Notes for talk on Obedience (May 26, 2013)
[These are my notes for a Sacrament Meeting talk I gave today. I was assigned the topic of obedience. I include it as a post because it includes a story about me and BYU, and I’ve realized that in focusing on ancestor stories I’ve never said much about my own. This isn’t what I actually said in the talk. My habit in preparing talks is to first write out everything that comes to mind – more stream of consciousness - and then edit it down to the appropriate length and edit out what may not be appropriate or relevant to the topic. Also, I usually don’t actually read the talk, but writing it all out first helps me think through the topic and how to say it and then I don’t stumble around so much for words (I’m not naturally glib or articulate). Since this post is not time or subject matter constrained, I’ve posted the full unedited set of notes. Most did not survive editing and not all of what was left was actually used in the talk. I also added some old photos.]
Before I get into my talk I want to tell a little personal story about an insignificant event. Sometimes looking what is insignificant in one context is helpful in learning principles that may apply in another context of great significance.
This story happened a long, long time ago in a land far, far away – the BYU campus in Provo, Utah in the 1970s. Actually, the story starts before then. My mother grew up in El Paso, Texas and after WWII she and a friend decided to leave El Paso for somewhere else. Being a little contrarian, she did not want to go to BYU at Provo because that’s where all the Mormon girls went just to find a husband. Instead she and her friend went to Utah State in Logan, Utah, where she met and married my father.
After high school I received modest scholarships to both Utah State and BYU. Being an heir to mother’s attitudes towards BYU, I went to Utah State, largely because all my LDS friends were going to BYU and at that age being different was important.
[A freshman at Utah State University]
My time at Utah State did not improve my view of BYU. I remember one weekend in particular that I spent visiting some old Nampa high school friends then attending BYU. The plan was to go a school dance on Friday night and skiing at Alta the following Saturday. For the dance I brought along some nice looking, almost new levis, ironed with a crease in the middle – which was rather stylish at the time. For skiing I had some old brown corduroy pants that fit well over my ski boots, but were ragged on the inside of the legs from the boots and metal edges on the skis. Some bleach had also accidently been spilled on one of the legs, leaving it with a sort of unintended, but rather trendy, tie dyed look. Well, BYU wouldn’t let me into the dance with the nice looking jeans (strict dress code rule against denims). So I changed into the ragged, tie dyed old brown corduroys and was let in without objection - only at BYU.
[Entering the mission home in Salt Lake - this is before the MTC]
[Returning home 2 years later - Grandma and Janell]
After a mission I had no real friends at Utah State – two years is long time in that respect – and no desire to return to the dorm environment there. I was sort of drawn to BYU by default. Somewhat to my surprise I found myself thoroughly enjoying the school, my roommates, the student ward, the social life and activities and especially the academic environment. I even enjoyed being there and complaining about all its rules.
The 70s was a time great social change with a lot of student unrest on college campuses, challenging any limits on personal liberties and expression, and a general distrust of established old institutions (especially those run by a bunch of old guys). BYU being BYU and BYU students being BYU students, this all largely passed over BYU.
But the 70s was also a time when long hair and lots of facial hair was very fashionable for young men, but a fashion at odds with the grooming section of the BYU dress code. This, however, did become a matter of some controversy on campus with some students advocating for some changes. In general I sided with those who thought the standard was rather arbitrary and petty, having no real connection with moral behavior or educational environment, and should be updated. Also, why it may be hard to visualize this now, my personal grooming then was, shall we say, a little more fashionable than code compliant. But no one really objected to my hair and so whole thing wasn’t of much concern to me.
One day, however, I received a letter from the standards office informing me that they had received a report that I was in violation of the honor code and that I was to contact that office to schedule an appointment, as failure to comply with the code could result in my inability to attend the university. Well I had a good idea what had happened.
A week or so before I had checked something out at the Wilkinson Center (the BYU student union) and the clerk – a rude, beady eyed Gestapo wannabe like character with real, real short hair and an attitude – looked at me, at my hair and at my student ID way, way too long for normal circumstances and seemed to be making notes too. Just so you know, there was a procedure for students, faculty and others to anonymously report students suspected of code violations. So the creep in the Wilkinson Center, on some sort of private mission to rid the school of dress code deviants, had ratted me out.
Let’s pause the story right there. To be clear this talk is not about BYU and lot can go wrong in comparing BYU grooming standards to Lord’s commandments or BYU to the kingdom of God – but nonetheless I think about this experience from time to time.
