Jeremiah Walks the Streets of Clearfield

I often think of a game we played as children. Children learned this game at school and played it at recess. It was called, SIMON SAYS. A leader would issue his commands under the authority of someone named Simon:

Simon says, raise your hands!
Simon says, sit down!
Simon says, look to your right!

And we would all raise our hands, sit down and look to the right. The catch would come sooner or later. The leader would tell us all to stand up and whoever stood up was declared out. He was out because this time the leader did not invoke the authority of Simon.

I suspect there are religious origins to the game. Perhaps it began as a rather fun way to catechize Catholic children as to the importance of the Pontiff (Simon being Peter's original name), or—more likely—as some sort of Protestant parody. Whatever the case, it is now a game the Latter-day Saints take too seriously. We have, of course, baptized the dead practice and given it a new name. We call it, FOLLOWING THE PROPHET.

How well our own children have learned to play the game is illustrated in an old talk President Spencer W. Kimball gave. He spoke of attending a meeting and sitting on the stand. He noticed a group of boys sitting the front row behaving strangely. In unison, the boys would cross their legs, pull the same earlobe, rub their foreheads, and then cross their arms. On a sudden, President Kimball had an epiphany of sorts—“they were imitating me!” He went on to caution leaders to be careful of their behavior. I want to caution those boys now that they are no longer boys.

This is not the sort of obedience the Lord requires of us. We do not look to mortal men and copy what they do. We do not wear dark blue suits because certain other men wear dark blue suits. We do not speak in church with the legal cadence of a vocal strut because a favorite apostle did. We do not replicate handcart treks only to return home and turn our back on the poor and needy of this world.

Unfortunately, the last two or three generations of Latter-day Saints are finding it difficult to put away childish things and to mature in their faith. There is no dictum in scripture akin to the refrain of that well beloved Primary song, “Follow The Prophet.” The verse closest to it—“whether by my own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same”—must be understood in conjunction with Joseph Smith’s caveat: a prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as a prophet. A mortal man’s voice is the voice of God only when God is putting words into his mouth—which is the best definition of revelation I know of.

In the temple we covenant to obey God and while this would include that of God resident in men, the distinction is nevertheless an important one. In the Bible and again in the Book of Mormon, we are repeatedly told not to put our trust in the arm of flesh and insofar as we put our trust in a man or in quorums of men that is what we do. That being said, it is not necessary to ignore the teaching of a favorite Primary song. We can keep the refrain of this song in its place of preference as a well-established motto if we deepen our understanding of its counsel as we mature. But this is exactly what we have failed to do.

Why is it important for us to mature in our understanding of what it means to follow the prophet? The answer to this question is found in understanding an event that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon refer to as the provocation (Psalms 95:8; Hebrews 3:8; Jacob 1:7 and Alma 12:36). This event occurred at the foot of Mt. Siani. The people of Israel were invited into God’s presence. Instead, “they removed and stood far off,” telling Moses to go and speak with God and they would listen to his account of what God had to say when he returned from the mountain. Moses went into “the thick darkness where God was” alone (Exodus 20: 19-21). Israel’s refusal to follow Moses into the thick darkness that hid the divine presence angered the Lord. We are told that, “the Lord in his wrath…swore that they should not enter into his rest (Doctrine & Covenants 84:24).” As a result, that generation did not enter into the Promise Land. Moses later lamented, with reference to these things, “Would to God that all the Lord’s people were prophets (Numbers 11:29).” That is to say, a mature understanding of the dictum required Israel to follow the prophet up the mountain, to speak with God themselves, and thus become prophets themselves rather than relying solely on a human ambassador.

If we are the descendents of ancient Israel, we need to beware the sins of the fathers—especially this sin. More and more we seem to be saying to the President of the Church and to other brethren, ‘you enter into God’s presence and speak to God for us. We will stay far back and listen to you.’ The problem with this attitude—and it was the same with the fathers—is that we don’t really listen to them either. We heed instead the common platitudes that all of us employ to fill in the gaps between inspiration. Sooner or later, Jeremiah walks the streets of our hometown and delivers the Lord's dreadful message:

“I have had it with ‘prophets’ who get all their sermons secondhand from each other. They make up stuff and pretend it’s a real sermon. They preach their ‘everything-will-turn-out-fine’ sermons to congregations with no taste for God.” And then he asks the real difficult question which brings us to the topic I need to address. “Have any of these ‘prophets’ bothered to meet with me, the true God? Bothered to take in what I have to say? Listened to and then lived out my word? (Jeremiah 23: 30-31, 16-18, Eugene Peterson translation, The Message)”

Let me repeat Jeremiah’s question, “Have any of these ‘prophets’ bothered to meet with me?” The true topic that I need to address, the topic that all these words are but a preface to, is that of meeting. Jesus said that whenever two or three come together in His name, “there I will be also.” We come together on the Sabbath—at least in theory—to meet with the Savior. But that is not the reality I experience. In my experience, we come together to meet each other, to glad-handle and slap one another on the back, to exchange our myths about ourselves, to honor and praise one another. This is the audio-visual of our meetings.

And what a noise we make of it! We fail to acknowledge the ancient truth that Habakkuk taught, that when we coming into the divine presence, “all the earth should keep silence before him (Habakkuk 2:2).” We fail to heed the advice of Eli to Samuel and silently pray before meeting, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” We’re not listening—not to the Lord anyway. We are correlating, setting appointments, talking about home improvements, stress at work, and the ignorant Christians meeting down the road. We are greeting visiting authorities, commenting on how we all look in our new garb, anything but communing with the Lord. In all of this we are removing ourselves from God and standing far off, telling others—none too seriously—to speak to God and we will listen to them.

This week I’d like to continue my thoughts as to why we are such an irreverent people—to continue to explore the question of why it is our meetings so often go bad with spoiled Spirit. I’d like to consider why it is that we still refuse the Lord’s invitation to meet with Him, only to draw to the far back of meetings and commune with each other instead. This exploration will, I trust, challenge some of our basic assumptions of what is—or ought to be—at the heart of Christian discipleship: Why it is that we continue to play a child’s game. Why, for us, following the prophet does not translate into going up into the thick darkness where God is, but means instead, “you go and we will listen to you.” Why it is that after He has gone, we turn to others and listen to them instead.