The idea behind “Where Much is Given, Much is Required” goes beyond just the idea of responsibility or accountability. There is also in the phrase a sense of equity and care for others that isn’t necessarily part of responsibility. The idea is clearly the opposite of the images we see of excessive displays of wealth, like toilets made of gold or yachts the size of football fields. If this is about accountability, then we need to recognize that we have a responsibility to others, regardless of whether we think they ‘deserve’ it or not.

So, if we aren’t wealthy and aren’t making excessive displays of wealth (except it could probably be argued that compared to most other humans almost all Americans are making excessive displays of wealth), then what does this phrase mean for us? How do we evaluate what we have been given, and therefore what is required of us?

It is, of course, wrong to suggest that this is only about what is given to us financially, or even that being given financially means your only responsibility is financial. What we are given doesn’t stay in some ideological silo. We are given in many areas of our lives, and must give back in those areas and in others. If this life is about learning to be like our Heavenly Parents, then why would They want us to restrict our lives to any one area? In this respect, how can we identify ourselves as just one thing? As a maintenance worker, or as a businessman, or as a politician, or as an artist? Our eternal lives are not so restricted.

In this same vein, our LDS approach to callings is restricted in time; we are not always a Sunday School teacher or a young women’s advisor or president of anything. Most of the callings we get are temporary, and we learn different things in each calling, giving back what we can from what we have been given. So let’s not limit ourselves to any one or any few gifts.

 

“Thou wilt do the greatest good unto thy fellow beings.”

Part of the advantage of our approach to callings is that we believe there is revelation in the calling. The surrender of what we want to do to what God wants us to do allows the understanding that what we are doing matters, making the world a better place and helping our fellow beings. In a very real sense, our callings give us the opportunity to “do the greatest good unto [our] fellow beings.”

By the time W. W. Phelps published this poem (1851), he had nearly 20 years of experience in the Church; much of it working directly with Joseph Smith and in a variety of roles. Here Phelps sees the labor of the Saints leading to joy and plenty, and good deeds leading us to be great, like our Heavenly Parents.

 

Oh Come, Come To-day

by William W. Phelps

Oh! come, come to-day, where plenty smiles to please us;

Let labor cease, and joy increase,

When God says obey;

Come, come to praise the Lord awhile,

And here where faith and friendship smile.

Let not a sin defile,—

Oh! come, come to-day.

To feast and express our gratitude to Jesus,

Who gave us birth upon this earth,

And life-time to stay-—

Oh! come where truth will gladden thee,

And luminate eternity,

And please hearts happily,

Oh! come, come to-day.

One spot on the earth, is “free” to Mormon virtue,

And may it gain a wider reign,

As sin melts away;

Where happy men, and women, too,

With what the Gentiles never knew,

Can know just what to do,

Oh! com, come to-day.

All over the globe good deeds will never hurt you,

But make you great, in church and state,

Where truth bears the sway;

Like as it were, at Noah’s flood,

The prophet’s voice, and martyr’s blood,

By saints are understood,

Oh! come, come to-day.

While old Babylon the wicked world’s beguiling,

With Lucifer to tickle her,

And drink–watch and pray;

In thrilling tones of harmony,

We’ll manifest our constancy,

In God, truth, liberty,

Oh! come, come to-day.

The great day has come, with saints and angels smiling,

With prophets true, and light anew,

To point out the way;

Come bring in tithing for reward,

From treasures you have freely stor’d,

And gain life from the Lord,

Oh! come, come to-day.

1851

 

The Savior has given me much and requires much of me.

An element of the idea that we have been given much suggests that we need to know ourselves, and carefully consider what we have been given, especially since we often have a tendency to minimize what we have been given and overstate our own role in our gifts, abilities and accomplishments. In a very real sense the knowledge and abilities we have, no matter how much we worked to get them, are still gifts, since they don’t entirely originate within us. Knowledge is either taught (requiring a teacher) or is gained through experience (which is given to us).

So, while we should, as Alexander Ross suggests below, gather all the useful knowledge we can, we should recognize that it is still a gift. I haven’t had much luck in identifying this Alexander Ross. I suspect he is a Scottish convert who arrived in Utah in 1865 and lived in Ogden until his death in 1909.

 

Be Active

by Alexander Ross

Store your minds with useful knowledge,

Search for all that savors truth,

Let no time pass by neglected,

In the sunny days of youth.

Be, however, calm and careful —

Measure every step you tread,

Adopt as yours the odd man’s motto—

“Know you’re right, then go ahead.”

There’s no royal road to greatness,

Honor, power and endless fame;

Young and old, the king and beggar,

Side by side can walk the same.

As your fathers, you must labor.

