The Economics of Love

I just had a really great conversation with a guy who is struggling to figure out what it means to love his neighbor. He's picked a family in his neighborhood and is looking for ways to just love them. His first experience came last week when the mother got sick and his wife brought them chicken soup. A simple act.

The following week she heard the doorbell ring and it was the neighbor's wife with a bottle of wine in her hand. The simple act of love had touched them in a really great way, but it had also created a subtle expectation of obligation. The wine released them from that obligation. Not wanting to be rude, my friend's wife accepted the bottle, even though it wasn't why she did it.

Which brings me to my point. In every act of love their is this intrinsic possibility of it being an economic exchange. We give and then someone gives back. It's a nice process, and in some ways contributes to community but can quickly become political. When it does, it leads to a subtle questioning of expectation. The next time she does something, is a bottle of wine expected? This is the quandary.

I cannot tell you how many times someone had said, "Let me get this one, you got the last one." People don't like obligation, and love creates an obligation of sorts. And we don't like obligation.

Jesus posed a very different way. He essentially said, "give without them knowing it." I am just now beginning to understand why. When we give without someone knowing it, we remove the economic exchange. We reduce it to a blessing from above.

I recently watched a friend process a gift that was given to him blindly. In some respects, he couldn't handle it. He spent twenty minutes trying to figure out who did it, and why they would do that. He coudln't handle the obligation and wanted to get rid of it. He realized that his obligation was now to God, and this created a deeper obligation. In the end, he couldn't help but realize it was love. He knew in his heart that those who love give without an expectation of return. He was grateful, but it really caught his attention.

The best part about this is that when we do give blindly, God promises to reward us. I used to think that God would save the reward for when we get to heaven, which kind of created this bank of extention forty or fifty years out. It seemed to steal the juice out of it. I liked the idea of God rewarding me but why wait so long. Now I'm not so sure that's the way it happens. I now believe, through several experiences, that God gives to us in the moment. The primary gift is joy in recognizing what we are created to do in this life, love.

I like that recognition. I like seeing joy in my life. I feel in those moments, the real connection to what I am here for. As God said in Genesis after reflecting, "It is so very good."