Of Fairness and Sacrifice

From time to time one or the other of my children would complain that this or that was “unfair.” The complaint could range anywhere from one getting more or less of something than another to being required to do some work or suffer some consequence that another avoided. “Suzy got a higher grade than I did for doing a poorer job.”

Those of course were little examples, the kind that all children seem to face growing up. There were more consequential examples of unfairness as my children matured. Such was the case of one of my children who was denied admission to a particular college to make room for a less qualified but racially-favored applicant. That was unfair to my child, and it was unfair for me, who gets to subsidize with my taxes the government-run college that operates admissions along racist lines.

My explanation to my children for these unfairness episodes usually contained elements of the following. My first point might be, who said life has to be fair? Then I might follow that up with the observation that mortality is all about unfairness. The real issue is how we react to the unfairness, what we do to overcome it.

If given enough opportunity, I could explain that things may appear unfair if we think that the score is final while in fact the game is still going on. Mortality is a small and temporary part of life, and many things that look like advantages here become serious liabilities later. Even in mortality we often see that demonstrated, such as the person who struggling against great opposition as a child develops skills and abilities that lead to far greater success than the person who seems to have an easy childhood. Identifying who had unfair advantage might then become more difficult.

In a discussion with my wife the other day, she pointed out how unfairness lies at the core of sacrifice. That is to say, that a sacrifice is the willing acceptance of unfairness. It is unfair that a mother has to go through so much pain at childbirth, but she sacrifices, she accepts that unfairness, in order to bring a child into the world. It is unfair that a father works at his job to earn an income that he shares with all of the members of his family, but he accepts that unfairness as a sacrifice that he makes for the benefit of his family.

Why does the mother do it? Why does the father do it? If they willingly accept that unfairness, they are making a sacrifice. I have often thought and said that it is hard to love someone for whom you have not sacrificed. I believe that is so, because very often the driving force in that sacrifice is love. We act out our love and make it real as we sacrifice for someone. Loving parents willingly and often sacrifice for their children—most of which sacrifices the parents may not even notice—because of their love for their children, begun by their love for each other. That, by the way, is one of the essential reasons for being organized as families and why no social institution has ever been found that develops love in people more than the family does. That, however, is a topic to fill many discussions on other days.

I think that each of these answers to my children is a good answer, and they are all related. Perhaps the best answer to the unfairness question is that no one in this life escapes unfairness. In fact, the greatest of all, Jesus Christ, suffered the greatest unfairness. He paid the price for all the sins of all who would accept Him, having committed no sin and having caused no offense against anyone. He willingly accepted that unfairness, He volunteered for and carried out that sacrifice, because of His love for us.

With the Savior’s sacrifice, with His acceptance of unfairness, all of the apparent unfairness to all of us is made right. In the end, by accepting the Savior and the power of His sacrifice, all of the unfairness that we might seem to experience is overcome. As the Prophet Joseph Smith proclaimed in April 1843,

All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it. (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.296)

Given that perspective, perhaps the only real and lasting unfairness is the unfairness we may do to ourselves. We cheat ourselves by not accepting the Savior’s sacrifice so freely extended to all of us, by which every unfairness can be overcome.

Of Christ and the Perfection of Men

A fundamental principle taught by Jesus Christ and His prophets and Apostles is the perfectibility of men. Embedded in the middle of the Savior’s Sermon on the Mount is this commandment: “Ye are therefore commanded to be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48, JST) The resurrected Savior repeated the same commandment to His disciples in the Americas, with these words: “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” (3 Nephi 12:48)

The Apostle Paul developed this theme, explaining the role of apostles and prophets and other workers in the Church in helping men to become perfect:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ . . . (Ephesians 4:11-13)

Of course, looking around us it is hard to find examples of men or women who have become perfect. That is surely why Paul pointed to Jesus Christ as our example by which to measure our progress and upon whom to model our development. Having said that, I have not found it hard to discover examples around me of men and women who are becoming more perfect.

