{"id":34267,"date":"2015-11-01T04:08:44","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T09:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=34267"},"modified":"2015-10-31T07:10:38","modified_gmt":"2015-10-31T12:10:38","slug":"reading-nephi-51-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/11\/reading-nephi-51-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Nephi – 5:1-9"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"068-068-the-liahona-full\"<\/a>Here is a poignant scene. Reunions are an important trope in all stories, because they\u2019re an important element in all of our lives. As Mormonism\u2019s grand cosmological narrative makes clear, our very life is about separation from our parents and working toward an eventual reunion\u2014after we\u2019ve made our (usually very messy) journey and acted in faith to do the things that we\u2019ve been commanded to do. Verse one gives us a nice twist, however. It\u2019s not that the brothers have completed their quest and come home like every other Odysseus. Rather, they\u2019ve completed their quest and having done so returned to the wilderness<\/em>. The Book of Mormon is indeed, as Jacob who was born in the wilderness will later state, a story of strangers wandering in the wilderness.<\/p>\n

Grant Hardy offers a compelling argument that this scene is a matter of artful obfuscation. Nephi distracts his readers from his murder and what was surely an awkward reunion\u2014one can almost hear the irony, imagining Nephi declaring that he has accomplished the commandments<\/em> of the Lord\u2014by throwing his poor mother under the bus and making the reunion about her own struggles and faithful reconciliation. It\u2019s also hard not to see this as adding insult to injury, given that this is the one time Nephi focuses on a woman\u2019s experience or quotes her (one of three named women).<\/p>\n

While I agree that Sariah\u2019s experience is being exploited here, I see it as political exploitation\u2014and it\u2019s of course impossible to know how willing she might have been in this regard (i.e., while Nephi\u2019s certainly making use of her experience, exploitation might be the wrong word). Imagining competing narratives of the events and meanings of the Lehite exodus, it\u2019s hard to imagine Sariah\u2019s struggles not playing a role. It\u2019s certainly conceivable that there\u2019s good reason Nephi never again quotes his mother. Here Nephi uses her experience as another evidence of his overall position: yes, it\u2019s hard to see, and yes, it\u2019s a struggle, but God is the one behind the exodus, and it succeeded to the degree we were faithful to God\u2019s commands. If Sariah\u2019s struggles were as significant as this tiny glimpse makes them appear, then her reconciliation and testimony of Nephi\u2019s narrative at this point is powerful indeed.<\/p>\n

While I think Hardy makes a compelling case for how this scene literarily distracts the reader from the murder, I imagine it playing a slightly different role for a later Nephite audience already familiar with an \u201canti-Nephi\u201d narrative that undoubtedly focused in on the murder. Sariah\u2019s experience and testimony corroborate Nephi\u2019s overall account that begins with his pre-return conversation with Lehi. The murder is solidly wrapped in a faithful discourse\u2014Nephi promises to do as God commands; Nephi obtains the plates; and given the literary placement of Sariah\u2019s testimony, the murder ultimately becomes not only God\u2019s design, but also evidence<\/em> of God\u2019s purposes being fulfilled in Nephi\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

What stands out most in this passage, however, is the tension between Lehi and Sariah. How are we to accomplish this Herculean task of becoming one flesh? We cannot but be two humans, which means we cannot be without two sets of experiences and worldviews. And God\u2014at least in the scriptural stories\u2014is absolutely partial. Where is Sariah\u2019s pillar of fire on a rock? Where are her visions? Why is Lehi the one who\u2019s given certainty about this crazy, perilous quest to regain the plates from a man whose character they undoubtedly knew in advance? Acknowledging Lehi\u2019s prophetic role, is certainty so precious a good that it couldn\u2019t also be shared with Sariah? I do not understand the contrast between an Emma and a Mary Whitmer, and even less the trial for Sariah. If we assume that God understood their educational needs and provided accordingly, than we admit that we\u2019re capable of being made to understand. My wrestling hasn\u2019t yet brought me a plausible reason.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll confess, it is Sariah\u2019s experience that I find it easier to relate to, though I occasionally find myself dumbfounded in Lehi\u2019s shoes as well (\u201cYes, I\u2019m a visionary man, isn\u2019t that a blessing?\u201d). What allows her to sit back and permit Lehi to send off her sons? The easy answer is of course a rigidly chauvinistic culture, but let\u2019s bracket that (especially since, not knowing more of Sariah and Lehi and their interactions, it\u2019s hard to know how relevant that element was). I see a faithful woman\u2014without knowledge\u2014willing to wait on the Lord, but candid rather than cavalierly blustering about what faith and waiting entails. Here Sariah gives us the testimony that our family relationships are ultimately what matters, that there is no grand prize that we obtain that makes up for failure on the familial end. What comfort would brass plates be if either Laman or Nephi returned home dead? Would there be even that small consolation of plates? Or would they all perish in absolute vanity? In the wake of mortal uncertainty\u2014an uncertainty guaranteed to endure to the end\u2014how do we unite with our spouse on crucial issues when we begin in diametrically opposed positions, and when the stakes are existential? This is the question that rivets my reading of this passage.<\/p>\n

Here also, Sariah gives us that prodigious transformation from waiting on the Lord without knowledge, to faithfully seeing in the return of her sons the hand of God and the expunging of her doubt. We all have similar experiences of triumph; my own triumphs tend to haunt me as much as they do ground me. I can\u2019t always make this transformation. And when I do, it doesn\u2019t always last through eight years of brutality in the wilderness. A few months of genuine hardship are enough shake me to the core. I can only hope that I can obtain and be what Sariah was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a poignant scene. Reunions are an important trope in all stories, because they\u2019re an important element in all of our lives. As Mormonism\u2019s grand cosmological narrative makes clear, our very life is about separation from our parents and working toward an eventual reunion\u2014after we\u2019ve made our (usually very messy) journey and acted in faith to do the things that we\u2019ve been commanded to do. Verse one gives us a nice twist, however. It\u2019s not that the brothers have completed their quest and come home like every other Odysseus. Rather, they\u2019ve completed their quest and having done so returned to the wilderness. The Book of Mormon is indeed, as Jacob who was born in the wilderness will later state, a story of strangers wandering in the wilderness. Grant Hardy offers a compelling argument that this scene is a matter of artful obfuscation. Nephi distracts his readers from his murder and what was surely an awkward reunion\u2014one can almost hear the irony, imagining Nephi declaring that he has accomplished the commandments of the Lord\u2014by throwing his poor mother under the bus and making the reunion about her own struggles and faithful reconciliation. It\u2019s also hard not to see this as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34268,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34267\/revisions\/34268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}