Heavy burdens must be borne,

They have fought in Truth’s advances,

You must light and share the scorn.

On life’s densely crowded highway,

Millions there require your aid;

Now’s the time to nerve for action,

Ere youth’s blossoms on you fade.

God will bless your every effort

Souls made glad shall homage pay,

Angels love to see you toiling,

Persevere, then, day by day.

1867

 

Commandments are evidence of God’s love for us.

For Church members in the 19th Century (and many times since then), the gifts of God are clearly tied up with agriculture. We are given the gifts of the soil, which by application of biological laws yield food. Similarly, the spiritual gifts we are given yield food for the soul by application of the commandments. In both cases there are gifts added to our efforts to yield benefits. In fact, as this section suggests, commandments are a kind of gift, given to us to help us yield spiritual benefit and growth.

In the following poem, written by Joseph Townsend while he was serving a mission, sees the beautiful gifts of the earth being cultivated while the spiritual gifts available are being ignored. He sees clearly the problem when those who are given much aren’t responsible: “The grasping rich forever grasp for more, / The poor are filled with sullen discontent, / And class distinction keeps both rich and poor / Away from culture by their own consent.” Townsend is one of the most interesting and prolific LDS poets. Ten of his hymns are in the current hymnal, including “Choose the Right,” “The Iron Rod,” and “Hope of Israel.” However, of all his poems, I think this poem speaks the most to me.

 

A Scene in Virginia

by Joseph L. Townsend

Here mountain ridges side by side extend,

Far as the eye in distance can discern,

While lost in hazy blue, the outlines blend,

And fade from sight where skies to earth return.

Dark robed in sombre growth of forests green,

The mountain sides, with ever changing hue,

Throw deep their shadows o’er the vales between,

And rise in grandeur far in heavens’ blue.

With knobby ridges where the river swells

From streamlets ever purling as they run,

The broken valleys, mingling hills and dells,

Lie dark in shade or brightened in the sun.

With pastures velvet green and woodland hills

Rock-ribbed and craggy reaching o’er the vales,

The farms adjoin, and all the valley fills

With checkered bounds marked by the zigzag rails.

The golden grain fields of oats and wheat

Is ready for the reapers busy throng,

The meadows, full of grasses blooming sweet,

Await the mower and his cheerful song.

What homes could be within a scene like this,

Were truth upheld and culture free to all!

Alas! the selfish hearts to love remiss

Uphold the laws that must their minds enthrall.

Where nature, kind to all, her wealth bestows

In forests, field, and ever flowing springs,

The customs of society impose

The poverty of thought tradition brings.

When landscapes fill with beauty all the scene

In depths of leafy shade and sunlit fields,

Uncultured man sees only country green,

And beauty only where it money yields.

The grasping rich forever grasp for more,

The poor are filled with sullen discontent,

And class distinction keeps both rich and poor

Away from culture by their own consent.

All works united interesting require,

All joys refinements of the soul create,

All pleasures art and nature may inspire,

Are lost within the minds uncultured state.

The sordid thoughts of temporal affairs,

The jar and wrangle of a daily strife,

Enslave the mind beneath the many cares

Of selfish labors, and a foolish life.

And vales where labor skilled in landscape art

Could make an Eden of the prosy farms,

Show everywhere the minds unskillful part,

Destroying even natures’ lavished charms.

O! land of mountains, forests, fields and streams,

When will thy people from their errors turn?

When will thy customs yield to light that beams

In knowledge free to all that will to learn?

Can mind from darkness of traditions’ lore

Evolving truth from error turn its range

In thought and action that may laws restore

Of universal and progressive change?

Alas! to-morrow as to-day must be,

Except the powers of heaven wield their might,

In revolutions that externally

Establish higher thoughts of life and right.

Till man, inspired with higher, nobler thought,

The selfish passions of inherent sin

Has conquered in the aspirations taught

By revelation to the soul within.

While mind, expanding in the laws of God,

To something higher than the common state

And pathways which for ages it has trod,

Aspires to be the noble, truly great.

Inviting all to join a higher cause

And in progressive thought have liberty,

By heaven sent, we teach the higher laws,

And daily labor all the land to free.

And slowly, surely, truth the land inspires

To turn from customs ever seeking pelf,

To nobler aspirations and desires

In Gods’ refinement of immortal self.

1883

 

The Lord blesses us in His own marvelous ways.

Another aspect of the “where much is given” idea is the importance of gratitude. In this vein, it might be worth re-reading President Monson’s 1992 conference address, “An Attitude of Gratitude.” Simply recognizing the gifts we have been given, and how all our hard work is little in comparison, is half the effort needed to giving what “is required.”