The objection to the perfectibility of men is usually raised with little substantive argument but rather with a disdainful huff or with a gesture to the surrounding society as if to suggest that belief in perfectibility of men is naïve at best. There is some merit to this argument if you neither look closely at individuals nor at how the power of God operates upon the Father’s children. Men left to their own devices are hardly improvable let alone perfectible. And yet how do we account for those who are becoming better people, often much better people?

An ancient American prophet king, by the name of Benjamin, described the common condition of men this way:

The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)

We all know that untaught, unguided children tend to grow up to become barbarians. The biggest problems in public schools come from children who have either little parental guidance or bad parental guidance. On the other hand, time and again we see children who are well cared for and guided by their parents overcome enormous obstacles to become noble men and women.

King Benjamin, as a king and a prophet, was saying that we should learn from God our Father as our children learn from us. It is by allowing the power of the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and attitudes that we become better and better and more like God, more perfect all the time, as Paul also explained to the Ephesians.

Similarly in our day prophets of Jesus Christ have reemphasized the perfectibility of men under the influence of God. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught in an epistle in January 1834,

We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of this life and lost every desire for sin . . . (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.51)

It is also proper and important to note that improvement and perfection is an individual accomplishment. While men certainly may help and encourage one another, each man must grow in perfection by himself, and he must do it without coercion, since perfection comes by his own free choices, building his own moral character through the decisions made throughout the course of a lifetime. Because of the individual nature of the perfecting process, efforts by governments to coerce perfection from their people are not only doomed to failure, but they will actually impede the moral growth of the people by limiting their opportunity to choose to do good.

Of Demagogues and Solving Problems

When demagogues, like Barack Obama, have major political setbacks, like Barack Obama, they usually resort to stirring up anger against a list of enemies. Obama has already begun that effort as his increasingly radical agenda has been difficult for even a growing number of congressional Democrats to bear. Expect him to turn up the volume on the loudspeakers.

For Barack Obama the list has been a catalog of “Big” this and “Big” that, including Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Insurance, Big Banks, Big Business, and so on. The formula involves finding a problem that Obama promised to fix but which remains unfixed, and then blame Big Something. A new set of policies is announced, involving giving the Federal government new authority over the economy, often some fundamental part of it, like healthcare, the financial system, or energy use.

Although his policies will purportedly be targeted on these Bigs, it is actually the general population on whom he paints his targets, the people whom he does not trust with making their own healthcare decisions, the people whom he does not trust with making their own choices of bank accounts and other financial services, the people whose very breath he considers the number one pollutant destroying the earth. It is the liberty of the people that is constricted by Obama’s policy prescriptions, which is undoubtedly why they attract so much objection from so many quarters.

Barack Obama will give a major public speech targeting Big Something for some punishing tax or regulation, and then declare, like some playground bully with a chip on his shoulder, “If they want to fight me on this, then I’m ready for them.” As one businessman reportedly commented late this week, “We are not looking for a fight; we’re looking to solve problems.” If he wants to play the bully, then let's give him the bully treatment, which is just to walk away and get on with our business.

Of Wet Wood and Government Jobs Programs

At best, it is like putting wet wood on a fire: the wet wood may eventually burn, but it takes as much or more energy from the fire to dry the wood out enough for it to be flammable. In the meantime, it creates a lot of smoke and hissing and fizzing, and you run a real risk of subduing the fire if not stifling it entirely. This is what government job creating programs are like.

Outside of very narrow exceptions government itself does not create jobs. It shifts jobs. That is because outside of its basic purpose of enacting and maintaining laws and providing for the common defense, government does not provide a new good or service that the private sector cannot do better. The chief reason why the private sector does better is that private activity is governed by market mechanisms. People can say no to your good or service if they do not want or like it and go to the business that does a better job. So people who stay in business are under constant pressure to do better in their business, or they eventually see their business decline or even disappear. Government is not subject to such a demanding disciplinarian. If you do not like the process for getting a driver’s license, where else are you going to go?

