"if ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things"
It's become a little on the rare side that I connect lessons across Sections rather than dive deeply into a single passage, but I left myself a little unsatisfied with the last post discussing the Revelations Q&A session from Section 77, so I'm finding a way to take a mulligan and move together with the next.
I went back and took a cursory glance at the framing and contents of all revelations to Joseph Smith chronologically prior to Section 77 to see if I could quickly identify some key features of the "genre" of these revelations, and noticed a few elements. First, they almost always begin with "behold" or "hearken", which seems to be a convention for not only grabbing attention, but signaling a liminal space--everything before was just Joseph, everything after is the Lord speaking (except the rare occasions where there is another voice being activated, like Moroni citing Malachi in Section 2, or an angel or an Elias of some kind voiced in Section 65). Next, they almost always open immediately after the attention-setting with a reminder of who is speaking--most frequently specifying that what follows is the word of the Lord, but sometimes elaborating on various names, functions, and descriptors of Deity. These seem to serve as extra poignant calls to take the commandments, counsel, prophecies and explanations which follow seriously. It should also be noted that the vast majority of the revelations previous to March 1832 were directed at individuals, and so the convention includes options for addressing persons directly or indirectly. There are a few Sections which seem to diverge from these generic features, address the world, the Church, or Elders of the Church in general, and many of these contain instructional language, like you might find in a handbook establishing prescriptions for practices or parameters for offices like a narrative form of what one might see in today's modern org charts.
Section 77 really does stand out, however, as unique in the pattern of more and more established convention. It doesn't begin with the attention-grabber, doesn't specify the voice of the Master answering the questions, doesn't address anyone, and doesn't convey commandment, instruction, or prophecy to be carried out or believed. Instead, it's dialogic, it assumes familiarity with John's vision and responds with specifics to deepen what's already familiar, and it seems to be the only revelation in which Joseph Smith voices two sides of a conversation simultaneously. There's more to explore in the generic expectations and implications of these differences, but mostly I'm just noting here that readers have to approach it differently and that it sets itself up as collaborative--we can each imagine ourselves in Joseph's shoes, learning.
In fact, I have to imagine Section 77 as if I were at the Temple in Jerusalem witnessing a 12-year-old Jesus hold forth with learned men as they asked Him questions about his understanding of Scripture and were astonished at His responses. He was their Author, after all, but as He grew line upon line, through a closer companionship with the Spirit of Truth than any of us can imagine, in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man, this Lord of ours had to come back into an understanding that the Creator He was had already known. And as Smith posed specific question after specific question, we are left outside of the genre of "behold and hearken", outside of the expectation to put directly into practice some commandment, or carry out a prescribed mission in a prescribed manner, or to connect commandments to explanations. Instead, we have only images and their keys; someone else's vision, and tools to help interpret it; questions from a serious student, and answers from the Master Communicator, able to mercifully gatekeep the deeper meaning so those who would be condemned by it might have an excuse, and to grant the mysteries unto those whose efforts match the gift, and whose knowledge can flower to action in good works, in preparation for His Second Coming.
And thinking of it like that episode in His youth, puts us in a frame of mind to consider what the temple was doing--consider its function as a sacred space. Only in the temple could humans connect directly with Deity. Prayer can directly connect us anywhere, it's true, but that connection is limited to mediation--it's a channel for communication through language, feelings, thoughts, and perhaps opens to other forms of communication like visions, but it's not direct contact. The temple's location was chosen by God, its dimensions were likewise not chosen by man, and the practices prescribed for its hallowed walls were dictated by the Jehovah as well. At the time of Jesus's visit, the Jewish leadership were so careful about keeping the space sacred, that they proscribed even the occupying Roman forces from entry--down to the coins they used. When Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers 18 years or so after his pilgrimage as a youth, they were there because Gentile-originating coin was considered sullying, and was to be exchanged for a special "temple" currency before entry inside the walls for purchasing the sacrificial animals prescribed by the Law of Moses. Special knowledge is revealed in the temple. Special services are held in the temple. Individuals and families worship in special ways in the temple. The Lord renews covenants, both personally and collectively in the temple. The symbolism of the temple all points to a great and last Sacrifice, and prepares the mind to point higher, receive justice balanced with mercy, and stay faithful despite being surrounded by the world once one leaves. It is a liminal space, where the mundane is left outside, so the eternities can be contemplated within.
There is a sense in which the spiritual is never purely abstracted out from the temporal, however. Special spaces of holiness like the temple are still made of material, after all, as are our own bodies which house a spirit and which can commune with the Holy Spirit. And so many of the prescriptions of the law of Moses which prepared the Hebrews for their Messiah's sacrifice dealt with what might look like purely material affairs on the surface.
In a similar way, Section 78 addresses a surface structure aimed at material needs. Since arriving in Kirtland and receiving the "law of the Church" back in Section 42, the members were commanded to arranged their temporal affairs in a new order that set a bishop in charge of a "storehouse" to benefit the poor--or in other words, which imbued an ecclesiastical officer with a spiritual charge to administer the material transactions necessary for the equal spiritual and temporal footing of the community. The leader was chosen to exercise spiritual discernment, but judge material matters. Each member was to labor responsibly like a good steward over what the bishop deeded over to him or her so that a surplus would be generated that could supply the lack for those who couldn't achieve such profits on their own.
The key difference in Section 78 seems to be not only that the storehouse should supply some of the operating costs of the Church (it had previously covered some expenses and living arrangements for a tight handful of leaders, but now was set to expand to cover the expenses of buying, setting up, and running a printing press for Church publications), but that its administration would be professionalized to a greater degree. The "firm" established still required the men involved to be called to their positions, but there were the perfect kinds of people among the now 2000 members of the church--a printer, a mercantilist, a theologian, and a member or two with literary talents--such that the people called could also form a reasonably professional board of folks who knew how to run a printing business and general store, and make money at it. The priorities were always the spiritual needs (Books of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, pedagogical materials, etc.) not profits, and proceeds were always destined to return to the storehouse, not benefit the "board". But the design was to help all contribute to the whole according to their strengths, to ensure all individuals had their needs supplied either through their own efforts or through the profits others could garner.
Keeping in mind that the term "equal" most likely meant "even-handed" or "fair" in the above passage, the idea of a United Firm, or a United Order, or the Law of Consecration is not equal outcomes, but instead the equal initiative we pledge to the service of growing whatever the Lord has allotted us. Because being all-in is what He requires for our spiritual growth, no matter what our material circumstances, and because being willing to pledge all our material is what shows our capacity for receiving those heavenly things that heaven's windows open upon us as we obey the Lord and love Him and our fellow humans.
Just like the temple is an earthly space for dialog with heaven, our individual consecrations can make of our earthly stuff the stuff of heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment