, I expect hostility to be meted back to me, so I take measures to avoid it, or shift responsibility somewhere else. There is in fact a constant circle of reciprocity going on in any form of belonging ....
Well, into this world of relative stability, of mostly controlled imitation and rivalry, hospitality and vengeance, Christ comes crashing like a comet which has strayed out of some distant galaxy. And his invitation to discipleship is a terrible gash, forever ruining the relative stability of the party. If I have taken my time to get around to talking about discipleship of Christ, it is because I wanted to bring out just how weird a thing it is. For its key feature is that it undoes the central rule of logic which governs all induction into belonging: it undoes reciprocity ....
So, the first rule of reciprocity is already pre-broken. Gratuitous benevolence has started to turn reciprocity on its head. He has done something for us which no one could ever repay, or return. And he is not remotely interested in our repaying or returning it anyhow. What he asks us to do is to multiply the gratuity, by doing other gratuitous things to and for others without any hope of repayment. Notice what this looks like: a command to create gratuity rather than expect reciprocity, so:
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14)
and also, the reverse of that, a command not to engage in expected negative reciprocity, but instead to be gratuitous:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil… You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:38-39a, 43-45)
And of course this is massively destabilizing to any form of human belonging. In fact, it reveals quite to what an extent all our discipleships and all our belongings, all our constructions of identity are based on, dependent on - which means secretly run by, - death, and its fear. But this is where we start in discipleship of Christ: we start from death having been rendered moot as a factor in our construction of identity by Jesus having occupied the place of shame and death without being run by it, and having been witnessed on the third day and thereafter as being a dead man who, without ceasing to be dead, was alive.
Discipleship of Christ is the process by which that protagonism of gratuity which he inaugurated by going to death for us, and which we sometimes call the giving of the Holy Spirit, reaches us and enables us to start to live as if death, fear, ignominy and shame were not. Which means that it first reaches us, and can only reach us, as a certain rupture of our stability, a certain enabling us to stand loose from our previous belonging, and a certain breaking of heart which usually goes by the name of “the forgiveness of sins”. Discipleship of Christ presupposes us being in the process of being forgiven as our access to being re-created ...
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posted by crystal | 11:44 AM
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