Doctrine and Covenants 163
Commentary Series
The Hope of Zion
by Linda L. Booth
“You are called to create pathways in the
world for peace in Christ to be relationally and culturally incarnate.
The hope of Zion is realized when the vision of Christ is embodied in
communities of generosity, justice, and peacefulness.”—Doctrine and
Covenants 163:3a
The Jesus story begins with a wonderful surprise.
The almighty God of the universe came as a baby,
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manager.
As an adult—Emmanuel, “God with us”—he proceeded
to turn the world topsy-turvy. He brought peace, reconciliation,
and healing of the spirit to all he touched. He ate
with the sinners, visited in the hated tax collector’s home,
and took water from an untouchable woman. He demanded
justice for those who could not speak for themselves and proclaimed
his vision of the peaceable kingdom—Zion.
Jesus also called ordinary people to embody him, to imitate
his way of life in their lives, to share his peace on the
pathways of their worlds, and to take his life and incorporate
it into their being and doing. He commissioned them saying,
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you”
(John 20:21).
Incarnation lies at the heart of Section 163:3a and calls us
to intentionally center our inward and outward “pathways” or
journeys in and for Christ’s peace. It calls us out of our apathy
and comfort zones into the messiness of relationships and
culture, where we are called to incarnationally live as Jesus.
Divine love is at the heart of an incarnational lifestyle.
Divine love is “embodied in communities” and lived out in
personal relationships and diverse cultures. In Section 163:2b
we are reminded that “the restoring of persons to healthy or
righteous relationships with God, others, themselves, and the
earth is at the heart of the purpose of your journey as a people
of faith.” Because we love as Jesus loved, we yearn for and actively
strive to restore holistic relationships for us and all the
people we meet and know, and for the earth that sustains us.
Sharon Thornton in her book Broken Yet Beloved says that
love is the sacred movement that takes place between and
among people in mutual relationships. Mutual relationships
require that love be more than a feeling. It must be a powerful,
life-changing action. “Mutual relationships are established,”
Thornton wrote, “when the claims of justice are put into practice.
The vision of just and compassionate environments in
which mutual relationships are possible inspires the kind of
pastoral practices that help people know just love.” Just love
embodies Jesus and is something to be received and given.
Christ-like love becomes a holy, Zionic movement when
Christ’s peace is central and shared between people who are
motivated by their love for God and God’s people and committed
to creating a just world for all of creation. They recognize
that they are not to reflect culture’s distorted values but are
instead to be immersed in culture and responsible partners
with God to make the culture just in Christ’s image.
In the Humanity of God, Karl Barth wrote, “as creators or as
beneficiaries of culture, we all participate in it as persons responsible
for it. We can exercise no abstinence toward it, even
if we want to. But we should not want to do that. Each of us
has a place and a function in its history.”
Section 163:3a specifically and forcefully calls us into the
world. There is an underlying urgency that calls us “to be relationally
and culturally incarnate.” The “hope of Zion” becomes
real when Christ’s vision is incarnationally lived and “embodied
in communities of generosity, justice, and peacefulness.”
Theologians call this “the cultural mandate.” We cannot
retreat from the “secular” world in hope of finding God elsewhere.
God is visible with the people amid their struggles,
conflicts, sin, and marginalization. We are called into that unsettled,
difficult world as co-laborers with God to bring peace,
reconciliation, and healing of the spirit just as Jesus did. As
the “embodiment of God’s shalom” (163:2a) we are holy sanctuaries,
experiencing God’s presence and sharing God’s presence—
incarnation!
Richard Foster explained this concept in his book Streams
of Living Water:
All of us are called to sacramental living. Redeemed by God
through Christ, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and experience
a growing transformation of character as our bodies
come into a working harmony with our spirit. Hence our
embodied self becomes a habitation of the Holy—a tabernacle
where we learn throughout our daily activities to function
in cooperation with and in dependence upon God. Through
time and experience we discover that everywhere we go is
“holy ground” and everything we do is “sanctified action.” The
jagged line dividing the sacred and the secular becomes very
dim indeed, for we know that nothing is outside the realm of
God’s purview and loving care.
When we live that reality, then we will not “be afraid to go
where it beckons” (163:1) us to go. Like love, the “hope of Zion”
is more than a feeling. It is a powerful, life-changing action.
