Give Brother Joseph a Break
10:30 PM
I heard a story once of a man who was dissatisfied with his
wife cutting the ends off of the ham every time she put it in the oven to cook:
“Why do you do that?” he asked.
“It makes it taste better,” she replied.
Frustrated with the folksy-seeming answer, he asked, “Where
did you learn that?”
“From my mom,” she answered.
So he picked up the phone and called his mother-in-law. “Do
you cut the ends off your ham?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Why?” he asked.
“It makes it taste better,” she replied.
Again annoyed he asked, “Where did you learn that?”
“From my mom,” she answered.
With end-less ham now consuming his mind (pun intended) he
called his wife’s grandmother. “Do you cut the ends off of your ham?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It won’t fit in the oven if I don’t.”
I thought of this story when I heard Elder Neal L. Anderson
say in this last general conference, “For now, give Brother Joseph a break!”
While misunderstanding the reason behind weird food preparation techniques may not
be eternally significant to most, it seems that a misunderstanding of who
Joseph Smith was and what he did is at the epicenter of many testimony tremors
today. However, like the ham, many get tied up and uptight about things for
which they think they have the whole story but which may not be as significant
as hearsay contends.
So, here are just a few reasons why we should give Brother
Joseph a break. My intent here is not to argue history or prove this or that
but rather to show that we don’t know this or that and thus, can move on and
move up from throwing rhetorical stones at Joseph Smith.
We don’t know why she cut the ends off the ham.
For any one given action or teaching from the life of Joseph
Smith there are at least a few different witnesses, and from each witness come
a few possible different interpretations, and these interpretations, when heard
and echoed by others, can create a veritable circus of arguments, assertions,
analyses, and contentions. With all of that, it’s easy to read back on to
Joseph Smith any number of stories. However, just because a person argues a
single perspective on the prophet does not mean it is the only or the right
perspective. It is often just as easy, if not easier, to actually believe
Joseph was commanded by God to translate, prophesy, testify, organize,
instruct, and restore.
She cut the ends off the ham a long time ago.
To compound the fact that any one event in Joseph’s life can
be viewed from multiple angles, we can add that those events happened almost
200 years ago. If there’s something to be learned from modern politics it might
be how hard it is to gain a clear picture of who someone else because of all of
the conflicting viewpoints. And if it’s almost impossible to gain a clear image
of people who are living and can speak for themselves, we probably shouldn’t be
surprised that our image of someone who lived 200 years ago appears a bit hazy.
Ham-end cutter-offers aren’t good record keepers.
Further, the records which we do have come from a time and
culture when record keeping was often sporadic, spotty, and sometimes downright
suspect. Having spent a considerable amount of time over the past few years
researching one single event in Church History and finding out how porous the
available, primary information is on that topic has confirmed this fact to me.
Putting together a puzzle with missing pieces, damaged pieces, counterfeit
pieces, edited pieces, and completely fabricated pieces does not a very clear
picture make.
Ovens were smaller back then.
Sometimes those critical of Joseph Smith talk about him as
if he lived down the street and had just posted something questionable on his
Instagram feed. They evaluate Joseph by the yardstick of the 21st century.
However, Joseph lived not only in a time but in a culture far gone. Sometimes
the simplest explanation for why something happened the way it did is: that’s
just how it was back then. We don’t rake Biblical prophets over the coals for
their oddities, can’t we give Joseph a bit more cultural slack?
It really doesn’t matter if the ends are cut off—the ham tastes really, really good!
To quote one of Joseph’s contemporaries:
Whatever someone’s explanation of his motives or methods may
be, there can be no denying that Joseph was a dynamic figure in history. His
life and teachings have affected hundreds of millions of lives across time and
geography, and an overwhelming majority of those lives he affected for good. I
have tasted nothing but good fruit from Restored tree of Jesus Christ because,
as Jesus Himself taught, “every good tree bringeth forth good fruit” (Matt
7:17).
If you want to assert to me that Joseph Smith was a fraud, a
fake, a megalomaniac, a wizard, or the devil himself you will have to explain
to me, fruit by fruit, how this tree which has blossomed so widely across the
world and so powerfully in my own life can have such corruption at its core. Of
course I’m not ignorant of all of the prickly parts of Mormon history; I have
done the homework enough to know at least a little bit about most, if not all
of them. I know the critical claims and the alternate explanations for Joseph
and his fruits. But none of them, none of them, provide adequate enough
explanation for the joy I have in my life because of this restored gospel. As
Elder Anderson concluded, “I testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.
Settle this in your mind, and move forward!”
1 comments
I love these articles. Why did you stop posting?
ReplyDeleteMy email is stevenmgentry@gmail.com.