O

It is easy to see or hear or experience something so frequently that we assume we understand all about it, and therefore we stop trying to learn about it. We hear the sacrament prayers about 48 times a year, and so we can make that kind of mistaken assumption about them, if we are not careful.

The sacrament is often discussed in General Conference and Church meetings. One aspect no one ever broaches in the discussion is the very first word in the prayers on the bread and water: O.

This word serves as a reminder of our desperate and potentially dangerous circumstances, our dependence on the Lord as our Rescuer.

It is less a word, and more of an exclamation or interjection. It intensifies our petition. Instead of casually asking, we are now pleading, imploring, even begging. It injects earnest feeling into our collective petition, offered by the boy kneeling and speaking in our behalf at the sacrament table.

Hosanna and O

The O in the sacrament prayer has a long ritual history. The “ho” sound in the Hebrew word hosanna (HO-SHAH-NAH, “O rescue please!”) is like our O in English. (The “sh” in “Yehoshua,” spelled “Jesus” in the New Testament, also means “rescue” or “save.” Jesus’ name literally means “Rescued By Jehovah.” See also Matt. 21:9, 15; Mark 11:9-10; John 12:13.)

Read D&C 109 some time to get a taste of the emphatic nature of the word O. (It contains at least 28 uses of “O,” by my count, as well as at least one Hebrew “hosanna.”) It is the prayer, received by Joseph Smith through revelation, written down, and read to dedicate the Kirtland Temple.

Here is a sampling:

“O Jehovah, have mercy upon this people, and as all men sin forgive the transgressions of thy people, and let them be blotted out forever…

“…Thy will be done, O Lord, and not ours…

“O Lord God Almighty, hear us in these our petitions, and answer us from heaven…

“O hear, O hear, O hear us, O Lord! And answer these petitions, and accept…the work of our hands…” (D&C 109:34, 44, 77, 78).

Joseph Smith had no microphone or sound system to amplify his voice; he was speaking to a congregation of about 900 people when he offered this prayer, some listening at the windows because the Kirtland Temple was so packed. His voice must have been dramatic and intense. (He prayed sincerely, according to Eliza R. Snow.) At the intersection of dependent humility and borderline desperation, we find the outcry, “O.”

Imagine a man lost in the forest. He has no phone, and no one knows his precise whereabouts. As he wanders fearfully through the vast, rugged landscape, feeling the pangs of hunger and thirst, wary of wild predators, he hears a helicopter in the distance, and the sound is getting louder. He runs frantically to a clearing, ascends the highest prominence in the center of the clearing, and begins waving his white t-shirt to get the attention of the pilot. “Here I am! Over here! Help me!” he screams. That is the spirit of the word “hosanna.”

Putting O at the beginning of our sacrament prayers adds that same flavor—imploring, pleading, begging. It removes the casual tone that infects most of our prayers. The two set prayers in the Church of Jesus Christ end up being the most emotionally charged. It is no mistake that there is an O at the beginning of each prayer; we are collectively admitting our total reliance on the Savior. It is mass-group repentance.

If the sacrament is a boost or help for penitent sinners, why is it that we do not gather random non-members and apostates and people involved in serious sin to partake of it? Why are some sinners invited, while others are encouraged to visit the meetings without partaking?

I find the hinge for determining whether we should partake or not in the word “willing.” Elder Maxwell used the phrase “reasonable righteousness” to describe the level of spiritual progress achieved by the rank and file members of the Church. It is not that they have stopped all sin completely, but that they are aimed in that direction, actively seeking, working, and intending to progress and repent.

When a person admits to himself and his bishop that he is addicted to pornography or drugs, or that he has committed adultery or stolen, it is evidence that he or she is not WILLING to keep covenants. At that point, it then becomes the prerogative of the bishop (who presides over the administration of the sacrament) to intervene. When there is sufficient evidence that the person in question is WILLING and able to try to keep his or her covenants, then it is wise to reinstate the sacrament as a renewal of those covenants.