In a conference address last April Elder L. Tom Perry spoke about obedience in a talk titled “Obedience to Law Is Liberty”
Elder Perry taught “Each choice you and I make is a test of our agency—whether we choose to be obedient or disobedient to the commandments of God is actually a choice between “liberty and eternal life” and “captivity and death.” He goes on to say that
“There are moral absolutes. Disobedience to the Lord’s commandments will always deprive us of His blessings. These things do not change.
In a world where the moral compass of society is faltering, the restored gospel of Jesus Chrits never wavers, nor should its stakes and wards, its families, or its individual members. We must not pick and choose which commandments we think are important to keep but acknowledge all of God’s commandments.”
Note the teaching that we must not pick and choose which commandments to obey. We need to obey them all.
There are many reasons why we don’t keep commandments and lots of attitudes and actions that can lead us to disobedience. I’d like to mention just a few that I think active members, like you and me, may need to watch out for.
First, small things matter. In other contexts in life we are taught not to sweat the small things in order to stay focused on the important things. But as to the Lord’s law of obedience, small acts of disobedience matter. Ignoring what we may think as insignificant does not help us stay focused on the more important commandments. On the contrary, as we begin to be comfortable in rationalizing away minor acts of disobedience we begin to distance ourselves from the Lord and his Spirit – it is the slippery slope – and as Nephi teaches this is how the devil cheats our souls and leads us away carefully down to hell.
The prophets are clear that we must obey all the commandments. But we have so many programs in the church and sometimes so many things seem to be required of us. We walk around guilt ridden about what we haven’t done and this is in a gospel that promises peace. I have no solution for this dilemma, but offer an observation. Think about the questions we’re asked in a baptism or temple recommend interview – those in a way are basic “gating” questions. We should be especially careful in obeying those commandments and in avoiding even small, seemingly insignificant, violations of them, as disobedience of those commandments carries the greatest risk.
Second, God works through people and organizations. It is usually some other person that calls us to repentance and teaches us obedience – such as a parent, a church leader or just a good friend. However, calls to repentance are not always well received. Ancient Israel had a bad habit of stoning prophets who did so. While we don’t usually stone our teachers and leaders these days, sometimes we still can get defensive when told of our disobedience and look for faults and short comings in the messenger to justify our rejection of the message and our continued disobedience.
Here is a little irony, we treasure the teachings of old prophets about whom we know very little, but reject the teachings of those who the Lord has put right in front of our face to help us, because we know them too well. It is sort of the prophet without honor in his own country problem.
This has always been the case. President Lorenzo Snow had this to say about the Prophet Joseph Smith who we revere and who was chosen by the Lord to open this dispensation of the fullness of times:
“I saw Joseph Smith the Prophet do things which I did not approve of; and yet I thanked God that He would put upon a man who had these imperfections the power and authority which He had placed upon him for I knew I myself had weaknesses and I thought there was a chance for me, - - knowing his weaknesses did not impair Joseph in my estimation. I thanked God I saw these imperfections.”
Brigham Young, who loved and followed Joseph Smith with unmatched constancy, also admitted that sometimes the prophet was not always right in his management of affairs. Brigham said, “Though I admitted in my feelings and knew that Joseph was a human being and subject to err, still it was none of my business to look at his faults. He was called of God, God dictated to him and if He had a mind to leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no business of mine. Though he had his weaknesses, he was all that any people could require a true prophet to be.”
The Lord has surrounded each of us with imperfect people, but among them are the ones the Lord has sent to help us obey and, looking past their imperfections, to paraphrase Brigham Young, they are all we could require the Lord’s servants to be.
Presidents Snow and Young were able to separate Joseph the prophet and the truths the Lord revealed through his prophet Joseph from the Joseph the human with faults and who made mistakes. It is hard to be told to repent, but let’s not look to the faults of the messenger to justify our rejection of the message.
Also, we all have feelings that are more fragile and egos that require more nourishing than we like to admit, and we can easily be offended especially by those we think should have known better.
Maybe our service was not adequately recognized, or some one said something political that we thought was wrong or inappropriate. Maybe someone may have engaged in some gossip about us, or worse, about someone we love (our kids). There are so many ways and opportunities for us to be offended that I’m often surprised at how well we really get along. But we know what can happen. The offense creates resentment and bitterness that we then use to justify rejection of the Lord’s commandments and to back away from the church and the blessings of its teachings. The weaknesses of others around us do not excuse our disobedience and our focus on them can cause us to lose what is important to us.
There is an old saying about resentment being a poison you take and then hope someone else dies.
