Chapter 5: “There is No Beauty that We Should Desire Him”

It is easy to miss the simple things, even things right in front of our faces. Think about it. How many times have you seen a penny or a nickel or a twenty dollar bill? Thousands of times I am sure. Yet, how many details from the face of these coins or this bill can you recall from memory? Most know that Lincoln’s profile is on a penny, but which way is it facing? What are the words on that side of the coin and where are they located? What image and words are engraved on the back of a penny? How about the back of a nickel or a twenty dollar bill? How confident are you in your recollections? Most will make at least a few mistakes in remembering these things and only very few can remember every item and its proper location on a coin or a bill. This is so primarily because these details are not important to most of us as we exchange money for goods and services. We glance at our money to make sure we have the right denomination and we move on.

Consider another telling example. In my introductory psychology course I show the students a video clip in which a customer approaches the counter of a business for assistance. An employee steps forward and begins to help the customer. At some point, a distraction occurs and the customer looks away for a second or two. At that moment, the employee ducks behind the counter and a totally different person dressed in totally different clothes pops up in his or her place. The customer turns back to the counter and does not even notice the switch has taken place and the business transaction continues. The customer does not detect the change because he or she only paid attention to what mattered most at that time, the transaction.

You probably think this would not work on you and you might be right. This kind of sleight of hand does not work on everyone all the time, but it does work a lot of the time, certainly more often than you would think (you can test it yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3iPrBrGSJM). Demonstrations and studies like this work because of inattentional blindness. Inattentional blindness takes place when we conserve cognitive resources by focusing only on the things that seem important while filtering out most everything else, like the appearance of the employee helping us. We really can’t help but do this. Most of us are not equipped to pay attention to everything going on all the time.

For example, prior to me telling you right now to pay attention to what your clothes feel like on your skin, you probably weren’t noticing how your clothes feel on your skin at all. You experienced what we refer to in psychology as sensory adaptation. When you first put your clothes on today, you likely noticed the feeling of your clothes on your body, but then the feeling quickly wore off. Your skin receptors continue to fire with each contact of your clothing on your skin, but that information has stopped reaching your consciousness and will continue to do so unless and until you pay attention to it, like you are doing now that I have brought it up.

You should be grateful for sensory adaptation. Could you imagine consciously noticing every touch of your clothes on your skin, the constant sound of the air coming out of the vents in your room or the regular ticking of your watch and the feel of its band on your wrist? It would drive you crazy! Of course, sensory adaptation has its disadvantages too. Have you noticed that when some people walk into a room, the smell of their perfume or cologne almost knocks you off of your feet! Their sense of smell has adapted to the odor of their perfume or cologne and they have added more perfume thinking the smell must have worn off. They do not realize that the smell is still plenty strong. They have just gotten used to it and now it isn’t registering consciously any more. And, the rest of us in the room now have to suffer for it!

“Whether is Greater, the Gift or the Altar that Sanctifieth the Gift?”

With this background in mind, consider the attention we pay to Christ in keeping God’s commandments. The purpose of God’s commandments is to test and strengthen our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through obedience. Thus, when we practice obedience to any commandment, Christ and our faithful relationship with him should be the focus of our attention. But, it can become easy over time to adapt to this focus on Christ, to get used to it, and even to take it for granted. As time passes and we become accustomed to keeping commandments as a kind of habit, then our obedience can become a rote exercise and our faith in Christ can fade into the background of the habit we have formed. If asked how important Christ is to our obedience to His commandments, we would all say He is essential, but is the attention that we now pay to Christ upon being asked like calling attention to the feeling of our clothing on our skin? Do we notice Him again in that moment because the question brought Him to our mind?

