Lessons of Courage & Belonging from Esther
Faith Matters resources to accompany your Come Follow Me study: August 3-9
The Lord puts me in situations where I can bless others.
The Vanishing Church: Ryan Burge
For decades, we’ve measured the decline of American religion by empty pews and shrinking membership rolls. Ryan invites us to see another, deeper loss. As moderate congregations disappear, we’re also losing one of the last places where people with real differences—in politics, class, age, education, and conviction—learn how to love each other as neighbors.
At a time when it’s easier than ever to sort ourselves into smaller and more like-minded communities, church has remained one of the few places where belonging asks something of us. It asks us to listen, to worship beside people we didn’t choose. Ryan argues that this kind of community forms the habits of empathy, compromise, and civic trust that democracy itself depends on.
Community in America has grown harder to find. The spaces and institutions that used to gather neighbors together are in decline, while loneliness, depression, and other social ills are on the rise. Relearning how to commit ourselves to a place and a group of people — especially our neighbors — is one of the best things we can do for ourselves and others. This episode of Article 13 offers practical guidance for how we can make these commitments and first-hand accounts of how joyful it can be when we do:
Yet when God tells Peter at the beginning of building Christ’s church that “the net gathereth of every kind,” he’s warning us that there are going to be some weird fish! There are so many ways to be a weird fish: maybe you are older or younger than most of the people in your ward, maybe you are disabled, part of a racial or ethnic minority in your ward, poorer or richer than most people there, or your political views are different, or, like me, you have been divorced and are rubbish at pickleball. Human limits of attention, patience, affection and—especially—time can make friendship feel scarce. It is a hard truth that we have made covenants that require us to love more than we are able to, and to be committed even when we don’t feel loved or comfortable. Our wards, our priesthood quorums and Relief Societies, are made up entirely of people trying and failing and trying again to love by covenant.
The saving truth is that, by virtue of having made covenants with God, we each carry the deepest kind of belonging within ourselves. Knowing that, we are freed from competing for scarce social capital; we can take delight in the variety of relationships that are offered to us by virtue of our covenant of belonging.
—Kristine Haglund, “Covenants & Contracts”
Pride and anger can lead to downfall.
Sharon McMahon: Why We Love Conspiracy Theories
Today, Sharon helps us unpack why conspiracy theories can be so compelling, how they spread, and the very human needs behind them—like safety, belonging, and making sense of uncertainty. In 2020, the Church offered timely guidance in its General Handbook, warning against misinformation that promotes anger, contention, and fear—and encouraging members to be skeptical of conspiracy theories. So we talked with Sharon about the role faith communities can play in building resilience against misinformation—not by controlling ideas, but by fostering connection, curiosity, and critical thinking.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we covenant to live the laws of sacrifice and consecration. Being serious about these covenants leads us to practice sine proprio, progressing to the point where we are willing to let go of our white-knuckled grip on prosperity, power, what we deserve, and what we possess. We must be willing to “imagine a Zion society, wrestle with what that society consists of, and imagine how we could be part of that society.”
—Jenny Richards, “The Promised Land: A Cautionary Tale”
There is a wisdom higher than zeal in restraint, in the measured response, in due process, and in truth spoken with the potency of a lowered voice.
Our modern culture is saturated with zealotry. Think of the burgeoning genres of vigilante fiction or revenge thrillers in literature, television, and film; think of the polarized rhetoric of social media; think of the scorched-earth partisanship we see in today’s political theater, and the grotesque displays of bravado with actual weapons, real armed forces, and lives at stake. If we suppose God is pleased with such behavior, with such zealotry, then we may expect soon to find that we have no more need of the still small voice at all.
—Morgan Davis, “Zeal and the Still Small Voice”
Fasting shows that I trust and rely on the Lord.
When I fast, I still want the ‘now’ answer to my prayer. I want the cancer cured. I want the infertility to be resolved. I want chronic pain removed. I want death to be staved off, and those who have died to return to be with me.
And if any of those things happen today or tomorrow, I will give thanks for that grace, and confess the hand of the Lord.