Christ’s vision will “be embodied in communities of
generosity,
justice, and peacefulness.”
Henri Nouwen in his book The Road to Peace describes a Zionic
community of “generosity, justice, and peacefulness”:
If we are to be peacemakers, it is essential that we take on
what I would like to call a mentality of abundance and put
away from us the mentality of scarcity. This sense of scarcity
makes us desperate, and we turn to competition, hoarding, and
a kind of parody of self-preservation. This greed extends not
only to material goods but also to knowledge, friendships, and
ideas. We worry that everything we possess is threatened.
Love and peace are more than feelings in Nouwen’s model.
Love and peace are actions that are generously given, just as we
willingly give our time, talents, and money rather than hoard
them out of fear that there will not be enough for us. Nouwen
reminds us that Jesus demonstrated on a hillside that a few
loaves and fishes given by a poor child and taken and blessed
by Jesus were a divine gift that became more than enough for
a great crowd. “We must die to the self focused on scarcity so
that we may enter into life trusting in God’s abundance,” Nouwen
wrote. “This becomes the basis of real community. We each give what we have to one another. This fruitful life is not
the same as a successful life, though. Fruitfulness is the gift
that is given us as a result of our trust in God’s presence.”
In “real community,” generosity flows from our awareness
of God’s presence and grace in our lives. As God’s grace
flows through us to others, we are givers of “justice and peacefulness.”
When we embody God’s grace we are freed from a
selfish, scarcity mind-set and become passionate about giving
ourselves to those who suffer injustice and have little or
no peace in their lives. We live and act in solidarity with them
and imitate the Christ, who loved people on the margins
and chose to die on the cross in solidarity with those who
suffered. His suffering, death, and resurrection point to the
“hope of Zion,” allowing us to taste the peaceable kingdom in
our midst as we reflect the living Christ through our lives.
Walter Wink, in Engaging the Powers, said:
As the Crucified, Jesus thus identifies with every victim of
torture, incest or rape;…with every single one of the forty
thousand children who die each day of starvation;…with every
mother or father who cradles the lifeless body of a courageous
son or daughter; with every Alzheimer’s patient slowly losing
the capacity of recognition. In Jesus we see the suffering of
God with and in suffering people.
In “communities of generosity, justice, and peacefulness”
we, like Jesus, identify with those who are suffering. In
Christ-centered community the cross is lifted up and we follow
the risen Christ into the streets, offices, schools, home,
villages, and hospitals to change those social structures that
allow the inhuman and unjust treatment of people. We take
part in the suffering of God in the world so peace, reconciliation,
and healing of the spirit might be realized.
We love all of God’s people with a just love, just as Christ
did. “To see the face of God,” Sharon Thornton said, “is a resurrection
promise, a future-leaning hope…it means people will
be brought down from the cross, and their tears, and then
ours, will become beloved mirrors of the face of God.”
When our tears mingle with the tears of others, we cannot
tolerate systems or actions that do not recognize their worth.
And so we cry for the child who goes to bed hungry and we
feed him. We reach out to the woman who doesn’t know
Christ’s peace and we share our witness. We get angry when
our local government doesn’t clean up the vacant lot next to
our elderly friend’s home and we petition them. We look at
all the clothes in our closet and think about those who have
little and we box them up and give them to Salvation Army.
We think about the ministry that is needed in the world and
we spend less so we can give more in mission tithes. We give
generously because “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so
that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Dorothee Soelle in her book Choosing Life wrote: “The only
possible proof of Christ’s resurrection and our own would
be a changed world, a world a little closer to the kingdom of
God.” Section 163:3a calls us to risk in new ways and create a
new world order to show the world that Christ lives. There is a
promise inherent in the call and the risk: If we are dependent
on God, trust in the Spirit’s presence, allow Christ to live in
and through us, then Zion will be “realized.”
When we live the promise, our daily prayers and actions
will mirror the words of this hymn:
Make us, O God, a church that dares courageously to act;
That clothes with flesh its fervent prayers and makes the
Gospel fact.
Now thrust us from the cloistered halls where we may
want to hide
And send us forth where duty calls to serve the Crucified!
