The Present Situation

[to Stuart, owner of the comic book shop:] “I’m attending a party this weekend for a ninety-three-year-old woman. Can you recommend a gift? … I’ve been to the model train store, I’ve been to Radio Shack – this woman’s impossible to shop for.”

The Big Bang Theory S5 E19, ‘The Weekend Vortex’ (2012)

What a beautifully wrapped selection of presents. Of course, the fact that they’re all nice neat cuboids helps. Try wrapping a plastic raccoon, for instance – much less easy.

It took literally years of people recommending The Big Bang Theory to me before I actually started watching it, at which point it became immediately and entirely apparent why they had been so persistent in the recommendation. Out of the endless parade of American sitcoms that end up being broadcast on E4, I think this is the only one I have ever watched that hasn’t left me wondering why I’m wasting my time on it. It is genuinely, cleverly, adorably funny viewing.¹ A key source of the humour is, of course, Sheldon’s constant bamboozlement with the world of normal human social interaction, which I think partly works because all of us find ourselves similarly bamboozled on occasions, even if not to so great a degree. Take, for instance, the obscure fog of social protocol that surrounds gift-giving.

In the episode ‘The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis’, Sheldon finds out that Penny has bought him a Christmas present, upon discovering which he is incongruously dismayed.

“Wait, you bought me a present?”

“Uh-huh,” beams Penny.

“But why would you do such a thing?” wonders Sheldon.

Penny seems perturbed. “I don’t know, ’cause it’s Christmas?”

“Oh, Penny!” Sheldon laments. “I know you think you’re being generous, but the foundation of gift-giving is reciprocity. You haven’t given me a gift; you’ve given me an obligation.”

“Don’t feel bad, Penny,” interjects Howard. “It’s a classic rookie mistake. My first Hanukkah with Sheldon, he yelled at me for eight nights.”

“It’s OK,” Penny attempts to reassure Sheldon. “You don’t have to get me anything in return.”

Sheldon, however, will not be swayed: “Of course I do! The essence of the custom is, I now have to go out and purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship as that represented by the gift you’ve given me. It’s no wonder suicide rates skyrocket this time of year.”

Subsequently, Sheldon concocts a plan to buy every size of gift available at the local bath-item shop, then excuse himself once he has opened Penny’s gift in order to retrieve whichever prospective gift he decides is appropriate. He ends up, to great comic effect, offering his entire purchased selection of bath products in return for Penny’s gift, a napkin bearing both the signature and the saliva of Leonard Nimoy, whom Sheldon hopes one day to clone from the DNA contained therein.²

Amusing as all this is, I do think Sheldon has a point when it comes to the issue of buying presents for people.

Today was the penultimate Saturday before Christmas, and the city centre was packed. Aside from the Christmas market on Cathedral Green,³ I encountered two other clusters of stalls selling gift items just on my walk down the high street. Shops had festive slogans plastered across their windows and gift-focussed catalogues were stacked in receptacles flanking many a doorway. Bus-stop advertisements picked up the theme: a small boy clutched a toy bear under the proclamation, ‘Found it!’, lauding Debenhams as source of the perfect gift to the innumerable passers-by. There’s no question that society expects us to buy presents for one another – and, moreover, that it expects us to buy the right presents for the right people. Products are divided by suggested recipient in those gift catalogues I mentioned earlier; I remember a Boots catalogue that actually provided a checklist of people for whom to buy presents on the inside cover. I’ve even heard of long-lived family feuds with their origins in the unexpected absence of expected presents. And Sheldon’s right: there is an idea of reciprocity. It’s instilled in us from childhood that if someone gives us a present or even a card, we must do the same in return – even if it’s that kid whose mum wrote out a Christmas card for every pupil in the class.

Timely reminder to write your Christmas cards. You’re most welcome.

All this means that buying gifts can be really quite stressful. Is this person expecting a present from me? How much money is it appropriate for me to spend on him or her? Is there anyone else who will be upset at not receiving a present, or not receiving a present of equal value, if I buy a present for this person? What can I afford? How do I best allocate my resources? What presents have I been bought in the past that I need to make sure to reciprocate accordingly? And that’s before we even start on the matter of what kind of present this person might actually appreciate.

Strangely enough, I have a sneaking suspicion we’re getting something wrong here.

“Now to the one who works,” writes Paul in Romans 4:4, “his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.”⁴ Note the contrast he draws there. The gift, unlike the wages, is specifically not earned. In fact, anything earned is, by definition, not a gift at all.

