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Not an easy topic, for a number of reason. But I came up with things to say. And I stand by them. Even though I would have written this differently were it to be printed (oh, wait) or factchecked by the Washington Post.
Anyway, this is copied from my reading version. The text is smaller (and all the same size) here, but you can get a sense of how I mark things to help me do it right. In case that is interesting to you.
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So Joseph and Oliver were translating the Book of Mormon and the Book of Mormon really hammers on about the importance of baptism. So they headed out to the woods to pray about it and what do you know but John the Baptist—THE John the Baptist!—appeared to ordain them to the Aaronic Priesthood and, in doing so, he said these words: 🧔🏽♂️
Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.
Joseph and Oliver then baptized each other in the Susquehanna River. Mission accomplished.
Not long later, the higher priesthood was also brought back to earth, and then the Saints had to figure out what the deal was with two priesthoods.
In Nauvoo, unlike now, the average age of a priest was 29 years old. Only four teenagers were ordained priests.
Later, in Utah, Brigham Young was frustrated with the rush to ordain men to the Melchizedek Priesthood because that didn’t leave enough men to be deacons, teachers, and priests. Eventually, members of the Melchizedek Priesthood were being set apart as “acting” teachers, priests, and deacons to fill the need. Brigham Young was skeptical of calling adolescents to those roles as, quote, 🧔🏻♂️ “It is not the business of an ignorant young man, of no experience in family matters, to inquire into the circumstances of families, and know the wants of every person. Some may want medicine and nourishment and be[ing] looked after, and it is not the business of boys to do this, but select a man who has got a family to be a Deacon.”
By the 1870s, the male youth of Zion were a bunch of hooligans, writing on walls and spitting tobacco juice all over. Eliza Snow said that 👩🏻 "no thought [had been] bestowed upon [the] spiritual culture" of Zion's first generation of children until things were going wrong wrong wrong What was to be done?
Well, one stake president suggested bishops, quote, 👴🏼 “draw the young men into positions in the Priesthood and thus an excellent experience, and, at the same time, preserve them from evil associations.” He said his own sons got much better following ordination and hey, we’re desperate for deacons!
I’m not sure this counts as a “heartwarming” story, but it’s a true story.
So does it work?
Well, when I was a teenage priest, each week, two of us priests would hop in one of our families’ cars after church, and drive to the houses of various shutins to deliver the sacrament. One time, Karl was driving. Karl was a year younger than me and not someone I thought of as particularly hooliganny. But! as he turned on the car and started driving us to our first location, he said, with more a dare than an apology in his voice, that the music we were listening to was River of Dreams, Billy Joel’s new album, and that it was probably way harder than anything I was used to and he hoped it wouldn’t disturb me too much but he was gonna let it play.
So I don’t know.
To be honest, though, I don’t believe in a God who punishes you for listening to Billy Joel on Sunday. Maybe for listening to Billy Joel on Sunday even when you think it will offend someone else, but what really matters in this story, is that Karl and I were driving to visit people we only sort of knew to attempt awkward cross-generational conversation en route to giving them the body and blood of our mutual Savior.
We all just heard the prayers, but the fact that we hear them each week suggests we cannot hear them enough. Let me read the shorter one again:
O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this water to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, which was shed for them; that they may witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them.
||
Quick tangent:
The long road of human evolution has given our adolescent years some quirks. For instance, if you’re finishing high school and you’re never ever irritated by your parents, biology is failing you. Irritation is normal. It’s nature trying to get you to leave their nest, to enter adulthood and start building nests of your own. It’s supposed to be this way.
So maybe it’s appropriate that the way I found, when I was in late adolescence, to focus on the sacrament prayers was to rewrite them to be about, ah, me. Like so:
O God, the Eternal Father, I ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this water to MY soul as I drink of it, that I may do it in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, which was shed for ME; that I may witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that I do always remember him, that I may have his Spirit to be with ME.
|| But it’s easy for an adult to make cracks about teenagers. We’ve left that time behind and, speaking of biology, our brains aren’t even capable of recreating the drama you’re living through. And so it’s easy to tease teenage Eric about rewriting the prayers into first-person singular, but—it did help me focus. And it still does. And the important thing about the story I told before isn’t Karl’s dumb posturing, trying to impress me with his hardcore Billy Joel album, but the fact that we were sixteen and seventeen and we were taking the sacrament to people like Brother Blackburn who, I realize now, was trying to rile me up by asking if I was a girl because my hair hit my collar. (Oh, if he could see me now!)
But memory’s a flimsy thing anyway. I’m now going to mention a General Conference talk that knocked me over when I was in high school but was not actually given until just after I’d turned 22. Now-President Dallin H. Oaks gets into the first 25 words of what John the Baptist said:
Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels
I like angels.
I like angels because they’re so impossible. Considering the keys of the ministering of angels is a lot more in-your-face kind of religion than, say, loving your neighbor or cleaning the church building. Believing in angels is a bigger challenge for the modern mind. And yet—the Aaronic Priesthood holds the keys of the ministering of angels.
But this isn’t just about them.
Elders, wave your hands. Everyone, say hi to the elders. They can see in our faces we miss the sisters, but we’ll love you too, elders—promise!
Jesus says to missionaries that “I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”
A*****, R*****, L****, A****—now you wave your hands. This is our Relief Society presidency. And Joseph Smith told the sisters, when you live up to Relief Society principles, 👨🏻🦰 “how great and glorious will be your reward in the celestial kingdom! If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.”
Our buddy Nephi taught us that after “following [our] Lord and [our] Savior down into the water…[and] receiv[ing] the Holy Ghost…comes the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can [we] speak with the tongue of angels.”
That’s for everyone who chooses baptism.
Everyone.
Then-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once told us that 👨🏻🎓 “always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.”
Aaronic Priesthood? Look at me. You’ve been promised angels.
Relief Society? You have been promised angels.
Missionaries. You have been promised angels.
Every single person who has decided to be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Each and every one of you has been promised angels.
I have been promised angels.
We may never go out into the Pennsylvania woods and see John the Baptist, but we have been promised angels. And the difference between reading those words and saying okay sure I believe it could be, and having faith that our God will send angels, is in what we do. So let’s “live up to our privileges,” whether that’s leaving home for two years to serve in a place like Berkeley, or bringing meals to someone holding a new baby, or blessing the sacrament for some old guy who maybe thinks I’m a girl; let’s go out—and let’s take those angels with us on our holy errands.
This is what the Restoration is all about—bringing the divine into other’s lives. ||
Our Heavenly Parents love us. || Our Brother and Savior loves us. || We are surrounded by angels. || And we have each other. ||
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Sources:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-39?lang=eng
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/31?lang=eng&id=13-14#p13
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/84?lang=eng&id=p88#p88
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=mormonhistory
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