Making a covenant is like being on a mountain. We progress by keeping our covenants, by staying up there on that mountain. Keeping commandments is always good, but keeping commandments with covenants in place amplifies the Lord’s blessings for our obedience. On the other hand, breaking the commandments with a covenant in place amplifies the justice, the cursing, and the grievousness of that sin. It is worse to fall from a mountain than to trip while walking on level ground.

A person with a covenant in place who intends to break it is like a person who intends to fall while on a mountain. It is safer to fall walking on flat ground than to fall from a mountain; it is safer to have one’s covenants revoked or suspended to some degree by the authority of a bishop than to have covenants in place, renew them every week, and yet have the intent (willingness) to sin, and sin grievously. Covenants compound righteousness, as well as sin.

“Willing” Denotes Intentions

What are we doing when we eat the bread each week?

When we partake of the sacrament, we are witnessing (showing) God that we are willing to take the name of His Son Jesus Christ upon ourselves, willing to always remember His Son, and willing to keep the commandments which He has given us. If we have plans to break those commandments, especially the Ten Commandments, we should not partake. Before we touch the bread and water, we ought to be certain we are facing uphill, willing to do all those things (however much we stumble in our sincere attempts). That willingness makes us worthy to partake of the sacrament.

The resurrected Savior gave the Nephites specific instructions about how the sacrament should and should not be administered:

“And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not;

“But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name…

“And now behold, this is the commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it;

“For whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a man is unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood ye shall forbid him” (3Ne. 22-23, 28-29). The purpose of offering or refusing the sacrament to people is to assist their progress and salvation. It is not to make people feel unwelcome in Church, or make some feel superior over others who are struggling.

Jesus does not say to judge anyone harshly, or cast anyone out; we are commanded to accept visitors, worthy or not, and not shun them. We are all penitent sinners, begging for the assistance only He can give. The Church has been compared to a hospital for the sick, not a well-provisioned rest home for the already-made-its. (In fact, Satan is given power to tempt us if we refuse to invite others to come unto Christ; I am a witness of this principle. See 3Ne. 18:25.)

Shame is a powerful motivator, and the devil can use the shame of being unworthy to partake of the sacrament as leverage to keep people out of sacrament meetings, and out of the Church altogether.

I vividly remember the example of one bishop of a single’s ward on his last day as the bishop. He left the rostrum, and flushed people hiding in the foyers on to the stand with him, a few minutes before the sacrament meeting began. He added about twenty or thirty individuals from the periphery to the center of the meeting, putting them near him in the choir loft. This act of inclusion was more powerful than anything said during the meeting. It was freighted with significance—very Christlike.

O Help Us!

Those who are worthy to partake of the sacrament, to continue the mountain analogy, often feel like they are barely hanging on by their fingernails. Satan can attack anyone unless he or she is perfectly obedient. (Even those people still have to deal with flawed or angry mortals, flat tires, illness, trials, wayward family members, sorrow for the sins of the world, etc.) No one comes to the sacrament table without a heavy heart, without some concern weighing on her or him. That is part of this mortal experience.

It is a shame to see people playing with electronic devices or being distracted during this moment when we can remember our dependence. We may not all be beggars for food and clothing, but we are all spiritual beggars.

A verse from King Benjamin’s speech captures the essence of group repentance we should have in sacrament meetings:

“For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have…

“And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name (just like in the sacrament prayers), and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy” (Mosiah 4:19-20). Coming to the Lord alone and begging is less powerful than coming as a group to make a request. “I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27).

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:19-20).

The intensity of our petitions and feelings of need during the ordinance of the sacrament is proportional to our awareness of just how dire our circumstances really are, just how dependent we are on our Savior. The words of the ordinance are not “I,” “mine,” and “me,” though; they are “we,” “they (us)” and “them (us again).”

Awareness Induces Reverence

Some things tend to wake us up out of CASUAL mode, and remind us of our utter dependence on Jesus Christ. After his recent attendance at a funeral, one member of a stake presidency mused sardonically, “What if you went to a funeral, and a sacrament meeting broke out? Everyone is reverent, everyone is attuned to the Spirit, people are focused on God,” and their dependence on him, etc. Death is a solemn reminder that we are all moving towards the Great and Last Interview with our Priesthood Leader, Jesus Christ, and it begs the question: Am I prepared?

