June Sacrament Meeting Talk

Today I am speaking about the sacrament and sacrament meeting. I have come up with 3 topics relating to this subject. They will be easy to remember because the acronym for them is PMS. P is for preparation. Preparing beforehand for the sacrament and sacrament meeting. M is for Meaning. Finding meaning in the sacrament. S is for sanctuary. Making sacrament meeting a sanctuary for all who attend.

 P. Preparation. When does preparation for sacrament meeting begin? How do we prepare? Well, the answers to those questions are going to be different for each of us and for each of our families depending on our circumstances.

 I’ll share a couple personal experiences of how my preparation has changed over the years. Our children are 19 months apart. When they were about 2 and 3 years old, it was quite a struggle to wrangle them during sacrament meeting. They would climb all around the benches, and want a snack, or need a toy. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. I found that trying to focus on Christ and the meaning of the sacrament in the midst of their chaos was pretty much futile. But I was determined to find a way to make the sacrament meaningful to me. The answer for me was that the day before, on Saturday, I would find a moment to ponder. I would review my week, how I had seen Christ in my life that week, meditate on what I wanted to improve in myself, and look forward to taking the sacrament the next day to renew my covenants. Then, during the sacrament the next day, I didn’t have to come up with something to ponder while wrangling our children. Physically, my attention was on wrangling our children, but mentally, my mind and thoughts were calm and focused on my previous days’ ponderings and meditations. Anticipating that moment ahead of time proved invaluable to my spiritual health.

 Now that our children are 10 and 12, I don’t have to wrangle them. Much. But a year or so ago, it became apparent that Sunday mornings were not working for our family. All four of us needed to take a shower at the same time, children couldn’t find their socks, or their shoes, or both. We didn’t have the proper clean clothes, we were out of milk, scriptures were missing, and church starts in 10 minutes. It was complete pandemonium, and it did NOT help us get to church in a good spirit. So, we instituted a Saturday evening routine to help us be organized and prepared for the sacrament the next day. We have a checklist and make sure arrangements are made for everything we need. We are still not perfect. But we make an effort. And that’s what matters.

Spending time preparing for the sacrament in advance brings new observations and understanding. We all have the opportunity to discover a way to prepare to make the sacrament more meaningful for us in our current life journey. This brings me to my next topic.

M. Meaning. Discovering personal meaning in the ordinance of the sacrament. Each of us will have a different, personal meaning of the significance of the sacrament. And that’s exactly how it should be. The gospel and the sacrament are personal. When I want to get at the heart of the sacrament, I turn to the scriptures to see what Christ personally said about it. In Matthew 26 Jesus says it is as simple as reminding us of him. Christ is our bread of life. He is our living water. Christ is as essential to life as the sustenance of bread and water are to life. Or maybe it is better expressed that bread and water are as essential to life as Christ is.

 As Mormons, we occasionally snicker at the Catholic communion and transubstantiation. The notion that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Jesus. And yet, what if we believed that each week at church we would literally be partaking of a part of Christ. That we would literally be taking a piece of our personal Savior into ourselves. Might that affect how we act? How we react? How we prepare for the sacrament?

 In the October General Conference Sister Cheryl Esplin, second counselor in the Primary General Presidency said: “When I partake of the sacrament, I sometimes picture in my mind a painting that depicts the resurrected Savior with His arms outstretched, as if He is ready to receive us into His loving embrace. I love this painting. When I think about it during the administration of the sacrament, my soul is lifted as I can almost hear the Savior’s words: “Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me.”

The practice and ordinance of the sacrament has helped me learn to rely on my Lord Jesus Christ. I have had lots of opportunities to rely on my Savior. It is pretty easy for me to envision him experiencing my feelings. But at one point I had doubts. I have wondered if Christ could possibly know how I, a woman, feel in certain situations. How can he possibly understand my heart, my experiences, my feelings as a woman and a mother? He is not a woman! This seems to be a contradiction. And yet, it isn’t. Although a mortal man and son of God, he has felt what every woman and man on earth has felt.
 As Jesus was carrying his cross to Golgotha, Luke 23 tells us that many women followed him and bewailed and lamented after him. On seeing their grief Christ turned to them and said “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”

 Christ had just performed the atonement and had felt the full weight of all the wickedness, sorrow, and pain that the daughters of the world would face. He knew that women would suffer and that their incredible ability to create new life would be abused and unappreciated. Knowing this, He told the women that they shouldn’t weep for Him but instead for what they and their children would face. He was saying to them, “if they can do this to me, the son of God, what will they do to you?”

