Samuel the Lamanite and the Condemnation of Wealth
If you, like me, managed to go to Church today and not hear a single word of what Samuel the Lamanite was calling his people to repent of—despite the fact that this is the lesson we were all supposed to be learning today—let's contemplate his message together.
Samuel the Lamanite was a prophet in the Book of Mormon who came right before the time of Christ. He came to deliver a message that had several components to it:
- Condemning his people for their wealth inequality, greed, and corruption—including delivering a curse upon the people that their riches would become "slippery" and be taken from them.
- Preaching the gospel and calling those people to believe in Jesus Christ and repent.
- Prophesying of the signs that would follow the birth of Christ (three days of light) and his death (three days of darkness)
You cannot fully contemplate the second and third tasks without fully grasping the first.
My Sunday School teacher texted me at home to ask me to come to his lesson and share my thoughts on Samuel the Lamanite. When I saw he effectively leap-frogged over the greed which defined this society, that's what I talked about—only to have him cut me off to stop me from talking.
The message being delivered to our class was that Samuel the Lamanite was almost stoned and shot upon the wall because of his faith in Christ. That's not true. That's a false oversimplification of the story. The people attempted to kill him because he was condemning them for how their money had corrupted them beyond saving. That was what made the people angry enough to try and kill Samuel the Lamanite. This wasn't some vague, ethereal notion of belief they were fighting about.
21 Behold ye, the people of this great city, and hearken unto my words; yea, hearken unto the words which the Lord saith; for behold, he saith that ye are cursed because of your riches, and also are your riches cursed because ye have set your hearts upon them, and have not hearkened unto the words of him who gave them unto you.
22 Ye do not remember the Lord your God in the things with which he hath blessed you, but ye do always remember your riches, not to thank the Lord your God for them; yea, your hearts are not drawn out unto the Lord, but they do swell with great pride, unto boasting, and unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities.
Helaman 13:21-22 (emphasis mine)
Their pride, persecution, and murder were all rooted in a love of money. This was why they refused to believe in Christ! This was the sin of which they were being told to repent by Samuel the Lamanite. There is no other message to take from this text.
This was the message.
And since I didn't get to finish my thought in Sunday School, I will share it with the rest of you here.
God cares about people more than money. One of the key tests of this life is to determine if we will love God more than money and the trappings of this world. We take none of it with us when we die. The economy of heaven will not operate on money. And there are many, many people of means in this world (including the Church) who are not prepared to return to a state where they truly have nothing, who are back on equal footing with the rest of us.
Slippery Riches
For those of us who have lived under the injustice and cruelty of poverty, with all of its many calculated destructions, we pray for a world where that old social order is totally overturned. We pray for a world where our survival is no longer tied to whims of the wealthy, those who exploit other people's labor for their own gain. Exploitation is the founding principle of the United States of America. It's the system by which it operates in every aspect of our lives. We work to give others the fruits of our labors and get very little of it in return. And the story of my life is watching that greed destroy my family, my home, and the community in which I was raised.
When I hear the words of Isaiah when he wrote "ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses," to me it is not poetry. It is an accurate description of what has happened to me, the people I love, and working class people I have witnessed all over the world. I am not frightened by the curse that Samuel the Lamanite that riches will become "slippery" to those who value them more than God. I relish it. To me, it is the promise I have been waiting and praying all of my life for God to keep—when justice will return all that was taken from us, and the communities destroyed by exploitation will be restored.
It is the day prophesied of by Mary, the mother of Jesus when she said of his son before his birth:
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Luke 1:51-53
It is the day described in 4 Nephi, where "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."
It is the day when the world hears and comprehends the words of the Lord as given through Joseph Smith when he taught:
But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin.
D&C 49:20
It is the day when our community will return to the full observation of the Law of Consecration, to "appoint unto this people their portions, every man equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs... And let every man deal honestly, and be alike among this people, and receive alike, that ye may be one, even as I have commanded you." (D&C 51:3, 9)
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
There is no difference between those verses in D&C 51 and this slogan repeated in the Communist Manifesto. I'm not going to pretend for the comfort and reassurance of others that the Latter-day Saint vision of utopia was any different, because it wasn't. It isn't. Heaven is not a place where everyone will be wildly rich. It's a place where no one will be poor because there will be no rich. The difference between those two things is vast, and it's one I don't think the wealthy people beside me in the pews think about enough.
It occurred to me today that I'm praying for a completely different future than some people I go to Church with. They don't see the world the way I do because they haven't lived the life I've lived. They don't see the line between their end of the ward boundaries and mine. They don't see the wealth disparity between my family and their families. They genuinely believe we're playing on a level playing field because we're in this same place of worship together. They can't fathom the reality where this isn't true.
They want things to continue as they are, where their comforts and blessings remain their own in perpetuity. They're not ready to confront the reality that the Celestial Kingdom is not a country club for Jesus lovers. No one is going to be kept out because of their ability to pay. No one who goes there is promised a life of luxury and ease.
This is the truth behind the truths Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount:
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Matt. 7:21-23
God does not prosper anyone at the expense of those who are powerless to stop them. That is not a principle by which heaven operates. That's the principle by which this world operates. That exploitation will end because the Son of God will put an end to it. And those who are most deeply invested in that system will find themselves pointing to all the "wonderful works" they did on Earth as to why their riches should remain. They gave him the glory and praise for them! Shouldn't that be enough? Isn't that a good enough reason for the whole system to continue?
The ones being served best by a system will always be the first ones to think everything is fine. The ones in want of nothing will be the most insensate to those in want, without the ability to see themselves clearly in their ignorance. And to some, that moment of reckoning in which the truth is finally revealed to them will come as such an awful shock, they won't know how to respond.
The act of bringing people to that realization before it happens, when it all is suddenly too late, to people who are unwilling to hear it? Yet another act of unpaid labor I perform for their benefit.
I suppose the lesson I'm learning today from Samuel the Lamanite is one of solidarity. I don't know about the comparative wealth of the Nephites and Lamanites to now. But I do know that I go to Church with some of the richest people on the planet, whether they've ever had the occasion to realize that or not. And it's nice to know that when giving rich people the reminder that none of this is how God wants things to work, we both get the same reaction.
