One of the most heartbreaking verses in all of scripture was the moment when Jesus brought Peter, James, and John with him as he entered the Garden of Gethsemane. It was to be the contest in which Christ made himself an offering for the entirety of the human family before all the hosts of heaven, the most difficult test he had ever endured. It would push his body and soul to the brink of oblivion, beyond what any individual human had ever suffered. To make intercession for every soul who had ever or would ever live.
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| Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Robert Walter Weir (1803-1899) Courtesy: The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me," he said to Peter, James, and John.i A plea from a human heart that doesn't want to suffer, especially not alone. No different from any one of us.
We don't have to imagine his fear and trepidation in that moment. The scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ fell on his face before his Father and begged that "if it be possible, let this cup pass from me."ii A plea from a human heart that doesn't want to suffer, no different from any one of us.
"Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou will."iii Willing to undergo the suffering and pain to teach the world, by example, the cost of unconditional love. The price to be paid for eternity. The very best trait any of us in humanity has to offer: the willingness to show mercy and compassion, especially to those who will never reciprocate.
They slept. The most important moment in his life, the entire reason he was sent to earth, and his brothers slept right through it. He came to them repeatedly and asked for them to watch with him. Each time, they fail. "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?"iv How difficult it must've been for him to recognize that in a few short moments, everything he had built would be entrusted to them, and they were already asleep at the helm.
Peter, James, and John would spend the remainder of their lives trying to be equal to the moment that had already passed them by and found them wanting. They represent the challenge that remains for anyone who calls themselves a Christian: to be equal to the mandates Jesus Christ left behind for all of us, to become the manner of humans we ought to be. "Verily I say unto you, even as I am."v
Asleep at the Helm
To be distracted and unfocused in a moment when we are being entrusted to minister to, or even just to sit with someone who is in pain, is not a sin that is unique to Peter, James, and John. In many respects, the modern Church has a similar issue in how it collectively confronts current moral failures among its membership. With sexism, racism, and the treatment of LGBTQ members in particular, there are too many times when the suffering and violence faced by those on the margins, including from those within the Church, has silent witnesses who close their eyes to it instead of helping.
The practice of Latter-day Saint parents abandoning their LGBTQ+ children and youth is especially heinous. To reject anyone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, to say nothing of forcing them onto the streets and into homelessness, is an evil with no place within the Church. It's an evil that exists openly, with too many Church and priesthood leaders who know about it without holding the parents to account for their actions. In too many cases, these leaders ARE the parents who are putting their children in danger by turning them out onto the streets. Any amount of this in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is too much, and we have too much. When Jesus taught that ours was the responsibility to take the gospel message into the world, violence against and the rejection of the marginalized is not what he meant.
I could sit here and spout of verses to prove this point all day long. I could quote Matthew 25 about how those who fail to feed and clothe God's children do that violence to Christ himself.vi I could quote 2 Nephi 26 when the prophets taught that Christ sends no one away who is in need. I could quote the parable of the man with 12 children from D&C 38 where God rejects any parent who would willingly deny their children the sustenance that they need and still claim to be a good parent.
Seriously. I could sit here and come up with more of these all day long because I know the God I serve. At no point did God give any injunction or license to do violence towards or to ostracize the LGBTQ+ community among us. So for now, I will settle for the warning that Jesus gave in three different places in the New Testament about the consequences to those who hurt any of his children, especially when the victims are children.
"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."vii
The problem here is not that the scriptures were vague or inconsistent. Jesus Christ was perfectly clear about how he expects all of us to treat each other. The problem is that too many of us don't want to listen. We want to join into the violent scapegoating of the Other because that's what the rest of The World, and by that I mean too many others in Christianity, are actively doing. It's easier for fundamentalists to accumulate social capital by doing violence and spreading hatred than it is to genuinely "do good unto all men."viii Just because the others engaging in that behavior are other Christians doesn't make it right. It just means everyone involved has every reason to know better and do better.
Jesus of Nazareth has born the griefs of every soul who has ever lived. He knows the pains of LGBTQ+ people who have lost everything they once held dear. He can say together with LGBTQ+ people that he was also "wounded in the house of my friends."ix Which I don't say as any kind of injunction for them to worship with us ever again. No one has any obligation to return to a place of violence that has made them unsafe. That's what the Church has been for too many of our own LGBTQ+ people.
To any and all within the reach of these words who prides themselves on doing violence to God's children because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation, my message to you this Easter season is simple: Stop it. Find something better to do with your time.
In the time it takes to make someone else's difficult situation even worse by dehumanizing them, we could do what Christ did and love them instead.
iMatt. 26:38
iiMatt. 26:39
iiiIbid.
ivMatt. 26:40
v3 Ne. 27:27
viMathew 25:35-40
viiMatt. 18, Mark 9, Luke 17
viiiGal. 6:10
ixZech. 13:6