This idea strikes a hefty blow at Sheldon’s assertion that reciprocity is the foundation of gift-giving. Sheldon was upset by Penny’s gift because he felt obliged to earn it, in this case by giving her a gift of equal value in return. In fact, he was so stubborn in this that he refused to accept her reassurance that he didn’t have to get her anything in return, however genuinely meant. In other words, he refused to accept the gift as a gift.

An often-cited Bible verse on generosity is 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” And a great verse it is, but have a little look at what’s going on in the preceding part of the chapter as well. Essentially, Paul is telling his addressees, the church in Corinth, that he is sending some people to them, to organise the preparation of a gift they had promised to give for the benefit of other believers in Jesus. “I thought it necessary to urge the brothers [i.e. fellow-believers] to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the blessing you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as a πλεονεξία [pleonexía].”⁵

Forgive me for lapsing into the Greek there; it’s a tricky word to translate. The legendary Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek dictionary defines it primarily as ‘greediness’, ‘assumption’, or ‘arrogance’; stick a preposition on the front and the phrase can mean ‘with a view to one’s own advantage’.⁶ The picture that emerges is slightly different to that painted by the ESV’s translation of ‘exaction’. Paul is not just saying that he doesn’t want the Corinthians to give this gift they have promised reluctantly; he also doesn’t want them to give it with the expectation that they will receive something in return. Again, if it is really a gift, the recipient doesn’t, by definition, have to earn it in any way.

And it’s at this point that we get the famous ‘God loves a cheerful giver’ line. And why does he love a cheerful giver? Because he himself is a cheerful giver: “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever.” Generosity – giving without expecting anything in return – is characteristic of Godlike righteousness. That’s why God wants to see this quality in us.⁷

What does this all mean for Sheldon? Well, for one thing, by asserting that all gifts must be appropriately reciprocated, he is making it clear that he is not personally interested in giving without receiving anything in return. More than that, though, he is robbing Penny of the opportunity to be generous by insisting that he has to earn her gift. Applying a principle of reciprocal gift-giving represents a move away from the character of God. On top of that, if I insist on earning gifts given to me by other people, it won’t be long before I start having the same mindset towards gifts given to me by God – and that’s a dead-end street if there ever was one. Attempting to earn my God-given salvation is not only pointless, but spiritually dangerous. Paul has a right go at the church in Galatia over this: “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”⁸

Therefore, O Delightful and Appreciated Reader, if you happen to be shopping for Christmas gifts in the next few days, I encourage you to bear in mind what a gift actually is. It is not earnt. That means, on the one hand, that you are not obliged to buy people gifts of equivalent monetary value to those they have previously bought for you. On the other, however, you are also not entitled to expect anything in return for the gifts you give. Give them because you want to, because giving is good and joyous and says a little something about the character of the God who gave you the most valuable gift in the whole of history, his beloved Son. Insisting on reciprocity in gift-giving when the gifts in question are being given in order to celebrate the birth of that greatest, priceless, unrepayable gift does, after all, seem just a little bit ironic.⁹

Footnotes

¹ If you’re feeling prompted to watch an episode or several, there are always a good number available on 4 On Demand: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-big-bang-theory. 

² I feel the Big Bang Theory’s incredibly detailed Wikia deserves a credit here for helping me track down the episodes I wanted to mention in this post: http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. 

³ It’s quite a good one – definitely worth a look if you happen to be in the area: http://www.christmasmarkets.com/UK/exeter-christmas-market.html. 

⁴ It’s the chapter where Paul proves that righteousness has only ever been attainable by faith right back to Abraham: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+4&version=ESVUK.  Gorgeous stuff. 

⁵ Don’t take my word for it – check out the whole chapter for yourself: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians+9&version=ESVUK. Otherwise, you can’t know I’m not just lying to you to propagate my own perverted view of the gospel... 

⁶ My life as a Classicist is made so much easier by the Perseus Greek Word Study Tool: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pleonecia&la=greek#lexicon. Click on ‘LSJ’ for the full list of definitions. 

⁷ “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called…” Romans 8:28-30 (which may seem a tad familiar if you read last week’s post): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8&version=ESVUK. In other words, as far as God is concerned, what’s good for us is to become more like Jesus. Big concept, that – give it some thought. 

⁸ Wow, look at all the links to Bible Gateway there are in these footnotes! This post must be super extra holy. (Hint: I’m joking.) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=galatians+3&version=ESVUK. 

⁹ In which spirit, fancy watching a remake of this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, based around the idea of that very greatest gift? Of course you do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoxTF_31yyE.