Editor’s Foreword
Jesus’ First and Last Message
Come with me to Nazareth. Jesus has just spent forty days alone in the desert, communing with God and preparing for His ministry (Matthew 4:1, Joseph Smith Translation). He is returning to His hometown, ready to declare to His neighbors that He is the promised Messiah.
This particular Sabbath day, we enter the synagogue along with the rest of the villagers “where he had been brought up” (Luke 4:16). You and I find a place on the stone benches along the walls of the synagogue. Jesus stands, takes the papyrus scroll, and begins to read from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Isaiah 61:1-2).
Jesus then makes this astonishing statement that infuriates His hometown neighbors, enough to make them want to “cast him down headlong” over the “hill whereon their city was built” (Luke 4:29). What is the declaration that is a capital offense in His neighbors’ eyes? “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21).
From the start, Jesus’ ministry is to heal the brokenhearted, deliver the captives, and free them that are bruised. And from the start, the opposition is quick and vicious.
Three years later, come with me to Jerusalem to hear Jesus’ last public sermon. We are just outside the city, seated on the hillside on the Mount of Olives, surrounded by a well-tended olive grove with a spectacular view of Jerusalem. It is likely Wednesday, two days before His crucifixion. (“The Greatest Week in History” by Daniel H. Ludlow https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/04/the-greatest-week-in-history?lang=eng )
What is the message of Jesus’ last public discourse? “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me” (Matthew 25:35-36).
Towards the end of His mortal ministry, Jesus’ last message echoes His first: feed the poor, care for the stranger, the sick, and the captive. How is His final public sermon received? Within days, His followers will take Jesus’ lifeless body down from the cross and lay it in a borrowed tomb.
From His first to His final public sermon, Jesus cares a lot about the last, the least, the lost, and the lonely (Mark 2:13-17). And Jesus has called us to carry on His work. For some, it may not be much easier for us than it was for Him.
After His resurrection, Jesus appears at the coast of the sea of Galilee. Listen while He calls the apostles to shore from their fishing boats and gives them their final instructions. Did they get it? Did they grasp what His whole ministry was about? Do they understand their charge to leave their nets once again and continue Jesus’ work? Here is the lesson in three words, repeated three times for emphasis: “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). (Notice that Jesus asks us to start with the most vulnerable.)
There can be no room in the life of a follower of Christ for un-Christ-like treatment of anyone. Here’s Jesus’ invitation list: “he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God” (2 Nephi 26:33). And what percentage does the word All indicate? One hundred percent. All means All.
Come with me to my family dinner. As we walk around the table, I introduce you to my own close family, including a gay man, a lesbian woman, a transgender person, a pansexual individual, and a sparkling gender-bending sprite of a child who defies all labels and is exuberantly living into their best self, whoever that turns out to be. And a bunch of straight folks, in and out of church, scratching their heads and trying to make sense of us all. This is my family, and I love each one exactly as they are, exactly how God made them. And I’m positive that God loves them too, without exception.
What draws me to this work? Admiration for the strength of character, the creativity and flair that my LGBTQ family, friends and colleagues add to the world.
Like the author,* I am a church-going, temple-attending “active member” (some call me a “hyper- active member”) of the church. I have long known there must be a way to connect my love for these vibrant people that I love and the teachings of my beloved Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints. My deep appreciation goes to Evan Smith and his family for this remarkable work, solidly grounded in the scriptures and the teachings of living prophets, as well as their own courageous journey as a family.
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Marci McPhee, editor
http://marcimcpheewriter.com/
* This Foreword was written when the Crossroads book was first released in July 2020. For an update regarding Evan's current relationship with the church, see the Afterword he wrote in January 2022 here: https://www.gayldscrossroads.org/afterword .