Ruling the World -- Matthew 18: 1

"At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

We typically read this as evidence of the Apostles' petty egotism, but a conversation with Cort today put it in a whole new light. Why did the Apostles raise this question?

My midrash today is that they were trying to figure out how to rule the world.

You see, in the earliest moments of Christianity, spiritual and political messianic hopes were probably not disentangled in any way, shape, or form. The apostles probably believed that the day would come when Jesus literally ruled the Earth (or at least the land of Israel, the only truly important part of the earth from their frame of reference). Things Jesus said would have actively encouraged this expectation: in the preceding few verses (Matt 17: 24-27), for example, Jesus makes the claim that as heirs of the king, the disciples are by right exempt from the temple tax (though he advises Peter to pay it any way to avoid trouble). Would Peter have been so off the mark to relate this story to other disciples as evidence that Jesus had a right to political power? The apostles probably lived in expectation of the day when miraculous, apocalyptic events (a legion of angels a la Matt 26: 53? a spontaneous submission of Gentile kings to the anointed one as in Isa. 49: 22-23?) would bring political power into Jesus' hands and make them into a sort of cabinet for the world's new order, to reign under him as kings and judges over the tribes of Israel (Luke 22: 29-30). Yes, for now what was Caesar's would be rendered unto Caesar (Matt 22: 21), but anytime now God would strip Caesar of what was rightfully Christ's.

The question, then, as to who will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven may have more to do with jurisdiction than with ego. Who will serve in what position in the coming literal kingdom, the heaven to be established in a messianic age on earth? Should we start finding small ways to organize and prepare now for when that transfer of power comes?

Jesus' famous response (Matt 18: 4) actually does nothing to dismiss these notions, and was probably not intended to. Rather than limiting their expectations about receiving political power, Jesus teaches them something about the ethical exercise of political power. How should you act if placed in charge of the world? is perhaps the real context for his short sermon.

Ah...and how do we act, when moment and circumstance temporarily lend us power over another person's world? Because all across the world, every day, can it truly be maintained that such states do not naturally and accidentally occur?

One month in, what does this blog do for you?

My aunt Juli once told me there's an old Jewish tradition that says no one should study the scriptures all alone--whenever possible, you should have someone to discuss the text with. There are numerous possible reasons for this advice: it halves the chances that people will interpret the scriptures as asking them to do something terrifying and psychopathic, for example. On a brighter note, the tradition suggests that there's some extra effect of human interaction as part of study, that discussing scripture is somehow far better than simply reading it.

Does this count? I haven't done a great job of actively inviting participation in this blog's first month, so it's not the dialogic study the sages would have suggested for me yet.

What are you getting out of this so far? Please comment.

Anime Ammon -- D&C 1: 24

"Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding."

What is the manner of our language and how does it change over time? Is there an inherent value to connecting with God, at times, in the manner of our own language, whatever it may be?

I talked to an agent for Deseret Book several months ago about the possibility of publishing an additional illustrated version of the Book of Mormon, in which the characters were anthropomorphized people-animals (a la, for example, Brian Jacques novels) rather than people. I suggested this partly just because my brother used to draw Book of Mormon characters that way, and partly because I thought obviously imaginary renderings like that would free up children to visualize characters on their own and solve the problem of children taking problematic existing depictions literally.

The group I was with was excited about the proposal, but the agent was not. He said that customers are pretty sensitive about what they get in terms of religious depictions and was pessimisstic about the ability of such a work to sell.

If I were to re-pitch a similar concept today, though--and I probably should--I would frame it as a "kids illustrate Book of Mormon stories" project and incorporate a variety of styles coming from actual young artists around the world. D&C 1: 24, I think, provides an appropriate justification: giving children a chance to receive these stories in the manner of their own language might help them come more quickly and organically to meaningful understanding.

To give you a flavor of such a work, I present the following three drawings by Braden and Franklin, two of my own primary students.



Braden loves Ammon, and it shows.



One Sunday the boys had a heated discussion on the topic: "Who would you have joined: Coriantumr or Shiz?" Franklin has been fascinated with that story every since. (Tangential note: Gabe insisted he would've hidden in a rock to avoid the war. The other boys told him that Coriantumr and Shiz were sweeping the land to force everyone to fight, and that Gabe, lacking a prophet's protection, would have been found and forced to fight. Gabe responded that he would have hidden in Ether's rock, taking quite literally the sentiment that we should follow the prophet.)



This last one is Braden's. It's Jesus, I think during his visit to the Nephites (I also think Braden meant to draw feet, but ran out of time). I prefer this Jesus's wrinkled face and intense gaze to the glowing Jesus of of the Simon Dewey and Greg Olson paintings that seem to dominate the LDS market at the moment. The manner of Braden's language has more power for me.

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled midrash...