This life is the time to prepare to meet God, the day we have been given to perform our labors. We have a chance once a week to reflect on just how well we are progressing, how well we are keeping our covenants. We also have a chance to reflect on what adjustments to make in order to get a better grip on the rock face, to tighten our anchors and secure our ropes. (These adjustments might be revealed to us in the middle of the ordinance of the sacrament, if we are asking, attentive, and attuned.)

It is right that we reverently, yet fervently, intone “O” at the beginning of the sacrament prayers.

What fastens us to God securely? There are many possible answers, but the center of the braided strands of those tethers must include the Holy Ghost, and that is the ultimate purpose, the payoff, the reward, for worthily partaking of the sacrament and renewing our covenants each week:

“…that [we] may always have [Jesus Christ’s] Spirit to be with [us]” (D&C 20:77). This is what the sacrament is ultimately all about.

How desperate are we to get, keep, and follow the Spirit?

“And they did pray for that which they most desired; and they desired that the Holy Ghost should be given unto them” (3Ne. 19:9). That gift will keep us tethered securely to our Father, and enable Him to get us back to Him safely.

"God Gave You a Brain"

I was out for a walk a few months ago, and I overheard a few words from a conversation between a woman and a teenage boy, whom I assume was her son. The mother was speaking in earnest:

“God gave you a brain, and He expects you to use it!” When I hear Latter-day Saints talk like this, it unsettles me.

It is true. “Be smart,” President Hinckley instructed the youth of the Church. I am the first proponent of getting all kinds of education. A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, Joseph Smith tells us. But what knowledge of what kind?

God has commanded His people to develop their minds, but I do not believe He is very impressed with our intellects, however good it is to expand and exercise them. He gave monkeys, cows, fish, rabbits, and frogs brains, too, though not as complex as ours. (None of these creatures seem to get into as much mischief as we do.)

Are cleverness and wit really what we were sent to earth to cultivate? I suspect we laid aside eons of learning gained in the presence of God (see D&C 138:56) in a perfect spirit body capable of perfect recall (see 2Ne. 9:13; Alma 11:43) when we came to earth and put on these flawed physical bodies. The veil covers that fire. It was a deliberate loss of knowledge and capacity for learning facts and figures. This life is primarily a test of other virtues; obedience, faith, humility, etc., can be displayed on godlike levels by mortals here on earth—intelligence, not as much.

As with all gifts from God, our wits are subject to use and abuse. Common sense is good for repairing flat tires and opening pickle jars, but we can trip over our knowledge, cleverness, and brains, especially when we prefer them over the Spirit or when we give them preeminence when trying to living the gospel. When someone says things about using the brains God gave us, I often read between the lines and hear a confession that revelation is a foreign process.

Is acting on faith too hard for us?

Yes, get all the education you can; yes, the glory of God is intelligence, BUT...

Walking On Water

Below is the story of Peter trying to walk on water to Jesus, who was also walking on the storm-tossed sea. Pay attention to the role that Peter’s brain plays in stifling his attempt:

“But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.

“And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

“And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

“But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

“And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

“And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

“But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

“And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matt 14:31).

Initially, all the disciples relied on their eyes and brains to deduce that Jesus could not be Himself. Humans cannot walk on water, so they logically assumed they must be seeing a ghost. (They feared what would save them; is there a lesson in there for us?)

Peter devises a test to determine whether it is the Lord, and bases it in part on the principle found in 1Ne. 3:7, that when God gives a commandment, He also prepares a way to accomplish it. “…bid me come unto thee…” he asks, because if the real Jesus tells Him to walk on water, the command itself will make it possible, and he will not drown. “Come,” says Jesus, and Peter leaps out of the boat.

At first, he walks on the water successfully. But Peter begins thinking logically at this point. He sees the wind blowing, and becomes afraid. It seems humorous in hindsight—walking on water is only safe in Peter’s mind when the wind is not blowing? The laws of buoyancy are temporarily suspended, so why is anything else a threat? But this is just more logic, and reason is the ballast that begins to sink him.

