Faith is no laughing matter
Almost two weeks ago, Logan’s cousin buried her youngest son, just six years old. In July, he came to his parents complaining of stomach pain. In August, he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. And by early October, he was gone. His parents, faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe that families are forever and they will be with their son again. My family and I believe the same.
My father, on the occasion of speaking at the funeral of a friend’s young son who was killed in a tragic accident 40 years ago, said this: “I know that we have before us his mortal remains, and I know for a fact that the sight of this little body dressed in Sunday best can reduce a grown man to tears. But the truth of the matter is that this is not [him]. This is merely dust of the earth—clay. We honor it and reverence it because it reminds us so much of [him], and we do miss him greatly, but the real [boy]—the spirit that gave this little body life and personality; that made it smile and laugh; that won our hearts—that spirit is alive and well…One day in the not-too-distant future, [he] will greet and comfort [his family], and it will be a truly joyous reunion.”
The Book of Mormon states, “But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ. He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death” (Mosiah 15:8-9).
“The Book of Mormon” musical, coming to Spokane this weekend, would turn such faith into a punchline, the Book of Mormon itself into a joke. For various reasons, it’s not a show I can force myself to sit through, but I have skimmed through enough of the script to glean that 1) parts of it are very funny; 2) most of it is blisteringly crude; 3) missionaries are well-intentioned but painfully naive; and 4) faith is merely a delusion people cling to in order to make it through the day, but it’s really not worth much more than that.
On points 3 and 4, I couldn’t disagree more. I was once one of those earnest and wide-eyed missionaries so facetiously portrayed in the “The Book of Mormon” musical. I served a mission from 1998 to 2000 in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., working mainly with people from Southeast Asia. In two months, I learned to speak Vietnamese, however poorly.
And for a year and a half, I served and loved and was loved in return by a group of people I otherwise probably never would have gotten to know. I sat in their homes, mourned with them, learned with them, and laughed and rejoiced with them. And I loved them, not because if they got baptized I would get another point on my scorecard in heaven, but because I knew them.
Would you believe that I have a soft spot for gang members? For immigrants, legal and otherwise? For teenage mothers and punk kids and fathers who drink too much because the world they’ve lived through has been cruel and unkind? They’re not caricatures to me, or something that can be reduced to a tweet or a post. They are real, complicated people, children of the same God as I am.
If there’s anything this divided world needs, it’s people who will agree to sit with each other, to truly get to know each other, to love and forgive each other. And that’s what missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—portrayed as so silly and naive in the musical—are doing every day.
So as some laugh at the premise of these earnest young men and women reaching out to people across the world, I hope they’ll remember that there are more than 50 thousand of them doing it for real every single day. They are spreading faith and hope—not as some delusion but as something as tangible as holding a little boy’s hand who was taken too soon. And they will come back from their missions as better people and with a greater love for and desire to understand those around them.
That’s nothing to belittle. That’s something to emulate.