Sabbath Devotional :: Zion

I have a confession to make. I haven’t always been a fan of the notion of Zion.

When I was younger, I thought Zion meant that we all had to be the same. You know, same heart, same mind. And I couldn’t bear the thought of all that sameness.

I was, of course, mistaken.

We don’t have to look beyond the natural world to recognize how much God values — delights in, even — diversity.

As the Jesuit priest and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

Now, years later, a more mature understanding of Zion leads me to believe that, far from being based on sameness or conformity, Zion is actually dependent upon diversity.

But before we pursue that line of thought, what is Zion? What do we mean when we talk about Zion? Is it a place? A state of being? A community? God’s heavenly city (as it’s called in Hebrews 12:22)? A symbol of the longing of a wandering people for a home?

The answer, as is so often the case in the matters of God, appears to be all of the above (and more).

Hugh Nibley calls Zion “the eternal order.”* It is the divine order of heaven and the order we seek to establish here on earth. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Zion is what we have covenanted to work toward. In the temple, we make sacred promises to God to build up His kingdom on earth and to establish Zion.

And we know it’s possible. An entire city was taken up into heaven when its people had achieved Zion. And the ancient people on the American continent dwelt in a Zion-like state for nearly 200 years after Christ had visited and taught them.

During one of our strategic planning meetings in the early days of MWEG’s existence, someone asked: “So, what is the ultimate goal of MWEG?” Without a second’s hesitation, I said, “Zion.”

I surprised even myself with that answer, but I immediately knew it was true. Our ultimate goal is Zion. That’s what we are working toward. That is the raison d’etre of MWEG. It is our reason for being. Our Heavenly Parents are schooling their daughters so that we can take our rightful place in the building up of the kingdom of God and the establishment of Zion.

In LDS circles, the most commonly cited definition for Zion comes from Moses 7:18 “And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.”

They were a community, in other words—a word which comes from the Old French, communer, meaning, to make common, or to share.

So, Zion is a community — the beloved community, as Dr. King called it. And the people of Zion are unified.

But unity isn’t the same as sameness.

Being unified — having one heart and mind — means that we share a common goal, not identical characteristics.

In fact, I would argue that we build Zion by making room for everyone, not by insisting on conformity.

Zion is like a full symphony orchestra — violins, oboes, clarinets, flutes, trumpets, trombones, bassoons, piccolos, English horns, cellos, tympani. Zion is not an octet of identical bassoons, all playing the same endless note.

So perhaps part of what building Zion is all about is learning to see, value, accommodate, appreciate, and embrace the magnificent variety of all God’s children as we form a community and all work together in pursuit of the common goal of love, peace, salvation, and Eternal Life.

Because the truth is, we all need each other. Using another metaphor for Zion, Paul writes movingly of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12:

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

What a perfect explanation of Zion.

One heart, one mind, dwelling in righteousness, with no poor among us.

I know Zion is possible. I know it’s possible because I’ve seen glimpses of it.

I glimpsed Zion this last Friday evening as people from organizations as varied as Black Lives Matter, Mama and Papa Panthers, Utahns Against Police Brutality, Mormon Women for Ethical Government, and other concerned citizens ranging from grandmothers to bikers to college students to children all came together with the common goal of showing love and support for a traumatized boy and his family and of calling for reforms that will lead to greater justice, equality, and safety for all God’s children. The air was charged with something that felt miraculous as dozens of distinct voices joined together in singing “I Am a Child of God” there in front of the Woods Cross Police Department. Those voices were varied in timbre, tone, volume, and, unfortunately, even pitch to a certain extent — but a more beautiful chorus I’ve rarely heard.

I glimpsed Zion in the conference room of Comunidades Unidas in West Valley City, Utah on a beautiful day in May of 2017 when a large number of leaders of various Utah-based organizations convened to discuss how we could all work together to support each other and to achieve our common goal of better treatment of immigrants. The initial suspicion with which some groups viewed other groups in the room quickly disappeared as we all realized that, though our points of focus and methodologies were sometimes quite different, we were all on the same team and could recognize, support, and utilize the strengths that each group brought to the common table.

And I glimpse Zion nearly daily in MWEG where women from all across the world and all across the political spectrum come together with one common goal — ethical government. And, well, Zion.

I used to yearn for a return to the Garden of Eden. In fact, I wrote a poem once entitled, “How Far From Eden Must We Go?” But I have come to realize that it’s really Zion I long for, not Eden. It’s not lost innocence I desire, but wisdom, inclusiveness, wholeness, purity, love unfeigned.

In one of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s unrivalled General Conference talks, “Songs Sung and Unsung,” he said:

“When we disparage our uniqueness or try to conform to fictitious stereotypes . . . we lose the richness of tone and timbre that God intended when He created a world of diversity.”

And then, in one of the great moments in the history of General Conference, he declared in that fervent, unwavering voice:

“And someday I hope a great global chorus will harmonize across all racial and ethnic lines, declaring that guns, slurs, and vitriol are not the way to deal with human conflict. The declarations of heaven cry out to us that the only way complex societal issues can ever be satisfactorily resolved is by loving God and keeping His commandments, thus opening the door to the one lasting, salvific way to love each other as neighbors.”

And he ended with these resounding words:

“I plead with each one of us to stay permanently and faithfully in the choir, where we will be able to savor forever that most precious anthem of all — “the song of redeeming love.” Fortunately, the seats for this particular number are limitless. There is room for those who speak different languages, celebrate diverse cultures, and live in a host of locations. There is room for the single, for the married, for large families, and for the childless. There is room for those who once had questions regarding their faith and room for those who still do. There is room for those with differing sexual attractions. In short, there is a place for everyone who loves God and honors His commandments as the inviolable measuring rod for personal behavior, for if love of God is the melody of our shared song, surely our common quest to obey Him is the indispensable harmony in it.”

Amen, and onward to Zion!
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*Nibley, Hugh. Approaching Zion. Deseret Book, FARMS, 1989. https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1114&index=4