The Cause of Zion: What Zion is Not

 

The Cause of Zion: What Zion Is Not

 

The Lord has relentlessly commanded us to seek after the “cause of Zion”: “I say unto you, keep my commandments, and seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion”!!! (D&C 6:6).  The two phrases, “seeking the cause of Zion” and “keeping the commandments”, are uttered synonymously, in one breath, as if to suggest that if we are not engaged in one, perhaps we are not doing the other. After all, the cause of Zion is Christ’s cause!!!

 

          Yet as a latter-day society at large, we do not seem to comprehend the Lord’s vision. Occasionally we talk about Zion, sing and read about it. We even go to sacred places and make covenants with God to consecrate everything we have and are for Zion’s establishment.  Could it be that those promises are figurative? Are they outdated and maybe do not apply?

 

In this essay I want to discuss a few beliefs that could contribute to what seems like a massive lacuna in our vision, since the concept of Zion has somehow been extricated out of it.  Before delving extensively in later essays into what Zion is, I wanted to shed some light on what Zion is NOT. Historically people have attempted to define Zion within geographic terms, organizational framework, spiritual concepts, or covenant bound groups.

 

What is the “place”?

 

Although the Lord has clearly prepared a place in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains for His Saints to settle, establish His church and grow, this is not “the place” for Zion. The Salt Lake Valley has been our “home” for over a century after many wanderings and persecutions. Brigham Young was relieved to say: “We have been kicked out of the frying-pan into the fire, out of the fire into the middle of the floor, and here we are and here we will stay.”

Since our arrival into “the promised Land” of the Salt Lake Valley, the church has become a worldwide organization.  We have expanded enough to set roots “in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people permanently”[1].  Our perception of Zion has shifted to it being “everywhere—wherever the Church is” (ibid).

Perhaps what escapes our understanding is that both the intention to “stay permanently” in the Salt Lake Valley and the admonition to build Zion “wherever we are planted” are time sensitive!!! Both were needed, even required, but only until they fulfilled their purpose.  After all planting ourselves permanently in any “place” of the telestial world would not, could not bring about a terrestrial society, which is what Zion is.

The Lord’s intent to build Zion or the New Jerusalem “in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri” (D&C 84:2) is clear and unchangeable. There won’t be any other place.

  

The scriptures sometimes have a dual meaning or application. This is especially true for Doctrine and Covenants, written during the initial attempt to build and redeem Zion, but containing a potent message that applies to us EVEN MORE since ours is the divine task of building the New Jerusalem. The Lord speaks of a time when His people yet again will be led out to a place of Zion:

…I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel. For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham, and ye must needs be led out of bondage[2] by power, and with a stretched-out arm. And as your fathers were led at the first, even so shall the redemption of Zion be (D&C 103:15-18).

 

Here, as in many other scriptures, the Lord reveals the necessity of an exile. The persistent pattern of an exile that precedes the arrival of the Lord’s people to the promised land seems to elude our latter-day attention and paradigm.  In more than one way we feel that “we have arrived”.

Yet from Moses to the brother of Jared, to Lehi and clear to the early Saints, countless examples establish the Lord’s pattern of taking “His people” out of their current circumstance and leading them to a choice place, “not knowing beforehand” where they should go or what they should do (1Nephi4:6). What the Lord needs is not a people capable of putting down roots in any given place, but a holy nation willing to go wherever He leads them.

 

No single organization

Zion is not limited to any one church or denomination. Anyone who is living a terrestrial law will abide the day of the Lord’s coming (Mormon Doctrine, p. 498).  Nephi shared his insight on the only significant latter-day division we will witness and experience:

And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth” (1Nephi 14:10).

We are either with the Lord or not, regardless of what religion or organization we belong to (Matthew 12:30) What determines our allegiance is not a membership record, but the loyalty of our heart.  “Therefore, see to it that ye trouble not yourselves concerning the affairs of my church in this place, saith the Lord, but purify your hearts before me...” (D&C 112:27-28, emphasis added)

Seeking the cause of Zion then is not limited to building up any one given institution.  It becomes more than simply serving in a calling.  What it does mean and look like is for us to decide.

          Christ made it very clear that His Kingdom “is not of this world” (John 18:36). Humans tend to build up borders.  Zion is free of division lines.                

Zion vs. Babylon

Scripturally Babylon and Zion are juxtaposed. But in real life the division lines between Babylon and Zion are quite blurred, and, really, nonexistent. The adversary would prefer for us not to know when we have entered one and exited the other. This eloquent statement by Elder Maxwell masterfully captures the constant “tug and pull” action between the two: “Let us once and for all establish our residence in Zion and give up our summer cottage in Babylon.”[3] The task would be easier to accomplish if we could tell when we are dressed in the gaudy burqa of Babylon and when all we a have to our name is a rustic tunic of Zion.

Babylon is like all-inclusive resort, inviting and tantalizing, where all visitors are welcome, especially if they stay. Like the Enchanted Island it embraces all that set foot anywhere near it. Zion, on the other hand, is more of an Enchanted castle, overgrown with briars and thorns, hard to find, nearly impossible to get to and requires your absolute best to stay at.

While Babylon offers unconditional acceptance to all, Zion hands out “Admit One Only” tickets to those that are tenacious enough to face the world’s rejection and opposition.

Babylon is replete with “philosophies of men” mingled with scripture, while Zion stands resolute and immovable in “pure religion and undefiled” (Joseph Smith). Babylonian wisdom is full of counterfeit ideologies and “inadvertent” worship of the various false gods. Zion intentionally sets “the eye single to the Glory of God” (D&C 4:5) and remains rivetted to it until the end.

 

            Zion vs. Israel

            Not all the Lord’s covenant people will be part of Zion. This poignant, jarring truth is delivered to us plainly and powerfully by the prophet Isaiah. From his precious narrative we gather, that instead of the whole, the Lord’s covenant people will be reduced to a “remnant’, few in numbers. (Isaiah 10:19-20) “It shall be a tenth, and it shall return,” a symbolic tithing of the original group (Isaiah 6:13). Unable to prophecy openly Isaiah encoded this significant message into the name of his son Shear-jashub (Isaiah 7:3), which means “the remnant shall return” (Isaiah 7:21). In Hebrew the term “return” and “repent” are one and the same (Isaiah Explained by Avraham
Gileadi). Thus, the returning remnant will not only be making its way to a holy geographic location, but through repentance traversing the telestial wilderness into the presence of God!!!

 

Without a proper vision of Zion, we could never get there. Zion is not staying in place, it isn’t guaranteed by membership in a church or a group. It takes courage to find outside the walls of the omnipresent Babylon and an exodus to get to. But if we choose to repent we too can return as a remnant unto the Lord as we humbly seek after the cause of Zion!!!!

 

  

      

 

---

[1]“Israel, Israel God is calling” Elder Holland , September 2012.

[2] Note, that Lord is talking about our redemption from bondage. While we are currently a free country this reference perhaps suggests that we will not always remain so.

[3]  See “The Tugs and Pulls of the World” by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, October 2000.