It is touching that the instant Peter cries for help, Jesus grabs his arm and pulls him up again. “Savior” means one who does for others that which they cannot do for themselves. Jesus seems to be in no hurry to get back into the boat. Peter’s education is more important than his safety, because Jesus begins to teach and rebuke Peter before they even get into the boat again: “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” He did not say, “God gave you a brain—logically, if one law of physics could be suspended to keep you safe, why not the rest of them?” Peter did not fail an intelligence test. He faltered in a test of his faith (and the Lord prepared Peter to try again instead of flunking him or expelling him from school).

The Lord’s Ways

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” (We should expect the unexpected.)

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The heavens completely encompass the earth, and expand outward in all directions forever—that is how the heavens are higher than the earth. The point is that we should expect to be confused at first when we encounter the Lord’s ways and instructions.

Why choose an unlearned farm boy as the head of this last dispensation? Isaiah foresees Joseph Smith’s plight: “I am not learned” (Isaiah 29:12). Maybe Moroni was feeling the same inadequacy when he told the Lord: “…thou hast made us that we could write but little, because of the awkwardness of our hands. Behold, thou hast not made us mighty in writing like unto the brother of Jared…” (Ether 12:24).

The Lord comforts Him: “…thou hast been faithful…And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father” (Ether 12:37). This pattern of the Lord picking His spokesmen from a state of their weaknesses is common. Moses had speech impediments; Enoch called himself a universally despised “lad.” Humility, not brilliance, was their leading characteristic. The audience might be impressed with the eloquence or imposing bearing of a speaker; the Lord “looketh upon the heart,” and is not impressed with outward show. What we consider unlikely, the Lord uses as standard equipment.

Arm of the Flesh

“…for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of the flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm” (2Ne. 4:34), especially those who are trying to do the Lord’s work while so relying. Human knowledge and the five senses are part of that “arm.” Peter started sinking when he tried to apply worldly, previous experience logically to an irrational event, a divine miracle. We might also find ourselves sinking in other ways if we try to accomplish the Lord’s work by obeying logic and schedules and reason when the Spirit beckons elsewhere.

One of the most temporally prepared men I ever knew recently had a heart attack. He stored many supplies and temporal goods for any external catastrophe, and yet an internal train wreck happened anyway, and caught him off guard. I saw him at the gym a few months ago; he is still active and ambulatory, for which I am glad. And there is certainly nothing wrong with his attempts to be prepared. But it is worth noting that man’s “puny arm” could not keep a blood vessel from clogging, much less divert the Missouri River. As Nephi says, we are cursed when we trust in our own abilities and knowledge; perhaps part of that curse is false confidence.

I read that one Latter-day Saint author’s mission president distributed copies of a sale’s training manual to his missionaries (this was many years ago). He had succeeded as a businessman, and he wanted his missionaries to succeed the way he had, by having them convince people through charm, logic, and manipulation. (The author said he rebelled and studied the Book of Mormon instead—so naughty.) Slick packaging sells everything else, but the gospel is not meant to be sold or bought. “…Thy money perish with thee,” Peter rebuffs Simon Magus after his offer to buy the priesthood (see Acts 8:20). “…come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness” (2Ne. 9:45).

Just as the gospel is not for sale, it is also not subject to the same rules as commodities that are for sale.

Logically, the Lord should send the very smartest people as His emissaries, but instead we read, “The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh—

“…That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers” (D&C 1:19, 23).

Being charmed or argued logically into the gospel instead of converted by personal revelations would leave us without deep roots, and we would eventually fall away. If the messenger is plain and simple, only the message itself is being accepted or rejected—the plain and simple truth can, and should, stand on its own two feet without scaffolding, save personal revelation.

Laman & Lemuel

Nephi’s older brothers, Laman and Lemuel, are the Church’s perennial whipping boys. We hiss and boo at their folly, while cheering for Nephi. “Be like Nephi; Don’t be like Laman and Lemuel,” we chant.

