While leafing through old Relief Society Magazines yesterday, I ran across this lesson to be given in the first week in May, 1932. Yes, I confess it caught my attention because of the current political atmosphere, but beyond that I have nothing to apologize for in bringing it to your notice: It is a legitimate lesson taught in the “Theology and Testimony” course in Relief Society. I offer it without further editorial comment.
The Book of Mormon: Nephite Ideas of the Rich and the Poor.
Select Readings : Alma, chapters 39-35, inclusive. Are there any new ideas here? If so, what are they?
One of the things that make the prophets outstanding in the history of revealed religion is their attitude toward the rich and the poor.
Isaiah is a signal example of this. “What mean ye,” demands the prophet, “that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?” And elsewhere he exclaims, “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!” Also he predicts the time when “the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”
Jesus, however, is the most notable example of sympathy with the poor and the oppressed. One of the signs that he was the Christ, as he told the disciples of John was that “the poor have the gospel preached unto them.” Every reader of the Gospels remembers how Jesus isolated the widow who, out of her poverty, had, given her “mite” in the temple. Every one knows also what he said about the difficulty which the rich would encounter in their attempt to get into heaven. And then there is Lazarus and the rich man — a classic example.
Now the spirit of the Book of Mormon, so far as this phase of life is concerned, is of a piece with that of the prophets and of Jesus.
That astonishing man Jacob, whom we have had several occasions already to quote, has something also to say on this subject. “Wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world. For because they are rich they despise the poor, and they persecute the meek, and their hearts are upon their treasures ; wherefore, their treasure is their god. And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also.” (II Nephi 9:30)
King Benjamin, who lived in the second century before Christ, elaborated on this theme in a discourse which he made to his people. Here are the ideas he advanced :
(1) The “substance” which the rich claim as their own is not theirs at all, but God’s. In this he agrees with another, the psalmist, who says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” This is the ground that all the prophets take, who have spoken on the subject. Men are only “stewards,” as our own prophet stated in his time.
(2) Those who have sufficient to live on from day to day should impart of their substance to those who are poor. And this for the reason that all are really “beggars,” the rich as well as the poor; the rich “beg” the Lord for a remission of their sins, even if they do not beg for their bread. The King adds:
“If ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you, but to God, to whom also your life belongeth.”
The Book of Mormon, however, nowhere condemns riches as such, nor the rich because of their wealth. It condemns only the attitude of mind so often induced by money values. And in this there is agreement with all that is elsewhere said on the subject. To come again to Jacob’s teachings (2:17-19): “Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you. But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good — to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.”
King Benjamin touches a point that still, after more than two thousand years, is much mooted. He says (Mosiah, 4:16-18): “And also ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need ; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.
“Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just. But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done, he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.”
And then (in verse 22) follows that passage about judging, already quoted.
This problem of the poor and the rich, therefore, appears to have given the Nephites the same concern as it is giving the world today. And they sought to solve the problem chiefly, it seems, by requiring charity on the part of the rich toward the less “fortunate.” Our solution is mainly through another channel.
After the visitation of Christ to the Nephites this problem was solved by the adoption of what is known among us as the “united order,” or the ”order of Enoch.”
The united order, so far as we know, was first employed as a means of handling the matter of the poor and the rich in the City of Enoch. Hence one of its names. Enoch lived the sixth generation from Adam.
Says the Bible : “Enoch walked with God : and he was not ; for God took him.” In the Pearl of Great Price, however, we learn much more about him. His people were living under the united order; they had all things common ; and there were no rich and no poor among them.
This order prevailed also among the first disciples of Christ. The account says, “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own ;
but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked : for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet:
and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.” (Acts 4:32-37)
But the most successful attempt to live the united order so far as our information goes, was among the ancient Nephites after the time of Christ. Here is what is said of the matter:
“And they did minister one to another ; and they had all things common among them, every man dealing justly, one with another. And it came to pass in the thirty and sixth year, the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every man did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift.” (Ill Nephi, 26:19; IV Nephi, 1:2, 3)
This condition went on from the year thirty-six, A. D., to the year two hundred and one, A. D. In this last year the historian writes, “From that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them.” Whereupon, he continues, “they began to be divided into classes ; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ.” (IV Nephi, 1 :26, 27)
To sum up the question of the rich and the poor as it appeared among the Nephites :
(1) There was the customary social division among them of the rich and the poor. Many allusions to this classification* are made throughout the narrative of the thousand years of Nephite history. The first Nephi tells of it by way of prophecy and warning (I Nephi, 13 :7, 8). Alma the Younger refers to it disapprovingly (Alma, 1:29, 30). All through the history, in fact, this division on the basis of property ownership runs like a scarlet thread.
