M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Know Your Neighbor and Beautify Your Community
By Whitney Johnson and Roger Johnson

This is part three of a four-part series on Know Your Neighbor — a community outreach initiative meant to be a starting point for how we reach out to those outside of our church boundaries, whether around the world or across the street. Read Part 2 here.

Recently I was on a redeye flight from Salt Lake City coming home to Boston. I was alone, and without really meaning to, I ended up eavesdropping on the conversation of the two lovely women sitting next to me. They seemed to have a lot in common — both were originally from California, both were mothers (one had grown children and the other was still raising her family) and both lived along the Wasatch Front (one north of Salt Lake and one in Utah County).

As they chatted, it became increasingly apparent that there was an elephant in our aisle.

One: “I am so glad that I raised my children before I moved to Utah — there's no diversity here.”

The other: “I wanted a house by a lake, but had I known then what I know now [and how difficult it would be for my children], I would never have moved here.”

Listening to these involved, engaged, women talk about their experience of living in Salt Lake City, I felt very sad. As the public affairs chairperson in greater Boston, I reflected on the efforts we make to build positive buzz about the Church on the web, in print and on television, and the worrying I did about how the PBS documentary on The Mormons affected our image.

But, what does any of this matter if those living within our midst don’t like living amongst us?

What especially intrigued me was that these two women never said, “Their beliefs are wacky.” What I heard them saying was, “I am an outsider here. And every day of my life, those who are in the majority remind me that I’m an outsider.”

It stung. Because while I may not live in Utah, it was my people, my religion, my identity that they were saying they didn’t like.

Historical Precedent

I couldn’t help but think of some insights that my husband had two summers ago as he drove cross-country through Missouri, and listened to the Doctrine and Covenants on tape.

In 1833, the Prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation (D&C 101) concerning the sufferings and redemption of the Saints in Missouri. Frequently we focus on the parable of the watchmen and the vineyard as a call to arms to the Saints in Kirtland and the beginning of Zion’s camp. But from the perspective of Know Your Neighbor, the beginning of the parable, verses 44-62, are fascinating.

The servants in the parable are commanded to build a wall, plant twelve olive trees and build a tower. After being faithful in building the wall and planting the olive trees, the servants second-guess the master and choose not to construct the tower. This turns out to be a fateful decision — the consequence of not building the tower is that the servants cannot see the enemy approach and are not prepared to defend the vineyard.

In pondering the meaning of this parable we have wondered what the tower symbolizes and what commandment the Saints were derelict in following that might have lead to their sufferings in Missouri.

An answer to this question comes from Section 82 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith arrived in Missouri in July of 1831. On July 20 he received a revelation that Independence, Missouri was the location for the city of Zion. At the outset, the establishment of the Saints in Independence was uneventful, but as the number of Saints increased, so did the tensions with native Missourians.

It was during this period, after the initial settlement by the Saints and before the arrival of approximately 400 Saints during the spring and summer of 1832, that Joseph Smith received Section 82. After notable messages in verse 3 (“he who receives the greater light receives the greater condemnation”) and verse 10 (“I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say”), the section ends with a curious mandate in verse 22:

And now, verily I say unto you, and this is wisdom, make unto yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, and they will not destroy you.

The term “mammon of unrighteousness” comes originally from the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16. As explained by Elder Tsung-Ting Yang, one of the interpretations of this parable is that:

When possible the righteous should be friends, not enemies, with people in positions of authority or wealth, for someday those friends may assist the righteous and the kingdom of God (Ensign, July 2003, 28-31).

Is this the commandment that the Missouri Saints were derelict in heeding?

Sense of Entitlement

Non-LDS histories contain numerous accounts of the Saints being arrogant, insensitive and aggressive. The initial impression many Missourians had of the Mormons was that they had a sense of entitlement and they thought that the Lord would give them the land even if it had to be through violent means. In Centennial History of Missouri, page 98, Walter Barlow Stevens, writes:

When they (the Mormons) saw “Gentiles” improving their farms they told them that their work would be useless as the Lord intended the whole of Missouri to be occupied by them. Some stones were thrown at houses and some fences were broken down. It was reported about that Mormons had talked of a coming contest which would be “one gore of blood from the Mississippi to the border.”

Is it possible that the early Saints suffered because they became enemies with their neighbors instead of friends?

Too often, we see this pattern repeated in our day. Modern communities of Saints are so worried about protecting themselves and their beliefs that they neglect to follow the second great commandment of the Lord: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Reaching Out

Although building walls may make us feel safer, the effects of reaching out in genuine love and friendship to those outside our faith can be felt in the building of welcoming, cohesive communities that, in some cases, may even help move the work of the Lord forward.

One example of this kind of reaching out is found in the community of Belmont, Massachusetts. During the 1970’s, several LDS families in the Belmont Ward enrolled their sons in the community Cub Scout pack. Elder Clayton Christensen, then in his late 20’s, volunteered to be the Wolf den leader, pack master, and served in a leadership position for eight years. When the local elementary school, Winn Brook, had to be closed for renovation, Pack meetings were held in the Belmont meetinghouse for two years — every month bringing hundreds of people to the Church.

When individual residents in the Belmont area organized to oppose the construction of the Boston temple in their neighborhood, Cheryl Shushan, the president of the Village Hill Neighborhood Association, actively supported the temple and caused the association not to take a stand in the opposition. Shushan’s twin sons had been members of the Belmont Ward’s Cub Scout Pack and earned their Eagle Scout awards through the Boy Scout program sponsored by the Belmont Ward.

Another example occurred in Southern California. Public Affairs representatives Keith Atkinson and LeAnne Hull met Reverend Cecil Chip Murray of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in the mid ‘80’s, when both were being recognized for their work against pornography. Because of their continued friendship, when the Mormons wanted to build a chapel in South Central L.A., Reverend Murray helped the Church gain an audience with Mayor Tom Bradley; a building permit was granted within two days.

Now back to where we began the article — Salt Lake City. Via the Know Your Neighbor website, I was recently able to connect with John Kesler and Christine Balderas. John and Christine, both of whom have spent their lives creating neighborhoods and communities of inclusion, are spearheading a Culture of Connection initiative in the Salt Lake Valley that hopes to build on and seek to expand in new ways a number of past and ongoing efforts to foster community. Chief among these was the Bridging the Religious Divide project sponsored by Salt Lake’s Mayor Rocky Anderson in 2005.

Neighborhood Beautification

Given the Saints’ suffering in Missouri, any efforts to build community in Mormon corridors would seem to be prudent — an insurance policy, if you will. But that’s not why John and Christine or any of us, for that matter, invite our neighbors into our homes and hearts. It is because we have experienced what Alma and his followers came to know about creating and belonging to a community.

Which is this. As the town of Mormon began to invite one another into their lives, their hearts became "knit together" — but more importantly, "the place of Mormon became beautiful to them." (Mosiah 18: 22, 30).

Get to Know your Neighbor — and whether you live in Mormon, Manti, Mexico City or Manhattan, your community will indeed become beautiful.

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