 Sometimes I think about all the things that women and children suffer on this earth and my heart gets unbearably heavy. We live in a world where terrorists attack a school and gun down 132 children. A world where a 15 year old girl is shot in the head for advocating for girls’ education. A world where babies grow up in destitute orphanages. A world where female genital mutilation occurs. A world where people become the property of other people. It is overwhelming. It is so much, that I do not have the words to share my pain. And I believe in a God who understands all this. Yes, he understands. And he comforts.

But that is only half of the equation. I also believe in the divinity of a Messiah who gave himself up as a sacrifice to overcome all things. All things. Every terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing that has ever happened. Moroni says “May not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever.” I have faith in a God who is bigger and greater than any earthly pain. A God that sent His only begotten son so that every injustice will absolutely be taken care of by the atonement. That is a really, really big God. That is the God I worship during the sacrament.

 And that is the God I pray that every person who desires, has the opportunity to worship. Which brings me to my last topic. S. Sanctuary. In her book “Sanctuary,” Sister Chieko Okazaki writes, “A sanctuary is not a fortress that bars people from entering. It is not a mausoleum where everything is hushed and still. It’s a place of holiness, a place of happiness, and a place of love.” We can build a sanctuary in our hearts where the spirit is welcome to dwell. And we can also work together as ward members to make our sacrament meeting a sanctuary for all who wish to attend. As the true church of Christ, shouldn’t our people be the most welcoming? Shouldn’t our ward buildings and our sacrament meeting be the place where people feel the most accepted, the most appreciated, the most wanted?

Our Savior knows the value of not only a physical sanctuary, but also a sanctuary of the heart. Luke recounts in chapter 4 that Jesus returned to Nazareth where he had been brought up. On the Sabbath he went to synagogue and claimed that he was the prophesied Messiah. The scripture says that everyone there wondered at the words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said “Is not this Joseph’s son?” They were all filled with wrath and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

 So here is Jesus, after having relative success with his ministry in Galilee, comes back to his own people, a place that should be a sanctuary for him. And he is not only rejected. He is physically threatened. They wanted to push him off a cliff! He is able to miraculously escape, but what a betrayal.

Surely some of us have experienced this type of rejection from people we trust. People in our communities, in our families, in our ward, in our Young Women’s class, in our quorum, in our Relief Society. People that we should be able to rely on can let us down, people that should be the most Christ-like can occasionally exclude, can form a circle that keeps us out. Christ has been there. He knows what it is like. And yet, instead of keeping that distance and honoring the circle called exclusion, Christ carried on with his mission, pushing against the boundaries that excluded and creating new circles of inclusion, new circles of sanctuary. Several months ago Eva, and Wesley, and I memorized this poem by Edward Markham that I think illustrates this point:

He drew a circle that shut me out;
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in

It is not easy to consistently create sanctuaries. Someone that personifies this ideal is my friend Sherri Park. She is LDS and she has also been involved with the LGBTQ community for quite a while. She discovered that there are many LDS members who also identify as LGBT who have the desire to attend church. To be filled with the hope of Christ. To find sanctuary. But they are hesitant to do so. They may have preconceived ideas about how they will be welcomed. They may feel awkward showing up after many months or years of non attendance. They may not want to sit alone.

 As a response to this, Sherri has organized what she calls “Sit With Me Sunday.” This is a way for LGBT LDS members to find a friendly face to sit with at church. Sit With Me Sunday is held twice a year, on the Sundays on or right before Easter and Christmas. Sherri invites faithful LDS members from all around the world to consider being willing to be a friendly face for these precious souls. She has set up a database of members, along with the time their ward begins so that LGBT members can search out a welcoming ward near them. I love how Sherri has seen a need, and took it upon herself to organize a circle of inclusion. And I love and honor those members who have taken it upon themselves to set aside their differences in order to provide a sanctuary for ALL of God’s children.

 Because creating sanctuaries is not just our leaders’ job. Or the teachers’ job. Or the home and visiting teacher’s job. It is your job. It is my job! I invite each of you to consider how you can set aside differences and create sanctuaries and circles of inclusion in your life.

 I will close with Psalm 63 as I feel it perfectly describes my prayers and my testimony.

1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
 2 To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
 3 Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
4 Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.
 5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips:
6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.
7 Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

 In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.