One challenge with keeping Christ front and center in our hearts and minds as we keep the commandments is that Christ is ever-present and involved in everything we do and everything we are. Paul even teaches that our very breath depends upon Him. He is always there and, as every primary child knows, he is ultimately the answer to every question, which is why at least one child will blurt “Jesus Christ” out no matter what question is being asked by a primary teacher. Perhaps, owing to His ubiquity, we do not notice his presence all that often. Our spiritual sensory receptors are still firing in response to His constant involvement in our lives, but like the shirts on our backs or the hum of the air conditioner in our office, we have adapted to Him and He does not command our attention as easily as before.

Faith in Christ, despite being the first principle of the gospel, can easily be at risk of becoming so familiar and mundane that we only attend to it when someone or something reminds us to exert the effort to do so. We all know and understand the concept of faith in a foxhole, meaning that when we are under some form of threat, like soldiers in foxholes on the frontline of a battle, then we direct our attention to our God. But, as we see repeated in the Book of Mormon time and time again, when things are going well and our needs and wants are mostly being met, we let our attention drift elsewhere, usually to more exciting, novel, and interesting things. Thus, like the penny that we see everyday but rarely actually observe, we can forget in those more mundane threat-free moments of our lives the details of our faith in Christ.

It is precisely in those moments, when the attention of our faith in Christ wanes and our focus is distractible, that the deceptive form of magic can slip in and draw our attention away from what is most important. And, ironically, in the case of many commandments, the deceptive form of magic often draws our attention away from Christ by focusing on the first form of magic, the genuine magic of godly power. Consider tithing as an example.

We have all been fed a steady diet of magical tithing stories since our youth. Stories of faithful, poor Latter-day Saints abound who paid their tithing first, leaving them no money left for food, and then miraculously found 20 dollars in their coat pocket or in the pages of their Book of Mormon, which had been empty before. Or, they won a free groceries giveaway contest. Or, their garden produced twice its normal yield. Or, they were given a sack of potatoes from a neighbor, a much-needed winter coat by a friend, a job by a stranger, or an unexpected raise by their employer.

Why do these stories abound? At first blush, these stories, all of which have been reported in church magazines and lesson manuals, might seem to promote faith as they seem to demonstrate ways that God blesses his faithful disciples. However, if we apply a little more cognitive energy and attention to these stories we can see how, if we are not vigilant, they can easily distract us away from the altar of Christ toward the gift of blessings. It is notable that not one of these stories includes any explicit mention of Christ. One can argue that Christ is implied in these stories, as the Being behind the scenes who makes these marvelous outcomes occur, but for whatever reason the author and finisher of our faith is never named.

Instead of naming Christ, these stories focus attention on an implied if-then causal algorithm that goes something like this, “If you pay your tithing, then God will bless you and everything will work out.” Or in terms borrowed from Malachi, chapter 3, “If you prove or test your God by paying your tithes and offerings, then the windows of heaven will be opened up to you and an abundant blessing will be poured out upon you" (Of key importance here is a proper understanding of who the "you" is in this scripture, as is discussed here: https://paradoxofperfectionbook.com/f/a-humble-plea-for-the-plural-ye). The pattern used in each blessing story just alluded to is familiar in its conformity with this algorithm. It begins with a financial dilemma in which money is tight and paying tithing will come at a deep financial cost. Then, a decision is made to pay tithing even when the cost of doing so will be dire. Finally, a miraculous financial blessing is bestowed on the tithe payers that gets them out of trouble and through their hardship.

While these stories and many others like them may be true and demonstrate genuine Godly power, they can present a potential distraction to our faith. That is, by not mentioning Christ explicitly and by focusing the audience’s attention on an if-then causal mechanism of blessing dispensing, even one that is seemingly supported by scripture, the mechanism can subtly displace Christ as our focus, even if only for a moment. Moreover, when we are repeatedly exposed to this sleight of hand, even if it is unintentional, in church lesson after lesson and talk after talk, year after year, the mechanism can become the basis for our behavior rather than the Savior. How often have you heard a member say, or you have thought to yourself, “I had better pay my tithing if I want blessings” or “I had better pay my tithing so the blessings don’t stop”? These kinds of comments and thoughts prioritize the blessings and the working of the mechanism that is supposed to bring them about. Surely, if asked about Christ, these same commenters would pipe up immediately that all of this is ultimately about faith in Christ, but again, like the feeling of our clothes on our skin, we can easily become and remain inattentionally blind to our Savior unless and until our conscious attention is focused on the Being who really matters most in all of this.