(2) An earnest attempt was made during all this time to handle the problem. This was done mainly by the prophets, and their appeal seems to have been through religion. They sought to induce the rich to look after the interests of the poor and unfortunate, by telling them that their salvation in the next world would be in question if they did not. We read of no effort on the part of the state to relieve the situation. The efforts made, however, appear to have been only temporary in their nature, and did not go to the root of the economic question.
(3) This root-remedy was attempted only after Christ furnished the idea and the impetus. It was the united order, and involved the principle of equality in temporal concerns — which is the primary inequality in the world as at present constituted. And the basis of this order was found in the spirit of religion.
A consideration of the principles of the united order in our own times will doubtless furnish a clue to what was done under Enoch, under the ancient apostles in Palestine, and at the time it was practiced among the Nephites. Here are these principles in brief:
( 1 ) Inequality in temporal things is an artificial, not a normal, condition. “It is not given,” says a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, (49:20) “that one man should have that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin.” Furthermore, the Lord says in reference to this very matter of material inequality, “I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one, ye are not mine.”
“Let every man esteem his brother as himself, and practice virtue and holiness before me,” the Prophet is told. “And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself. For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one : Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here ; and to the other : Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there — and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?” (Sec. 38:24-26.)
(2) Temporal equality does not mean that every man should have the same amount as every other man of temporal goods. Edward Partridge, the first bishop of the church, was requested in the Kirtland branch of this order to “appoint unto this people their portions, every man equal according to his circumstances and his wants and needs/’ The man with a wife would “need” more than the man without; and the man with seven children would “need” more than the one with only three; and so on.
(3) This equality in temporal things is a pre-requisite to equality in spiritual things. In a revelation given in 1832 (78) the Prophet is told (verses 3, 5, 6): “For verily I say unto you, the time has come, and is now at hand ; and behold, and lo, it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, * * * that you may be equal in the bonds of heavenly things, yea, and earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things. For if ye are not equal in earthly things, ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things.”
(4) Not only a few members of the church, but all of them, were to be under this order. “You are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties, for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just — and all this for the benefit of the church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea even an hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord’s storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church — every man seeking the interest of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God.”
In the united order, therefore, we come face to face with the conflict between selfishness and service, between Christ and the “natural man.” Its adoption by the Saints in Missouri and Ohio days was unsuccessful partly because of human weakness and partly because of circumstances over which they had no control — outside opposition. Since then the law of the united order has been held in abeyance, excepting for some trials of it in a few places in Utah — Orderville, Glenwood, and Brigham City. After the Redemption of Zion, whenever that event takes place, the practice of this economic principle will be renewed.
With us, as soon as the united order was abandoned, a lesser law, the law of tithing, took its place. But there is no mention of tithing in the Book of Mormon in connection with their own religious practices.
Questions
1. How important is the matter of earning a living in the modern system ? Explain how it is that the “love of money” is the “root” of all evil. What is the cost of living per individual in the United States? What danger is there in the accumulation of large surpluses of wealth ?
2. To what extent is “charity” a solution of the unemployment problem? Tell about the “dole” in England. Is it true that a poor man is to blame for his condition? Has society any part in that blame? If so, what part? Why does the Lord so often express sympathy for the poor and censure for the rich? Are riches in themselves bad ? Why do you think so?
3. What is the united order? Tell about its practice among the people of Enoch, among the early disciples of Christ in Palestine, among the Nephites, among the Latter-day Saints. Why is wealth so often a hindrance to the enjoyment of spiritual blessings? Explain the sentence, “It is not given that one man should have that which is above another.” Explain: “If ye are not equal in earthly things, ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things.” Under our present economic system, talent is often undeveloped in the youth for lack of means. Show that this would not be the case under the united order. Compare tithing with the united order. To what extent would there be individual ownership, and to what extent public ownership, under the united order?
I find this even more interesting in light of the political atmosphere in 1932. It would also be enlightening to see what the parallel lesson for the priesthood brothers was at the time.
The Relief Society sisters had been working vigorously for some time to bring relief to the poor. And it had not been too many years since the savings of the Relief Society had been pulled into the general funds of the church to build administration buildings. It would be an interesting historical analysis of the writing and reception of this lesson considering the general poverty of nearly all members at this time.