In the following, Ethel Jarvis definitely shows an attitude of gratitude. Jarvis was born and raised in St. George, Utah. She married Steve Bennett in 1916 and had one child before she contracted appendicitis in 1925 and died after the operation, aged 40. Despite her relatively short life, she published many additional poems in Church publications.

 

The Miracle of Day

by Ethel Jarvis

I rode through the fields at dawn with my Friend,

As the world in slumber lay,

To see from a bluff at the river’s bend

The Miracle of the day.

Silent we sat in solemn awe.

Watching the great sun rise,

When clear and sweet from a nearby haw

A meadowlark sang to the skies.

The air was a-throb with his thrilling lay,—

“It’s here! It’s here! The beautiful day!”

 

The daisy smiled as a waking child

At the kiss of the risen sun,

And the mountains laved in the sunlight wave

‘Round the circling horizon.

The Zephyr tripped from its mystic crypt,

A-dancing joyously,

And the song of the Knight Invisible

Was magic-read to me,—

“Man seeth not God’s mysterious way,

But he liveth, and giveth each beautiful day.”

 

The river’s song as it rushed along

On its journey to the sea,

Was a sermon clear that all things here

In a chosen place must be.

With a glow in my breast I gazed in the west

At the melting Morning Star,

Keeping its course in the vast, calm skies,

Where million miracles are,

And I seemed to see God smile at me

Through miracles near and far.

1915

 

“Widows and orphans shall be provided for.”

Often forgotten today is the emphasis in the early LDS Church on providing for the poor and less fortunate — something that is controversial in the political realm in a way that too often bleeds into our Church lives. There is little doubt that the phrase “Where Much is Given, Much is Required” is meant to include financial wealth and the duty to lift up those less fortunate, regardless of how deserving they are. This is taught repeatedly in the scriptures, and shows up in LDS poetry, including W. W. Phelps’ highly critical poem “Remember the Poor”, which I included in this series a couple of months ago.

The following poem, from another prolific LDS poet, John Lyon, urges the same support for the poor immigrating saints less than two years following his own immigrant journey. He calls for help for those “Who’ve toiled ‘midst hunger, heat, and cold, and sickness sore to gather, / With songs of praise will come, with the sick, the blind, and lame, / To find a place of succor in our ain mountain hame.” I wonder what he would think about our political debates today!

The poem title is not a misspelling, but rather a representation of what is today called the Scots language (then considered a dialect of English), a close cousin of English spoken in northern England and southern Scotland, Lyon’s native land. Scots is best known today in Robert Burns’ New Year’s Eve song, “Auld Lang Syne.”

 

Our Ain Mountain Hame

by John Lyon

COME all ye feeling faithful Saints who’ve crossed the prairie drear,

And I’ll tell you what you’ll do for those who’re coming out this year,

Lay up in store for them, worthy of your Godlike name,

And you’ll have our leaders’ blessings when the Saints come hame.

Chorus—When the Saints come home, when the Saints come hame,

And you’ll have our ruler’s blessings when the Saints come hame.

The lambkins in their innocence upon the mountain brow

Are less subject to devouring wolves than all good Saints are now,

Then stretch your welcome hand to your brethren who would claim

Our aid to help them onward, to our ain mountain hame.

Chorus—To our ain mountain home, to our ain mountain hame,

Our aid to help them onward to our ain mountain hame.

The widows, and the fatherless, the old, and young together

Who’ve toiled ‘midst hunger, heat, and cold, and sickness sore to gather,

With songs of praise will come, with the sick, the blind, and lame,

To find a place of succor in our ain mountain hame—

Chorus—In our ain mountain home, in our ain mountain hame,

To find a place of safety in our ain mountain hame.

For o’er the waving prairie like an endless sheet of light,

The caravans are rolling with some thousands on their flight

From the rage of war and famine, and a guilty world’s shame,

To find a place of safety in our ain mountain hame.

Chorus—In our ain mountain home, in our ain mountain hame,

To find a place of safety in our ain mountain hame.

Soon Zion in her beauty will shine forth upon the world,

In glorious light and majesty, when Utah’s flag’s unfurled,

And kings and queens from ‘far, who hearing of her fame,

Will come to see her glory in our ain mountain hame.

Chorus—In our ain mountain home, in our ain mountain hame,

Will come to see her glory in our ain mountain hame.

Then you my friends who built her up, in glory and renown,

Will each receive for your reward a never-fading crown;

And brighter wreaths of glory than the tongue of man can name,

When this earth is made celestial-our ain mountain hame.

Chorus—Our ain mountain home, Our ain mountain hame,

When this earth is made celestial; our ain mountain hame.

1855