At least someone wants the driver’s license, and the program of screening out unqualified drivers—however imperfect it may be—is a service that people want. Very often, government job creation programs put people to work doing things that we would be better off not having done.

One of my favorite examples is the Roosevelt Administration’s Depression era jobs program, paying people to plant kudzu all over the South. They did that for years, until they realized that kudzu is an uncontrollable pest plant that grows and spreads and smothers every other plant and tree around it and is very hard to get rid of. It is sort of a metaphor for government jobs programs.

An additional problem with government jobs programs is that the government has to pay for them. Where does the government get its money? It gets it from the people who already have jobs. Those people will no longer have that money to spend at the store or for remodeling the house or going on a vacation or gaining an education or the million other things that people do with their money to put other people to work. You might call all of that private sector spending the people’s jobs programs. To get $50,000 to put people to work on a government jobs program you have to take at least $50,000 away from the people’s jobs programs. In practice, you usually have to take several times more than $50,000 away from the people’s jobs programs, because the government programs are run so inefficiently.

So when the government announces that its new jobs program is “creating” 100,000 new jobs, it does not report the 200,000 jobs that were displaced to pay for those new jobs. When you see those government jobs announcements, remember the wet wood on the fire and ask how much energy is being lost to make that new log burn?

Of Prophets and Modern Times

One of the most appealing and powerful messages of Christ’s Church in the latter days is the proclamation that prophets are once again on the earth in modern times, men through whom God speaks directly, clearly, and specifically on subjects relevant to man’s current conditions. This message is also one of the objections raised against the Church. It is curiously raised most often by some claiming a belief in God and Christ and in the words of the ancient prophets. Such objectors have to ignore a glaring logical inconsistency, of rejoicing in the word of God spoken long ago while resisting what the Lord might speak in their own day and time and in their own language. What is it about modern times that makes revelation from God less attractive or valuable?

Praise for prophets of the past while denouncing contemporary revelation from God is not new. Jesus faced the same attitude in the A.D. 30s. In the last days before He was crucified the Savior inveighed against such hypocrisy. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.” That compares very closely with many today who flock to monuments and shrines to ancient prophets (or even pieces of ancient prophets), people who roundly condemn the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Jews, and Romans who persecuted and killed the prophets of old and crucified the Savior, people who picture themselves as being faithful disciples had they just lived in those days. With His perfect insight, Jesus rebuked their bluff. “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets,” he said, “and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city” (Matthew 23:29, 30, 34). Many defenders of a dead Moses were unwilling to accept a living Christ--or the living prophets He promised to send them.

A common argument of believers in prophets who are conveniently dead is that the purposes of the prophets have ceased. In this view, the role of prophets was to prophesy of Christ and His mission, explain the doctrines of the faith, and pronounce commandments. That sounds nice and plausible only if you are careful not to study what the ancient prophets did and said.

Many of the prophecies of Jeremiah, for example, were focused on giving the Jewish leaders important political advice, such as encouraging the Jews not to double-cross the Babylonians by siding with the decrepit Egyptian empire. Isaiah was probably the most explicit and detailed in prophesying of Christ and His mission. Yet much of Isaiah’s prophesies were also devoted to counseling the leaders of Judah on how to respond to threats from their belligerent neighbors. The Jewish prophets of the Babylonian captivity counseled the people on how to draw close to God and stay out of trouble with their rulers. The prophets in the ancient Americas warned their people of invasion, advised their armies on how to defend against their enemies, and counseled them against the terrorists of their day.

That is to say, that whenever the Lord has had prophets on the earth these prophets have always been a precious resource for the daily lives of the people, their communities, and their nations, helping them to deal with what was then the here and now. Why would the Lord deny such blessings to His children today? Why would people embrace ancient divine revelation but recoil at it when offered in real time?

Revelation from the Lord has always been given in what were modern times, because those are the only times in which God’s children live. Just as it takes real food, not stories of food, to satisfy any current hunger, modern revelation from contemporary prophets is most important to those of us living in modern times. The great joy for us is that our loving Father offers us today a great feast equal to any He has spread in the past.