Keeping our attention focused on Christ is not helped by the fact that these miraculous stories are exciting and attention-grabbing. Indeed, when these magical tithing stories are shared in a talk or a lesson, they draw the audience in by the same sensational power that magicians draw audiences into their magic tricks, which is by a marvelous demonstration of something unexplainable and seemingly impossible. In the case of magical tithing stories, we hear about how God’s extraordinary power was made manifest in a miraculous way, and it is exciting and enthralling. When we hear that money appears out of nowhere or an obedient tithe-payer at their time of greatest need wins a free grocery give-away, we can’t help but feel excited and attracted to the marvel of it. We wonder how it is done and we stand all amazed by the mystery of God’s personalized care for his children. There is more than merely a coincidental comparison at play her to magicians holding the audience’s rapt attention when they make an elephant appear on the stage seemingly out of nowhere. In both cases, the audience cannot help but wonder at and be excited by the mystery of it and they marvel at its seeming defiance of the impossible, finding it very difficult, if not impossible, to peel their eyes away from the spectacle.

In the case of Jane’s sister's testimony, and in the examples of these marvelous tithing stories, I do not believe any of the tellers or authors of the stories are trying to be magicians and I am sure they don’t consciously intend to shift the audience’s focus from Christ to the awe-inspiring miracle they share. I do fear, however, that much like those who have adapted to the smell of their perfume and think they need more of it when they absolutely do not, members can adapt to the miracle of Christ's atonement and think more spiritual fuel is needed to fire people's faith. I fear that they, or perhaps I should say we, may not appreciate or remember, given our own spiritual sensory adaptation, that the atonement of Christ is plenty potent and needs nothing added to it in order to energize and mobilize righteous faith. In adding these extra, unnecessary pumps of magical blessings stories to perfume the already wholly adequate and amazing atonement of Jesus Christ, we not only overdo it, but we also fail to keep a “mystery of the kingdom” within ourselves, enhancing the likelihood that our story will be a potential distraction and perhaps even a stumbling block to the faith of others.

Christ: A Most-Humble Altar

In sharing stories of great wonder and excitement and by playing up the power and majesty of God’s intervention in the world as manifest in the form of miraculous blessings for full-tithe payers, the story tellers may forget that the very Christ they and we endeavor to follow chose a different way. In His earthly ministry he made himself a “small and simple thing” (Alma 37:6), “a little lower than the angels” (Hebrews 2:&), a “meek and lowly” (Matthew 11:29) lamb. Indeed, they may fail to recall Isaiah’s eloquent description of a non-sensational Savior, who:

hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Remember, Christ was born in a manger and raised as a poor carpenter’s son. There is virtually no mention of anything miraculous or otherwise significant about his life during his first 30 years, other than his birth and one event that took place when he was twelve years old. That is not to say that nothing miraculous or amazing took place during the majority of His life among us, but only that he did not publicize his life in any way for three decades. Even when his mission began he chose to fulfill it by living an essentially homeless, unremarkable life. He who produced manna from heaven and sheltered Jonah from the sun with a leafy plant allowed himself to be dependent upon others for sustenance and shelter. He subjected himself to ridicule and mockery by the spiritual leaders of the very people he came to serve, and allowed himself to be tried and crucified by them for crimes he did not commit. All the while, he remained silent. At no point did he raise his hand and lay waste to his accusers, which he certainly had the divine power to do. No, just as he had done in the desert when Satan tempted him to demonstrate his absolute power over nature, the angels, and the kingdoms of men, Christ chose the humble path, even the way of weakness, the way of the lamb.

