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Gold-Star Converts and the Parable of the Wedding Feast

Stephen C

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On our missions a lot of us gave lessons to some professor or such and were excited at the prospect of a well-thought out, high powered intellectual convert. And we’re not the only ones, I suspect Catholics love to talk about John Henry Newman for this reason. The idea, especially for them, is that you can logically demonstrate the truthfulness of one’s faith from first principles, so an intellectual convert provides evidence for that, or at least scores extra “plausibility structure” points. We see a version of this with other virtues as well. We like it when cool or accomplished people convert because we’re cool and accomplished, even though any missionary can tell you that it’s typically not the cool or smart people who listen to us. For every Elder Kearon who went straight from high school to working for parliament there are probably many more under the poverty line who join the Church. 

But, in a sense, this is the way it was meant to be, as much as we would love it if it were otherwise sometimes. One of my favorite missionary scriptures is the parable of wedding feast, and I actually think the D&C 58 version of it is more powerful than the one in Matthew. Note that the “cometh the day of my power” only happens with the poor, the lame, and the blind. 

“And also that a feast of fat things might be prepared for the poor; yea, a feast of fat things, of wine on the lees well refined, that the earth may know that the mouths of the prophets shall not fail;

Yea, a supper of the house of the Lord, well prepared, unto which all nations shall be invited.

First, the rich and the learned, the wise and the noble;

And after that cometh the day of my power; then shall the poor, the lame, and the blind, and the deaf, come in unto the marriage of the Lamb, and partake of the supper of the Lord, prepared for the great day to come.

Behold, I, the Lord, have spoken it.”

So no, we’re not going to convert the great ones of the earth en masse. God doesn’t need our fancy credentials or social cachet and will rely on the those “who are unlearned and despised, to thresh the nations by the power of [his] Spirit.” God almighty, the creator of innumerable heavens and innumerable earths, probably cares less about being cool in our 21st century, developed-world context than we sometimes realize or admit to ourselves.

Comments

6 responses to “Gold-Star Converts and the Parable of the Wedding Feast”

  1. Mark Ashurst-McGee

    Thanks for the reminder

  2. NYAnn

    But does the “poor, lame, blind and deaf” refer solely to those who are visually, physically or by government or medical definition poor, lame, blind and deaf? Or can it include those who are spiritually or emotionally impoverished or and handicapped?

  3. NYAnn

    But does the “poor, lame, blind and deaf” refer solely to those who are visually, physically or by government or medical definition poor, lame, blind and deaf? Or can it include those who are spiritually or emotionally impoverished or handicapped, who may have an abundance of wealth or knowledge?

  4. Stephen C

    @NYAnn: I think it can be both. We see this in the first part: “First, the rich and the learned, the wise and the noble.” By implication, the later waves are not the “wise and the noble.” Of course they probably are “selecting on” some spiritual sensitivity and humility if they are joining.

  5. Jonathan Green

    Something similar can happen in a ward when the ‘gold star families’ with stable professional jobs move out or otherwise leave. The socioeconomic resources and church experience and professional connections and well-trained talents and management skill they take with them is a real loss and I won’t pretend it isn’t. But the ward doesn’t stop functioning in their absence. People get called and often step up to fill a role most people (including themselves) wouldn’t have expected. And so you end up with ward leaders who may have non-native English fluency or blue collar jobs or complicated family situations. Things don’t run exactly as before, but the gospel is still true and more beautiful for it.

  6. RLD

    Oof…this is a timely rebuke for me. My ward is struggling right now to keep up with all the people who need assistance (we recently lost a lot of ‘gold star families’ to a boundary change) and I confess I’ve been mentally grumbling about the missionaries making it worse. Thanks for the reminder that there’s a reason for that, and it’s all part of the plan. We’re just going to have to figure out how to make things work, as Jonathan describes.

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