Let me go back to my little story and the little creep at the Wilkinson center who ratted me out. The fact is he probably really wasn’t such a creep and we clearly had one important thing in common. He liked BYU as much as me and, while I would have perhaps handled it differently, he was only trying to do what he thought was best – nothing wrong in that. The problem was not with him. The problem was, as everyone could clearly see, my hair. I looked in the mirror. It wasn’t even borderline; it was too long.
For very good reasons we are taught to be humble and submissive to the counsel we receive from the Lord’s servants and to be forgiving and long suffering of others and slow to take offense.
There is a flip side to this. I mentioned how we are surrounded by people the Lord has put in place to help us with obedience. How are we to go about doing that? Since your are among those who are to call me to repentance and teach me to obey the Lord’s commandments, I’m personally not entirely disinterested in how you do that.
Fortunately, the Lord has provided wise counsel to guide us in teaching obedience. We are familiar with the verses in Doctrine & Covenants 121 where the Lord speaks of persuasion, long suffering, by gentleness, meekness and love unfeigned. While speaking specifically of the use of Priesthood authority, those are also the qualities we need when teaching obedience.
When we teach obedience to those we love with those qualities our message will be more effective, we will help create an opportunity for the Spirit to confirm the teaching and I think much unnecessary offense and hurt feelings can be avoided
Often the reason for the disobedience is different and subtler than what appears. Again going back to my little story, the truth is that my objection to the grooming standard in fact had little to do with noble principles of individual liberties and freedom from arbitrary and oppressive BYU standards. The real problem? - a shy, very self conscious baby faced young man worried about looking like a high school dork to all the college coeds and thinking that longer hair made him look more mature. Sounds silly and it really was, but don’t underestimate the power or hold worries and concerns sitting just below the surface can have on you and those you love.
In the April 2008 General Conference, Elder Oaks spoke to a the question of what some may call blind obedience:
“Of course, we have leaders, and of course, we are subject to their decisions and directions in the operation of the Church and in the performance of needed priesthood ordinances. But when it comes to learning and knowing the truth of the gospel—our personal testimonies—we each have a direct relationship with God, our Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the powerful witness of the Holy Ghost. This is what our critics fail to understand. It puzzles them that we can be united in following our leaders and yet independent in knowing for ourselves.
"Perhaps the puzzle some feel can be explained by the reality that each of us has two different channels to God. We have a channel of governance through our prophet and other leaders. This channel, which has to do with doctrine, ordinances, and commandments, results in obedience. We also have a channel of personal testimony, which is direct to God. This has to do with His existence, our relationship to Him, and the truth of His restored gospel. This channel results in knowledge. These two channels are mutually reinforcing: knowledge encourages obedience.”
Note the virtuous circle Elder Oaks refers to. Jesus taught that we learn the truth by obeying his commandments. So as we obey our testimony gets stronger and the stronger testimony strengthens our ability to obey.
Sometimes obedience is just really hard. Maybe there is an addiction involved. Maybe we have spouse or family member who is not particularly supportive of our efforts to obey certain commandments and those efforts become the source of arguments and family discord. The Lord has not left us alone and promises to ease our burdens. If we honestly seek the Lord’s guidance with faith, will he not guide and sustain us?
Now back to my little story. What was I to do with this letter from the standards office? Looking back on those days, I’m actually surprised at how well I intuitively understood the situation. First, BYU was not going to change the standard to accommodate me. It seemed unlikely that BYU would actually expel me for this (although strange thinks can happen at that place). The more likely result was that the issue would escalate; views and positions would become entrenched and hardened. It would become a big deal in my life, consuming time and emotional energy, and I would become increasingly bitter and resentful of BYU over how they were treating me, with the result that I would eventually leave BYU voluntarily (and probably go north to U or U where I could have long hair, still get a good education and hang out with lots of other folks critical of BYU.) But that was not where I wanted to be or what wanted to become – remember I really liked going to BYU.
I got a haircut, trimmed my moustache and called the standards office. I fibbed a bit and said there must have been some misunderstanding because I thought my hair was fine and there was no problem with the standard and I asked if we needed to set up some sort of meeting to straighten this out. The man who answered said no, but that he would close the file and thanked me for the call. That was it, no big deal, and it really wasn’t.
So I stayed at BYU, which I really enjoyed, and ended up staying there for law school as well. In the course of all this I met Evie and even though I looked like a dork and lacked my fashionably long hair, she married me anyway. A nice ending to my story.
Brother and sisters, have faith, be believing, obey the commandments and the Lord will richly bless us.
No comments:
Post a Comment