I have pondered multiple times about how we care for the poor, & the Savior’s many admonitions that we must. While we are told in Mosiah that we are not to judge whether the poor have brought their conditions upon themselves, we are also told in scripture that those who will not work shall not eat. Those two directions often seem at odds with each other to me.
I believe that one of the reasons that the present day welfare system does not work well, is because it is administered thru the the force of the government, rather than thru the charity of the people. The recipients do not feel grateful, either to the donors or to the Lord, because they have been led to believe that they are “entitled” to the funds. To me, that seems in direct opposition to Kind Benjamin’s address, where he reminds us that we are all beggars before The Lord.
On a blog I read sometimes, the author wrote about an experience going to the store just before Christmas. Their family was struggling, but doing their best to support themselves & their children. They had shopped carefully, mindful of their funds, & when they went to the checkout, the cart ahead of them contained some expensive meat items that seemed extravagant to her, but of more note, that carried contained the exact same sweater that she had picked up several times, thinking of it as a gift for her husband, in need of a warm sweater for cold weather, but she had put it back, because there was not enough money for it. She watched the family ahead of her pull out their EBT card to pay for the meat & many of the other things in the cart. The conversations between the individuals unloading that cart revealed that none of them were employed, & they seemed pleased to not be employed. She detailed her struggle within, when her family was carefully budgeting the pay from hard work, while this family ahead of her seemed to be living relatively high on the hog, without working at all. She felt that this family & others were “reaching into my home sband’s pockets, & stealing the money he had worked hard to earn”, thru the tax system, so they could live “free & easy”. As a Christian, she struggled with the two admonition that we are to care for the poor, but that those that will not work, shall not eat. When the contributions are “required”, it seems, neither the givers nor the recipients are edified, even tho the funds are equalized. It is important that the giving be voluntary, not required, which means that the people giving need to be taught the importance of caring for each other, but gratitude for the “gifts” of the Lord seems sorely lacking in our societies today. Wiser minds than mine are needed to resolve the dilemma.
I had on my VTing route several years ago, a sister who was about to lose her house, for the lack of several thousand dollars. She had nevertheless paid for plane tickets for herself & her sons to go to the national championship rounds in a sport in which her son had qualified. It seemed to me that she was foolish to have spent the money on that, since it was what then rendered her unable to pay her mortgage, but the thought came to me, “What is it was your daughter?” In response, I admit, I thought “my daughter would not have spent the money that way.” The thought came again several times, & I met with the bishop. Together we arranged a sufficient donation on my part, delivered thru the fast offerings, to save the house, without her knowing that the funds came from me. It was important to me that any gratitude that she felt would be to the Lord, not to me. I felt good about it at the time, but there have been multiple times since, when this family has needed “rescued” financially. I have not been thusly prompted again. I do not know the answer. Perhaps the bishops could arrange for some financial teaching to accompany assistance, but what if the person receiving the assistance refuses “that kind” of help?
I have rejected my bishop’s offers of medical care because I know ward members who, should they ever learn I had been helped, would think evil of me. People may pay generous fast offerings, but some retain the right to shame recipients.
Once the bishop has made a determination of worthiness, I don’t feel the least right to second guess him!
But maybe that’s just me.
Ardis, anyone who retains the right to shame recipients that have been judged worthy by their bishop is opposing the legitimate “judges” in Israel.
I struggled with my prompting because of the amount, & because I was the VTer that knew of the decision that led to the circumstances, but the Lord brought me around. The bishop helped with that, happy that I could feel the prompting, & willing to help me work thru the rest of it. When we were raising our children, we were fans of “natural consequences” vs artificially created ones, so it took me a while to be able to frame things another way. The bottom line for me came back to a story Elder Packer told years ago in General Conference, in 1977, in the Welfare Session, about a Brother Millet. Someone in the ward had prayed about where to go for flour, & were sent to Brother Millet. His attitude was that if the Lord sent you for it, it belongs to you, not me. If the Lord prompted me multiple times to help this sister, the money was not mine to keep. Everything I have belongs to the Lord, but I forget that sometimes.
Marivene, you have done a very generous thing, and you’ll have your reward.
On the other hand, anyone’s presuming to judge what someone puts into a shopping cart, or even assuming that a recipient obviously needs financial training to go along with the food order is a form of shaming. I don’t know all that goes into someone’s financial choices any more than I know all that goes into someone’s pleading with the Lord like a beggar for forgiveness of sins.
I think that our hearts won’t be magically transformed by Zion’s magically appearing at some distant day. I think Zion will come only when our hearts are so transformed that we care more about being generous ourselves than about whether someone else is sufficiently grateful.