Laman and Lemuel ultimately did everything the Lord commanded them (they just complained a lot beforehand). They left Jerusalem; they went back for the brass plates; they went back for Ishmael’s family; they traveled in the wilderness; they helped Nephi build a ship; they sailed to the New World; they settled their families in the Americas, and populated them; all this was just like Nephi.

What was the difference then, between Laman and Lemuel, on one hand, and Nephi, on the other? Nephi acted on faith. Laman and Lemuel relied on common sense—they used their brains.

Imagine if your father came to you and told you God had warned him in a dream that people in the city wanted to murder him, and so the Lord had commanded him to take his family from a cushy situation and live in tents in the desert. Then he gets a revelation that the family is to construct a rocket ship, fly to the dark side of the moon, and establish a permanent colony there. Crazy, yes? This was Laman’s and Lemuel’s issue—what their father said did not make sense to their natural minds.

Nephi believed, not because he was smarter than they, but because “…I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto [Laman and Lemuel]” (1Ne. 2:16). Following the seemingly irrational promptings of the Spirit led Nephi to own prime real estate in the Americas, and to great revelations, as well as assisting in the creation of scripture read by millions of people thousands of years in his future. Following his older siblings’ common sense, based on five sense-information, would have led them to a few more years of ease and wealth, and then to be killed or enslaved when Jerusalem was destroyed.

It is wise to expect promptings not to make sense, at least at first; if our current understanding and trajectory are correct, then all we have to do is apply our wits to circumstances, and no course correction is needed. If there is something we cannot see coming our way, the Spirit can warn us (but usually without any explanation, and so it takes faith at first to act). After we act, we see the Lord's impressions to us fulfilled. Laman and Lemuel never reached that state of trust and action like Nephi.

Safe Handling

Are stupidity and ignorance virtues? No, but a little bit of knowledge can make its owner drunk with pride (just as any exceptional gift might inflame its owner with a sense of disdain for others). Is there a way to avoid this? Is there a spiritually safe way to be smart, sensible, and prepared?

“O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not…

“But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2Ne. 9:28-29).

“And whoso knocketh, to him will (Jesus Christ) open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them” (2Ne. 9:42). We can get to heaven without being very smart, but not without being very humble.

It is good to be as smart and educated as possible (see D&C 90:15; 88:78-81). “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom” (Prov. 3:13), says Solomon the Wise. Yet he recognizes our limits, too: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

“Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil” (Prov. 3:5-7).

The Lord usually gives revelations without explaining why we are to follow those promptings; we often need to act without seeing the whole picture at first. The scriptures will give us reasons to obey the commandments, but a prompting to go somewhere or say something usually comes without a description of the outcome. “And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1Ne. 4:6). Again, it is a test of our faith, not our knowledge.

Captain Moroni

A great example of someone who was smart, yet also followed the promptings of the Spirit, was Captain Moroni. Yes, he gave his men superior shielding in the form of armor, but he also relied on the gift of prophecy. He sent men to inquire of Alma, the current prophet, to ask where they should go to repel their enemies. On the word of the prophet, he lunged blind into the fog of war, and achieved victory even though his army was outnumbered (see Alma 43-44). He prepared according to his wits, and acted according to his faith.

It is easy to read such stories and feel that maybe we do not have to let go of the railing of carnal security and learn to use the slippery, risky ice skates of faith after all. But the Lord will throw us into the water to teach us how to swim if we insist on dragging our feet, especially if we have already made covenants with Him.

Modifying our behavior according to what is obvious to us takes little or no faith, and does not connect us to God as well as other things. Applying our minds to study, pondering, and meditation are parts of the gospel. While God expects us to use what wits He has given us, the virtues of faith and humility and love of God sometimes require us to take a leap of faith, something that does not make sense initially. Wit is more obvious; faith and humility allow us to extend our love of the Lord into trust that begets actions, even when those actions seem irrational to us at first.

As long as our trust in the Lord and His small whisperings that come to us is greater than our trust in what we can understand with our limited mortal minds, we ought to be as educated and smart as possible. Our love of the Lord is only as great as our trust in Him, and that is what we are being tested on in mortality, not our intelligence. A church full of Saints who live this way might be more miraculous than walking on water.