President Jeffery R. Holland gave a talk in
which he recounted his first Christmas away from home. For him it was on his mission and being away
from home changed the meaning of Christmas for him.
What circumstances
might keep us from being home for the holidays?
Mission
School
Work
war
What are the ways we are not home for the holidays?
Anger/Grudges
Sin
Sorrow/Depression
Preoccupation
Pride
Ultimately, none of us are home for the
holidays because of the Fall. All of us are separated from our Heavenly
parents. Christ’s Christmas gift to us is that he makes it possible for us to
return home. What do we need to do
to return home?
Story of
the soldiers
Keep your faith. Look for the good in your
situation. Do something kind for someone. Seek Christ devoid of wrapping and
tinsel. You will find that despite external circumstances, Christmas—like the
kingdom of God—is “within you” Jeffery
Holland
In his powerful discourse on charity, Paul
makes reference to faith, hope, and charity, concluding with, “But the greatest
of these is charity.” 1
“I have always loved your Relief Society
motto: “Charity never faileth.” 8What is charity? The
prophet Mormon teaches us that “charity is the pure love of Christ.” 9 In his farewell
message to the Lamanites, Moroni declared, “Except ye have charity ye can in
nowise be saved in the kingdom of God.” Mornoni 10:21”
President Monson
#1 “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
“… Seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no
evil;
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
“Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
#2 Speaking to the sisters, the Prophet Joseph
said: “Don’t be limited in your views
with regard to your neighbors’ virtues. … You must enlarge your souls
toward others if you [would] do like Jesus. … As you increase in innocence and
virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand—let them be
enlarged towards others—you must be longsuffering and bear with the faults and
errors of mankind. How precious are the souls of men!” 3
The scriptural declaration “Charity never faileth” became the
motto of Relief Society because it embraces these teachings and the charge that
the Prophet Joseph Smith had given the Relief Society sisters to “relieve the
poor” and to “save souls.” 4
In reviewing Paul’s previous description of charity, we learn
that charity is not a single act or
something we give away but a state of
being, a state of the heart, kind feelings that engender loving actions.
President Monson:
“I consider charity—or
“the pure love of Christ”—to be the opposite of criticism and judging. In
speaking of charity, I do not at this moment have in mind the relief of the
suffering through the giving of our substance. That, of course, is necessary
and proper. Tonight, however, I have in mind the charity that manifests itself
when we are tolerant of others and lenient toward their actions, the kind of
charity that forgives, the kind of charity that is patient.
I have in mind the charity that impels us to be sympathetic,
compassionate, and merciful, not only in times of sickness and affliction and
distress but also in times of weakness or error on the part of others.
There is a serious need for the charity that gives attention to
those who are unnoticed, hope to those who are discouraged, aid to those who
are afflicted. True charity is love in action. The need for charity is
everywhere.
Needed is the charity which refuses to find
satisfaction in hearing or in repeating the reports of misfortunes that come to
others, unless by so doing, the unfortunate one may be benefited. The American
educator and politician Horace Mann once said, “To pity distress is but human;
to relieve it is godlike.” 11
Charity is having
patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to
become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is
accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances
to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to
categorize others.”
We have a lot of
sisters in our ward with very different circumstances and at very different
levels in their understanding or participation in the gospel. We have a lot of
sisters that are in pain. With the ward split there are a lot of sisters
testing the waters anew. How will they
feel in this new ward. Will they feel
loved or judged?
Monson’s story about the
windows:
A young
couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they
were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door
neighbor hanging out her wash.
“That
laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get
clothes clean!”
John
looked on but remained silent.
Every time
her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments.
A few
weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash
hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s
finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.”
John
replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know
that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!”
“Tonight I’d like to
share with you a few thoughts concerning how we view each other. Are we looking
through a window which needs cleaning? Are we making judgments when we don’t
have all the facts? What do we see when we look at others? What judgments do we
make about them?”
What about us?? How do
we look at ourselves??
At the end of his
discourse on charity, Paul addresses this very question: 1Corinthians 13:9-10,
12-13 #3
9 For we
know in part, and we prophesy in part.
12 For now
we see through a aglass, bdarkly; but
then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am
known.
This is kind of an
esoteric verse but it is one of my favorites.
What it is telling us is that because of mortality we only have a
partial spiritual understanding. But
when Christ comes we will have a full understanding. That is the glass spoken of? It is a mirror! Now we only see ourselves
through a darkened mirror and do not understand ourselves fully. But Christ
will reveal to us how He knows us.
Do we have Charity for
ourselves? What does it mean to see through a glass darkly? How does that keep
us from the gospel of Jesus Christ?
--Everyone else family
at church is perfect.
--Everyone else’s
marriage at church is perfect.
--Everyone else’s
house, job, health…
Commenting on the pressure and anxiety often felt by those who
focus on the temporal side of the Christmas season, President Dieter F.
Uchtdorf of the First Presidency said, “We have in our minds a picture of how
everything should be—the perfect tree, the perfect lights, the perfect gifts,
and the perfect family events. … [But] sooner or later, something unpleasant
occurs … and the picture-perfect Christmas we had imagined, the magic we had
intended to create, shatters around us.”
What gifts can we give to Christ and what does he give in
return:
We cannot offer perfection, and the Savior
does not expect it, President Uchtdorf said. “But He does require that we bring
as gifts our best efforts to move ourselves, one foot in front of the other,
walking in the ways He has prepared and taught.”
“The Savior’s gifts to us are breathtaking,”
President Uchtdorf said. He explained that through the Atonement, the Savior
offers us immortality, forgiveness, and eternal life.
How do we gain charity? #4
Moroni
7: 48
48 Wherefore, my beloved
brethren, apray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may
be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true bfollowers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of
God; that when he shall appear we shall cbe like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have
this hope; that we may be dpurified even as he is pure. Amen.
I now return to the
teachings of the Prophet Joseph to the sisters in the early days of the Restoration.
Urging the practices of charity and benevolence, he said: “If you live up to
these principles, how great and glorious will be your reward in the celestial
kingdom! If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained
from being your associates.” 16
There is a story of a woman who had to move to Africa with her
husband and small children for 3 years for her husband’s job. It was in the middle of nowhere and there was
nothing that resembled home for her.
Church was just their family in their living room. By the third Christmas she was desperately
homesick! She broke down to her friend
who was a Mennonite missionary. Her
friend invited her to attend Christmas services with them in the only
Protestant church in the area. Her husband took some convincing, but on
Christmas Day they were ussured to the front of the little chapel like honored
guests. The preacher gave a beautiful
sermon on Christ. Then a group of
Mennonite missionaries from all over Africa rose and stood in front of the
little family and without music sang every verse of Come, Come Ye Saints. The Jan was overwhelmed and she and her
husband sobbed. This friend had written
to Salt Lake and requested the music of Jan’s favorite hymn, distributed the
music to every missionary on the continent of Africa and they learned it on
their own. They said simply, “Our gift
to you.” And with that Jan was swept home for the holidays.
These missionaries did not
requires the family to accept their religion to love them. They loved them just where they were, just as
they were. And they loved them as the
family needed to be loved. Can we do the
same this season? Can we love out sisters? Our neighbors? Our family? Can we
love ourselves? Can we bring everybody home?