...for this very interesting link. These bloggers report on a visit by LDS missionaries and I think it's a great window into what missionaries look like to many people. Having served a mission myself, it's kind of fun to step out of what was my frame of reference at the time and think about how many of the people I interacted with may have seen me.

Among the most positive things: the missionaries prayed for the blog of those whom they visited. Let's help answer the missionaries' prayer by visiting. (Probably should leave the follow up to the missionaries, though. These people don't need every Mormon on the internet asking what they thought about their reading.)

Lehi the Heretic -- 1 Ne 1: 19-20

"And it came to pass that the Jews did mock him because of the things which he testified of them; for he truly testified of their wickedness and their abominations; and he testified that the things which he saw and heard, and also the things which he read in the book, manifested plainly of the coming of a Messiah, and also the redemption of the world.

And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him; yea, even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that they might take it away." (from 1 Ne 1: 19-20)

When Lehi told the people about their own sins, they "mocked" him. Mocking, to me, suggests they aren't taking it too hard: these are callous and self-assured sinners who don't feel a need to respond directly to charges of misconduct.

Then Lehi tells them about a vision he had and a book he read in that vision which gave him a specific brand of Messianic hope--and that's when they get angry and try to kill him.

So, let me get this straight: a man comes claiming to be a prophet and tells you that you are about to be destroyed in consequence of purported sins, and you think he's deluded but amusing. Then he tells you that a Messiah will come and redeem the world--and you want him dead? How does that make any sense?

I remember an investigator complaining once about the overt anticipation of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon: Biblical prophecies of Christ's coming, he explained, were invariably verschluesselt (encoded, hidden, locked, in need of a key) whereas the Book of Mormon ones seemed too direct, too overt. My explanations at the time were that the translation process may have removed some of the culture-bound crypticness of Book of Mormon prophecy in favor of overt and accessible modern language, or that the total geographic separation from the land where Christ would be born made God more willing to be overt in his revelations to Nephite prophets.

My more recent theory, though, is that Lehi, and Nephi after him, were simply heretics whose version of Messianic hopes placed them outside the acceptable constraints of mainstram Judaism. They were more overtly Christian in their thinking and "bold" in their preaching, and that's a big part of why they had to leave, lest they suffer the same fate as Zenos (see Hel. 8: 19).

Nephite religion, then, should be viewed less as a direct extension of Judaism than as a breakaway new religious movement differentiated above all by the divergent Messianic teachings of its founders. At approximately the same time that Buddha was departing from classical Hindu thought by his teachings on the nature of spiritual discipline and his divergent doctrine of the soul, Lehi and especially Nephi were stepping out of conventional Judaism with their ideas of how the Messiah should be defined and what redemption would constitute.

Nobel Prize Caliber Revelation -- D&C 104: 17-18

"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment." (D&C 104: 17-18)

The implicit argument here is that there are enough resources for the appropriate use of all men, and that it's our collective failure to allocate them adequately that leads to poverty and starvation. Amartya Sen was awarded a Nobel Prize for saying just that.

Rasul and Nabi

I was talking once with an elderly Baha'i from Iran, who asked numerous questions about my faith and church. When I told him we'd had fifteen prophets lead our church since 1830, he was stunned. A prophet's arrival, he said, is not an everyday event. A prophet comes perhaps only once every thousand years--how could we claim to have had fifteen in so short a time? And why would we need to revolutionize religion so often?

I referred to the Biblical tradition we would each have some familiarity with. There had been a Moses, but also a Joshua, an Isaiah, a Daniel. Moses had brought the Law, I explained, but even with further prophets to guide them, people barely remembered it! Joseph Smith had restored our kind of religion to earth, but every generation needs a prophet to lead and guide it.

He nodded, apparently satisfied with my answer, and explained, "I've been told Arabic is the most perfect language in the world; maybe it's true. In Arabic, there are two words for "prophet": rasul and nabi. A rasul brings a new kind of religion; a nabi helps guide it. Every rasul is also a nabi, but not every nabi is a rasul." He went on to say that Baha'is see Muhammed not as the last rasul, but rather the last nabi of his age, leaving room for Baha'is to accept the claim of Muhammed to be the "last prophet" (nabi) and yet to believe in the nineteenth-century revelations Baha'u'llah as a new prophet (rasul).

Which makes me wonder if it's easier in the handful of LDS branches where Arabic is spoken to talk about our doctrine of dispensations. We believe, after all, in a distinction between prophets who ushered in new dispensations and prophets who operated within existing dispensations, and why not use the words rasul and nabi to talk about that difference? (We wouldn't be using the words in exactly the same way as Muslims do, or in the somewhat different way Baha'is do, but we don't use most Biblical terms quite the way most Protestants do, either. It is the right of every faith to give new meaning to old language.)

So here's to the rasuls Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Joseph Smith, with apologies to those who I have missed--and here's to the many nabis we honor alongside them, to the tireless Joshuas and Brigham Youngs, sent by God to guide his people in the wake of recently-arrived dispensations.