Of The Book of Mormon and Good Books

Early in the very beginning of New Year’s Eve I finished reading The Book of Mormon. I have done that several dozen times (if on different days) over the course of forty years, in three different languages: English, Spanish, and Russian.

I have read many other books over the same period of time and before. I have not read more than a few more than once and none more than four or five times. The Hobbit I have read three or four times (maybe five), and the same is true for The Lord of the Rings. O.K., I admit that I have read Goodnight Moon and Are You My Mother? to my children and grandchildren at least a dozen times, each taking about 10 minutes a reading (children willing and cooperating).

The point is that I have read many very good books, many excellent histories, biographies, legends, novels, fantasies, science fiction, international relations theories, and economic commentaries, among others. Not a one would bear reading over and over again.

The Book of Mormon bears reading again and again, and it bears it well for virtually anyone, regardless of age or intellectual background. I have found the same to be true for other holy scripture. I believe that to be true because of the nature of scripture. As Peter explained, God is behind holy scripture, working through “holy men of God . . . as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:20, 21)

It is the spiritual power of holy scripture and the spiritual experience that occurs while reading it that make its continual review valuable and appealing. I recognize that those who approach holy scripture without that spiritual connection have found scripture reading uninteresting. With that spiritual connection, however, reading scripture becomes a revealing connection and communion with God, one that never grows old or commonplace.

Man is a three-fold being, made up of intelligence, spirit, and body. Holy scripture reaches all three. Through scripture our intellect is fed, our spirit nourished, and our physical body guided into the healthiest paths.

The Book of Mormon is a rich example of that scriptural power. It provides deep insight into the human condition, individually, as families, and as communities. As a witness of Jesus Christ, The Book of Mormon treats the human condition from an enduring and eternal perspective, since the eternal is the only sphere within which Christ operates. Again and again the book demonstrates the way to live “after the manner of happiness” (2 Nephi 5:27). So, while I may have read The Book of Mormon some three dozen times, I relish diving in and reading it more than once more.

Of Temples and Family Unity

Yesterday was a lovely Christmas season Saturday, with a smattering of early snow to add to the seasonal charm. Many people were busy about their tasks and errands related to the celebration of Christmas: shopping, craft making, decorating, parades, and performances. It was a joy to see worshiping, as hundreds of people were at the nearby Temple of God, participating in the Savior’s work of extending salvation to all who would receive it, both the living and the dead.

Yesterday I participated in ordinances through which families are united together throughout the eternities. Everything that the Savior Jesus Christ does, in the words of a wonderful teacher I met in Murcia, Spain, is para siempre, forever. While we live in the here and now, the here and now obtains meaning by being part of eternity. The Savior time and again and in many ways has sought to have us understand this.

The most important organization in the here and now, the family, is also the most important organization in heaven. The Savior would have our family relationships continue para siempre. So would most people I know.

That is the highest purpose of the Temples of the Lord, the eternal uniting of families. That means the uniting of families in the present, all across the family of man. The vows revealed by God Himself and administered in the present in the Lord’s Temples continue unbroken beyond the grave, as eternal as heaven.

Husband and wife and the children, too, are linked in that loving association forever. Through the linking of the children the generations are joined from the beginning of time until time becomes eternity. As the son of my parents I am linked to my father and mother. They each are linked to their parents, and on to the first parents. No one is forgotten or denied the opportunity to come to Christ and through Him to be united with all generations past, present, and future in one family of all who accept God as their Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, as their Savior.

Fundamentally, that is why Christ came to earth two thousand years ago, to save mankind, and especially to save us as families, literally part of the united family of God the Father. Yesterday hundreds were laboring in our local Temple, and around the world thousands in the other Temples of Christ, worshiping the Savior by continuing His work to unite and thereby save the family units of today and the past. That work will continue until the Savior Himself shall say, “It is done.” That is a lovely Christmas celebration.