Why did Christ choose not to make himself an attention-grabbing figure? Why, as Isaiah makes clear, was there nothing showy or scintillating about him, nothing attractive enough to create a desire for him in our hearts? Why did he choose instead to be a person from whom, as Isaiah says, we are easily distracted, turning our faces elsewhere because we do not esteem him highly enough to give him our attention? In considering these questions, I am reminded of a scene in the third Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which the Holy Grail, supposedly a cup from which Jesus drank at the last supper, must be chosen from among dozens of goblets in a large chamber. The antagonists in the movie are sure that Christ would have drunk from a cup worthy of a King and choose the most ornate, gilded cup in the room. They drink from it and die and the Knight Templar who guards the chamber says, “They chose poorly”. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, recognizing that Christ was a poor carpenter’s son who chose not to live as a King at all. He chooses the simplest, plainest looking cup that no one would even notice. He drinks from it and lives and the Knight states, “You have chosen wisely.”

Christ’s Absolute Commitment to Agency

Why did Christ live so plainly, so simply, and so easily unnoticed? Why didn’t he come to earth on a chariot of fire, swinging his flaming sword of justice and saving his people from their occupiers as the Jews had expected of the Messiah? The answer is as simple and plain as the life Christ chose to live. Christ makes no demands upon our attention because he prizes our agency so highly. That is, he will not compel our minds to notice him or our hearts to follow him. He wants us to choose him freely and only if we truly desire to do it, even with a desire that is as small as a mustard seed. Thus, as he stands at the door and knocks, his knock is a soft, gentle tapping, just as his spirit is a quiet whisper, easily missed if we are not trying to hear it.

Think about it. The Pharisees and the Scribes would have had really no choice but to worship Christ if he descended from the heavens in His full power and glory. So too, would the sinners, the non-believers, and even the Romans have fallen in line. All would bend the knee and worship Him. But, where is the faith in that and how is the great gift of human agency preserved if discipleship is compelled by the revelation of Christ’s full glory? A compelled submission would accord with Lucifer’s plan, not God’s.

So, instead of revealing his glory, Christ condescended and made himself small and meek. Then, as that humble lamb, he gently invited and still invites all who have eyes to see and ears to hear to notice him and to drink from the well of His living waters, to eat His bread of life, and to come and follow Him. And, some do choose to follow Him, just as many choose not to, and all of them can change their minds still again. Each gets to make and remake a truly free choice to accept the Savior, not a false choice that is compelled by his glory.

It is interesting and of utmost importance to note how this played out with the Pharisees and Scribes who lived at Christ’s time and who surely would have followed Christ and worshipped him if he came as the Messiah they anticipated. These people, who would have praised and followed a glorified Christ, were the very same people who taunted, threatened, accused, and prosecuted a humble, meek, and plain Christ to his death. When they had a choice, a true choice, to place their faith in Christ or to embrace their selfish pride, without compulsion, then the true disposition of their hearts was revealed. So, too, is ours.

The miracle of Christ, then, is not the demonstration of his Godly power that would compel all to accept and worship him. It is instead, his way of weakness, his willing abasement, which demonstrates so poignantly and selflessly his absolute respect for and preservation of our agency. For many people at Christ’s time and for a large number of people today, it is unfathomable that an all-powerful God would condescend from his throne on high and submit himself to all manner of temptation and suffering for our sakes, so he can succor his people and love and heal our wounds. For them, it is unfathomable that he would do this without raising a sword of righteous indignation and vengeance against those who persecuted and despised Him. It is unfathomable that he would withhold the full magnitude of his power. It is unfathomable that he would allow our faith to produce the healing that extended from his hands and even from the hem of his robe to the blind, the lame, and the diseased. That he would do all of this for us and for the preservation of our agency clearly demonstrates in the most amazing way that Christ and his humility and meekness and love is the greatest wonder and marvel ever performed. Why would we need anything more?