Ardis, I don’t think that I did do a very generous thing; I did what the Lord asked me to do, & I have already been blessed for that obedience.
The blogger to which I referred is not LDS, & the cart in the grocery store was not filled with a food order from the bishop. It was paid for with a state food stamp card. She only noticed them because of the sweater, but as she listened to their comments, in a situation where she could not really have done otherwise, she was appalled at the attitude of entitlement. She was struggling to work thru her feelings, & posted about those feelings. I don’t see that as shaming; I see it as struggling.
I asked my husband about this, since he has served in bishoprics, & he said that a bishop can & often does offer financial counseling to go with assistance, & that some bishops make it a standing requirement of receiving assistance. Others do not.
Two wards over from us, 3 years ago, there were quite a few foreclosures in the ward. The bishop met with the RS & told them that he wanted them to use the enrichment meetings to teach the sisters how to make various breakfast meals, & to put recipes for easy breakfast items in the weekly RS bulletin. The idea was not initially well received, but he was the bishop, so it was done. It seems that there were more than just a few sisters in that particular ward who did not know how to cook, as in, not at all. They were picking up breakfast at fast food joints every day on the way to take their children to school, & the bishop determined that was the reason all these homes were going into foreclosure. Learning to make various breakfast foods like pancakes, scrambled eggs, omelets & waffles – all of which can also be served as other meals, too – fixed the problem. We learned about it when a sister bore her testimony concerning the situation, & how it had helped her. She said she didn’t “know how to boil water.” I suppose she could have seen the situation as people judging her, but she saw it as them helping her, & as a blessing in her life.
Marivene, I lay awake quite a bit of last night trying to decide how public to be with my dissatisfaction with every discussion of any topic related to this one.
Last year when I taught the King Benjamin lesson in Gospel Doctrine, it went wrong from the very beginning. The first comment from a class member was a vehement statement that no Mormon should ever give money to a street beggar (even though that had nothing directly to do with the question I had asked — anything to do with charity went right to street begging, in that class member’s mind). Others chimed in, and I was unable to get the lesson back on track. All anyone wanted to do was justify their reasons for not giving to street beggars, and to support every one else’s reasons for not giving to street beggars. That was not at all the point of the lesson or of King Benjamin’s sermon, but that’s all anyone was willing to say. I felt so bad about how poorly the lesson had gone that on my next turn to teach I used the first part of class time to teach, without allowing interruptions about street begging, what should have been discussed the week before.
Very early in my blogging career, as a perma on a group blog, some issue about welfare assistance came up, and as I remember it, the thrust of the comments was not our obligation (however you define that) to help, but whether or not the recipient was worthy of help — to the point that some were calling for surreptitious night-time raids on welfare recipient’s garbage cans to check for pizza takeout boxes or too-generous data plans on recipient’s cell phone bills. (I may not remember the details of that thread completely accurately, but that’s the shocking mental image that remains.)
It seems to me that there is something terribly wrong when our first response to anything having to do with with the Lord’s commandment to care for the poor and needy is not “well, I can start by …” but is instead an impulsive listing of all the excuses for NOT following that commandment, usually beginning with “it’s wrong to expect me to do that” and ranging on through “the recipient is probably not worthy” and even implying that the Lord doesn’t know what he is talking about because “giving alms corrupts the work ethic of the recipient.”
I live in a ward that is a strange mix of inner city poverty and an exceedingly wealthy and large downtown condominium. There may well be ward members who don’t know how to boil water and could benefit from some financial instruction and related training. On the other hand, I have lived for many years now on an income averaging less than $10K per year, and by excessive frugality have managed to get by okay, without help from anybody, until finally years of medical neglect have caught up with me. There is little anyone could teach me about how to stretch a quarter any farther than I already do, and no point in telling me that I should have sought medical treatment earlier when even had I spent every dollar I brought in on medical care it wouldn’t have been enough. But I’ve felt the sting of having to be counseled by inner-city missionaries about the importance of paying my light bill on time (it always is!) and not going to fast-food drive-throughs (I don’t, and not only because I gave up my car years ago), as if those “financial lessons” were somehow of any use to me or would somehow multiply my 10K to $60K. I know from experience that it is easier to bear the pain of an abscessed tooth or a hot gall bladder than to bear the condescension and the unwarranted assumptions of ward members who comment in Sunday School about the worst problems we face as a people by listing “drug dealers, prostitutes, and those people who want us to pay for their health care” (a direct quotation from a lovely elderly sister in my ward).