But if not, I no longer have any reason to consider my fast a dead work. I see it now as a powerful physical way to manifest the dual Christian imperatives to mourn with those who mourn (Mosiah 18:9), and express steadfast assurance that the blessed hope is coming (Heb. 6:18–19). I’m making myself vulnerable, voluntarily walking into the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–2), hungry, waiting for the blessings of the fulness of Christ’s Kingdom to arrive in my life in whatever way they come.
I’m expressing hope that in due time, after a period of frustration and pain, after we “cry for help…he will say, ‘Here I am’” (Isaiah 58:9 NRSV:UE), and we will all feast together as complete, joyful persons in the presence of the Bridegroom. I can experience the peace of renewed hope now, even as I mourn.3 Indeed, though it was obscured from me for so long, I now see clearly this passage from the Doctrine and Covenants: “Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer” (D&C 59:14).
—David L Tayman III, “Then Shall They Fast”
Doing the right thing often requires great courage.
Most communities leave the nature of relationships ambiguous. We only discover the truth in moments of testing, when something disrupts the status quo: when a teammate refuses to go along, a member questions direction, or rules are broken.
Our communities—those we’re born into, those we join, those we interact with from a distance, and those we resist—shape who we become, and how we can shape them. We can reclaim freedom and responsibility in those communities—an effort that, if practiced at scale, will reshape the character of our society.
—Luke Burgis, “Becoming a Solid-Self”
We are mindful of the ways migrants and refugees have shaped the restored gospel of Jesus Christ; indeed, migrant stories are foundational to our faith. Scripture stories in our holy canon emphasize the plight of the migrant and refugee, and of God’s help in their lives. From Abraham and Sarah’s sojourns as a “stranger[s]” in foreign lands (Genesis 23:3-4), to the exodus of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt; to Ruth choosing to worship with her mother-in-law’s people, to Esther advocating for her endangered diaspora; to the escape of the holy family into Egypt, to the entire Lehite tradition of the Book of Mormon and their various migrations and challenges within the Americas, all serve as witnesses of the precarity and dignity of the human condition. They also bear witness of God’s abounding love in whatever circumstances His children find themselves in.
—Megan Armknecht, “Day of the Refugee”
One day—I can point to the exact place I stood in my bedroom, next to my Great-Grandma Esther’s hand-me-down jewelry box—I was pondering some scriptural examples of unflinching faith, including the biblical Esther, who declared, “if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). There were also Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who knew that God had the ability to deliver them from the fiery furnace, but also knew that if He didn’t, they would remain faithful (Dan. 3:17–18); and Mary, who with absolute sub- mission said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38).
And I asked myself, if I got to the point where I simply could not find the divine communion and spiritual healing I sought, what would I do? Would I give up on the Lord? Would I turn elsewhere?
Almost as I thought this, in a holy, perhaps mystical experience which I can only call gracing, I knew that I would never turn my back on the Lord. It was simultaneously a decision, a feeling, a direction, and a command. It was also a scripture and a hymn:
Even if I live my whole life and never find the peace I seek, I will not give up on the Lord. I will wait upon Him however long it takes.
On the surface, these words barely touch the significance of the experience for me; I admit they seem wholly unextraordinary. But the experience itself was fire. It was unclear what part of this lightning bolt stemmed from me and what part from God. In some ways, its intensity convinced me that it could not have emerged from my weak self, which was entirely too fickle and frail for such bold declarations. But in another sense, this conviction seemed to stem from the most authentic part of myself— the spiritual core that knew God intimately, even through veiled vision.But also, in a strange inexplicable way, the demarcation between me and God seemed irrelevant. In communion with God, we were one and the same—indistinguishable. It was a duet, a dance, a covenant: a gift given and a gift received, a promise made and a promise trusted. It wasn’t submission; it was collaboration and union.After the long wrestle, like Jacob, I had prevailed (Gen. 32:28). Like Sarah, I laughed (Gen. 18:12). I had been given power from God and all was new.
—Hannah Packard Crowther, “Gracing”