Craving the Compelling Gift

We do not and we should not need anything more than the miracle of Christ’s condescension. Yet, if we are being honest, we often want more, and sometimes we even want to be compelled. How many times have you begged God in prayer to tell you what choice you should make or to confirm a choice as the right one? How eager are you to hear stories of magical blessings bestowed on righteous disciples so you can have evidence that God hears and answers prayers? How often have you shared magical stories yourself in order to persuade someone to believe in Christ or to keep a commitment to a gospel principle? Clear and obvious demonstrations of God’s blessings are so compelling and so comforting. They show that if we do our part, then God has to keep His promises to us, we do not have to fear for our temporal and spiritual wellbeing, and we can gain at least some relief from the conundrum of theodicy. This can all be quite compelling and tempting, but is it Christ's way?

I recall sitting in a department forum when I was a professor at BYU years ago where a graduate student was sharing her narrative about coming to BYU and included in her account a story that I alluded to in a previous chapter that provided the audience with precisely this compelling relief. She told the group that her family was in deep financial trouble and was praying and fasting for help. Despite how dire things were, the family decided that they would continue to pay a full tithing as a demonstration of their faith. One night her husband and son had the same dream and in the dream they were riding in a new car that they knew they had somehow acquired as a result of winning the lottery. When they both shared the same dream the next morning, the family felt it might be a spiritual prompting, so they decided to do something they had never done before, buy a lottery ticket. That very morning, the woman telling the story recounted, she went to the store and bought a lottery ticket. When she brought it home, the husband told her it was the wrong type of ticket. She was supposed to get a ticket for the car giveaway, but instead she got the million dollar jackpot ticket. Seeing her error, she went back and got the car giveaway ticket with the little money they had left. They gathered as a family and scratched the ticket off and did not win.

A couple weeks later, the family was now in truly dire straits. The power was about to be turned off and they were going to lose their home. The woman was cleaning dishes in the kitchen, overwhelmed with worry, when her husband who was watching TV called out, inquiring about the first lottery ticket she bought. He asked if she had kept it. She said she thought she did, but she would have to find it. She searched for it and soon found it in a dresser drawer. He asked her to read the numbers on it. She read them and they were an exact match with the balls that were selected by the TV announcer. They won a million dollars. At this point in the woman’s story there was a clearly audible collective gasp in the room. The audience was surprised, amazed, excited, and compelled. The person next to me leaned over with an elated and joyous smile on his face and said, “Don’t you just love that story? Doesn’t it strengthen your faith?”

By this point, you can likely guess my answer to him, but I want you to think about this story for a moment and consider how you would answer his question. Is this story miraculous and the outcome wonderful for this family? Absolutely! Did the story capture your attention and hold it until the story climaxed in an exciting resolution? Without a doubt! Does it make you feel good and perhaps even give you that warm tingling sensation? Highly likely! Does it give you hope that if you find yourself in trouble that God will rescue you, and then some? One would expect so! Does it give you the feeling that this family was blessed because they paid a full tithe? It does fit the algorithm! Does your mind wonder about how it was done and how God somehow worked it all out in their favor? Are you a little concerned that it involved gambling through the lottery?

Regardless of your answers to these questions, you cannot easily deny that this story is sensational, meaning it engages and heightens all the senses, which are collectively enthralled by every word. Endorphins flood our neural synapses as we vicariously share this family’s worry and ultimate elation. We feel something akin to what the magic show audience feels when the magician drops the curtain and the elephant that was not there a second ago is now standing on that stage: excitement and wonder. Having one’s financial woes resolved in such a miraculous manner is certainly a marvelous mystery to behold. Some might even describe their hearing the lottery story as a spiritual experience that confirms the care of God for his children and strengthens faith. Yet, how do we square the sharing of such an over the top, in your face story of Godly power with a Christ who upon healing a leper commanded, “see thou tell no man”? How do we maintain our fidelity to the meek and lowly lamb of God who has no beauty that we should desire him as well as to His plan of human agency in the face of such a compelling story?

