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President Oaks was one of several at the last General Conference to promote sacrament meeting. He told us to “protect [ourselves] with the weekly renewing of [our] covenants by partaking of the sacrament.”
I think he’s onto something there. And so do a lot of Conference speakers, apparently. Lots of promotion of sacrament meeting. And so I think I’d best start with an apology, as I’ll be slipping out of this sacrament meeting to rush back to Berkeley’s in hopes of catching my daughter’s talk in her second-to-last Primary Program.
Joseph Smith had a pet peeve: people who leave a meeting just before its close. He called it an insult. If anyone has to leave a meeting early, he said, let them go half an hour before it ends. No gentleman will go out of a meeting just at closing! In that spirit, you’ll see me run out well before the last minute. I especially apologize to the other speakers.
I teach high-school English. At the beginning of each year, along with the syllabus and the late-work policy and so on, I talk to the new batch of kids about safety. And I share with them this story:
One year, it became the cool thing for freshman boys to pull the fire alarm. We were evacuating almost every day and sometimes more than once a day. The admin team starting jumping on the PA to announce that it wasn’t a real fire and they were getting it turned off and we could stay in class and keep working, as if it were possible to work with that klaxon screaming right above our heads. Flashing lights. Misery.
Anyway, as the fire alarms kept crying wolf, we stopped hurrying to exit. We’d plug our ears and sit, waiting for them to tell us not to leave. Which they would.
One time, after three weeks or so, off goes the alarm. It went off and went off and kept going off and kept going off. Finally, I said I guess we better leave, so start grabbing your stuff verrrry slowwwwly and slowwwwly walk to the door and by the time we’re halfway out, they’ll call it off. While the students were packing, I walked over to that door and pulled it open. I could not see the water fountain directly across the hall because the hallway was filled with smoke. I yelled for everyone to get going and get going we did.
The moral to the story, I tell my students, is I will take every possible emergency seriously. I would rather waste half an hour walking back and forth from the football field than for us to burn up in our seats.
I’m going to apply this to sacrament meeting. But first let me tell you my favorite line from Conference. Probably because I am an English teacher.
This is Elder Uchtdorf:
Have you ever noticed that the sacrament is the only ordinance we receive during which we are not addressed by name? Rather, it is performed for “the souls of all those who partake of it.” The only names that are used are those of God the Father and Jesus Christ. We partake individually but also as a group.
This is an enormous part of my testimony. We are, individually, the children of Heavenly Parents, yes, but by getting baptized we also became the children of Christ our Savior. And as Alma made clear, that is something we do together:
Now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, [he said] and to be called his people, and…willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light…and…willing to mourn with those that mourn…and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…. I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?
If we are renewing our covenants when we partake of the sacrament, this is what we are promising to do—to be there for each other.
When I go over the safety protocols with my students, I tell them they all, each of them, need to know where we evacuate to. We need to make sure everyone gets there. In a real emergency, we’ll get separated from each other. You may not be able to see me. You still need to arrive safely.
The two main causes of real fire alarms at Little Hill High School are one, unattended microwave popcorn, and two, chemistry-classroom error.
One year we lacked a chemistry teacher and so, for months, it was a bunch of sophomores and a sequence of subs. Who could be surprised when one day a couple girls accidentally made a bomb that went off in their faces?
As we were evacuating, I bumped into those girls, crying, terrified—one of them unable to see. I left my students and took these girls to our campus clinic and got them to eyewash stations and I stayed with them until parents and an ambulance arrived. For well over an hour I was not with my students. But every single one of them knew where to go. And they made it there safely.
General Conference was filled with calls to come to sacrament meeting. A couple more of my favorite lines—
Elder Uchtdorf again: “Let us not miss the unifying power of the sacrament.”
Elder Chigbundu: “As we partake of the sacrament, we can ask ourselves, ‘What would He have me do?’ As we remember Jesus Christ throughout the week and strive to keep His commandments, our lives are gradually refined and reshaped. Our ‘Why me?’ questions will be replaced by ‘What can I learn, and what can I change?’”
Elder Schmeil: “In the sacrament prayer we have a good reminder that we do not need to be perfect to partake of the sacrament. We need to be willing to take upon us His name, remember Him, and keep His commandments, and in return we have the promise to always have His Spirit with us. The sacrament is essential to have the Spirit and the strength to continue on the covenant path.”
Elder Schmeil also quoted an old Elder Renlund talk, where he warned that “the time will come, in each of your lives, when there will be a hesitation to go to church and partake of the sacrament. If it hasn’t happened yet, it will. But know this: if you follow the Savior’s direction and go and partake of the sacrament, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, blessings will pour upon you that will keep you firm, that will keep you solid, that will keep you established on that firm foundation that is Jesus Christ.”
Elder Schmeil, to emphasize the importance of the sacrament, took a story from the Church’s early history and explained that “the Lord could not magnify their efforts because their actions were not aligned with God’s will.”
And how do we align ourselves with God’s will?
By renewing our covenants. Together. “We partake individually but also as a group.”
And what is the will of God?
The first and great commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
What better way to do that than to sit here and covenant with God—together.
Perhaps last week you accidentally built a bomb that went off in your face—and today you came to church to partake of the sacrament and be healed.
Perhaps that bomb will go off next week. But you’ll be prepared because you were here and you partook of the sacrament. And we will be prepared to help you because we, with you, partook of the sacrament.
And we all know where to go for safety in case of emergency.
O God, the Eternal Father, we asked thee, just a few minutes ago, in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify bread and water to our souls. We, all of us, together, did this in remembrance of thy Son, who died for us—for us!—and we witnessed unto thee that we will always remember him, that we may have his Spirit to be with us. And how grateful we are that we did. And how grateful we are we can do this Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. And that we get to do it together.
We are grateful for the sacrament. This I proclaim in the holy name of Jesus Christ, a name we have once again taken upon us, amen.
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