This is more personal than I expected to be in public, but I value your participation at Keepa, and I don’t want you to think that my resistance to your comments here comes from some political ideology. It’s a pattern I’ve long noted that we’re more eager to fight against the idea that we’re obliged to help each other, even when that comes at a financial cost, than we are to explore ways to meet that obligation. That’s wrong, and I object to it. I can’t change it, but I can go on record as objecting to it.
Ardis, I appreciate what you are trying to do, in moving us to a more appropriate response to helping those in need. I appreciate you sharing your personal perspective, because I think that the personal aspect is what often helps change attitudes. I am a very private person by nature, very much an introvert, but I have learned over the past 4 decades in the church, that it is the personal experiences that change people, not the general ones.
We lived in Idaho Falls for 21 years before my husband was laid off by the dominant employer in the area. It should not have been a surprise to us, but it was, even tho they were in the 4th or 5th round of down sizing. We were one of 4 families laid off in that round that lived within our ward boundaries. Since we lived on the west side of IF, and the site was also west of IF, the stakes on the west side were hit much harder than those located elsewhere, because most site workers chose to live on the west side, cutting a half hour or more from their commute. When we finally met with the bishop, he asked about our financial situation. It was Sept, & he asked about Christmas. My husband told him it was taken care of, & it was. I have always tried to finish up the Christmas shopping at the back to school sales, & that year I had been successful. He offered food assistance, but we did not need that, since we had a huge garden, fruit trees, & had followed the counsel have a years supply for several decades. In addition, I had just started working as a sub for the school district, planning to pad the college funds for our children. He offered mortgage help, but we had just paid off our house, which proved fortuitous, since 2 months later, the stake president told the bishops they could no longer cover mortgages with fast offering funds. Many houses went up for sale at that time. I remember our Relief Society president pushing very hard, pretty much in my face, insisting that my husband & I sign up for a cannery assignment, a few weeks after he was laid off. Since my husband deals with both anxiety & depression, to say that signing up at that time did not seem like a good idea is an understatement. I yielded to the pressure eventually, & we went. When the stake president informed the bishops about the mortgages, this sister’s husband asked me when we would be moving, just in passing in the foyer. I am sure my face looked puzzled, when I told him we weren’t planning to move. He made a snide comment about not being able to pay a mortgage on the wages from subbing, & it hit me like a ton of bricks. The reason his wife had pushed so hard was that she assumed we were receiving assistance. My respect for our bishop’s understanding of confidentiality rose, while my respect for hers fell. I quietly said that we owned our home, & we did not plan to move at the present time. He raised an eyebrow, but her jaw fell open. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, to realize that she had assumed we were unwilling to “play by the rules.” At the time, it made me angry, but now it just makes me sad.
Changing attitudes towards helping those in need is messy at best. Here in Utah County, where we now live, we have been counseled repeatedly NOT to give to “beggars on the streets”, but to give the money to the programs that help the poor, to avoid giving funds to those who spend it on drugs. KSL did a report on it several times. From my perspective, it makes people less likely to directly assist those in need, while not necessarily helping those programs designed to help the poor, because people do not feel the need to donate. I also believe that the program allows members to justify not assisting, because “they are probably using drugs anyway”. That attitude is wrong, & you are correct that we should all start with an attitude of “How can I help?”
While I believe that a generous fast offering is a good beginning, I feel like we can all start with “watching over” those to whom we have been assigned VT and HT routes. Questar Gas has an assistance program to which we can add $ to our bill, to help those in need. What if we all just rounded our bill to the nearest dollar? Multiplied by the thousands of customers, that might be enough to help make an impact.
I have an elderly neighbor, who is on my VT route, to whom I took produce from my garden, because she likes it. In fact, she mentioned several years ago that she ate Swiss chard a lot growing up, & that she liked it. That spring, I planted some – hardy stuff. She was delighted when I brought her some. We did not care for it, so she got it all, although I never told her that. If you have a garden, sharing produce is a simple way to help others, & I find that when I share, my garden grows better because the Lord blesses it.
In the end, I think it takes each of us realizing that we are the stewards, not the owners, of what we “possess”, before we can move towards being a Zion people, & having all things in common. I am not there yet, but I am further along the path than I was. To get this far has required some uncomfortable conversation, when one partner in a marriage feels help,should be extended & the other does not. For now, we have decided to default to giving. If either one of us feels like we should extend help, then we do it.
Thank you for the wonderful comments. This is something I have thought a lot about, and need to think (and do) much more.