The truth is that this story and many others like it, repeated over and over again, with the excitement they produce, and the magic they promise, is a powerful, almost intoxicating elixir that many of us have ingested with great pleasure time and time again. And, like any panacea, many have come to rely on the promise of this magical mechanism and have learned to live their lives accordingly. You may find yourself praying, fasting, and paying your tithing, in part, to ensure that the mechanism functions as it should and the promised blessings are produced and sustained. In such a case, the effort toward compulsion cuts both ways. Not only does the tithe-payer feel compelled by the promised blessings of tithe-paying to follow the commandment, but they also trust that their obedience to the commandment will compel God to keep those blessings coming!

I know of a seemingly well-intended quorum instructor, for example, who told his brethren in a lesson on tithing that he pays ten percent of the income he wants to earn as a demonstration of his faith, believing that if he does so, the Lord will have to bless him with the corresponding increase in his income that he desires. I have heard church members justify a fellow member family’s financial troubles on the basis of the mechanism too, saying, “They must not have paid a full-tithing this year. If they did, the Lord would not have let this happen to them.” Perhaps faith in Christ is in the background of these comments, but it clearly is not in the foreground. In the foreground are blessings and compulsion in the form of a scintillating superstition designed to produce and maintain blessings that is reminiscent of tribal elders bringing their sacrifices to the altar of a fertility goddess to persuade her to bless them with a good crop in the coming season. Surely, we do not want to think of our God as a blessing dispenser who can be compelled by our obedience, like a genie is compelled to grant the wishes of the person who rubs the genie’s lamp. We want a meaningful, personal relationship with our God that is motivated by love and agency on both sides.

Yet, when we put blessings and compelling algorithms and mechanisms in the foreground of our talks, lessons, and testimonies, one wonders whether we are as committed to our agency as our God is. Perhaps, we favor the compelling stories of miraculous divine intervention because they leave us almost no choice but to believe. Perhaps the cognitive, emotional, and spiritual energy required to choose a humble, meek, and lowly Christ freely is too taxing for too many of us and like the Pharisees and Scribes we require instead a Messiah presented in all his glory in order to believe in him. Perhaps, and this is hard to imagine, I know, we are more inclined toward the plan of Lucifer than we would like to admit. Maybe, we want that hedonistic certainty that compels us rather than the faith that requires us to freely choose. Perhaps, we don’t want to be true, agentic investigators of faith.

Conclusion

Once we realize that the Lord prizes our agency so dearly that He will not in any way compel our discipleship, then we can see how Mormon magic can work against our making faith in Christ a genuine choice. Perhaps this is one important reason why He commands his disciples to keep the mysteries of the kingdom within themselves. Sensational stories of miraculous blessings, not unlike the most amazing magic tricks, compel our attention and excite our passions, but they also distract our focus, even if ever so slightly, from the altar who is Christ to the gift, to blessings. When the sharing of these miraculous blessings offers the promise of hedonistic satisfaction in the form of a seeming certainty that God will provide for our needs and relieve our suffering, if we have sufficient faith, then our capacity to pursue our relationship with Christ as truly agentic investigators is constrained. It becomes difficult to discern whether, like Job, we would choose Christ regardless of our blessings and our suffering, including those we receive in this life and in the next, or, like the Pharisees and Scribes, we would only choose Christ under conditions of compulsion. Christ is not a compeller. He is an inviter. He is not a coercer. He is an enticer. His plan is a plan of agency and faith in him must be a matter of choice. Why else would he say to his disciples, “Blessed are ye because ye have seen me and ye believe. But I say unto you, more blessed are they who have not seen me and will believe on your words”?