THE BRASS SERPENT OF OUR TIME

THE BRASS SERPENT OF OUR TIME

The long known adage: “Hard work won’t kill but worry will” underscores the role work plays in our lives on this earth [Genesis 3:17-19] since “thorns and thistles and the sweat of our face” will qualify us to eat bread [1 Timothy 5:8] until we return to the dust of the earth. President Gordon B. Hinckley equally admonished church members to be wary of unemployment, and be sensitive to the plight of the unemployed. He says:

“Hard work won’t kill but worry will”

“A man out of work is of a special moment to the Church because, deprived of his inheritance, he is on trial as Job was on trial – for his integrity. As days lengthen into weeks and months and even years of adversity, the hurt grows deeper, and he is sorely tempted to ‘curse God and die.’ Continued economic dependence breaks him; it humiliates him if he is strong, spoils him if he is weak…”

“A man out of work is of a special moment to the Church because, deprived of his inheritance, he is on trial as Job was on trial – for his integrity. As days lengthen into weeks and months and even years of adversity, the hurt grows deeper, and he is sorely tempted to ‘curse God and die.’ Continued economic dependence breaks him; it humiliates him if he is strong, spoils him if he is weak…”

In the Church’s General Handbook of Instructions we read: “Self-reliance is the ability, commitment, and effort to provide the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family.” Be it from the scriptures or from the mouths of past and living prophets, self-reliance is a defining criterion to the temporal and spiritual development of mankind. Hence the reorganized Self-Reliance Services Department of the Church with its three legs: education, employment and self-employment to keep everyone on course. Unemployment can discourage its victims as President Hinckley has said, and the worry about joblessness can lead one to an early grave. 

Self-reliance is the ability, commitment, and effort to provide the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family

In the Book of Mormon, Nephi did exhort his brethren by recounting the history of God’s dealings with Israel. Nephi referred to the Israelites as having been straitened by God because of their iniquity. During the Israelite exodus, as recorded in Numbers 21:6 - 9, God sent fiery serpents to bite them in the wilderness when they murmured against Him. God did prepare a way for them to be healed by commanding Moses to prepare a brass serpent to be raised on a pole for whosoever would look to be healed. But as Nephi did observe, “… and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished.” [I Nephi 17:41].

and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished.”

There is a reason for recalling Nephi’s warning about the Israelite disobedience and apathy to God’s call to just ‘look and live’. Can we not see some resemblance in the Israelite plague of venom from fiery flying serpents and today’s quagmire of un/underemployment, downsizing and layoffs or retrenchment? If indeed “work won’t kill but worry will”, then the solution proposed by our leaders today, by establishing Self-Reliance as an integral part of the definition of every true Latter-day Saint, can be compared to the “brass serpent” of old. Obeying the clarion call to choose to look and live is a major factor in getting out of the world’s economic troubles.

In 2008 with the world economic recession, jobs started to shrink, speculative spending was exposed and austere, redemptive measures were adopted by Western governments to salvage their economies. Workers were laid off in the West including migrant workers from the developing world. Thus, developing countries began experiencing the “cold and cough symptoms” of the Western World’s economic downturn. Aid to Africa started to dwindle and the hitherto vibrant donor support paved way for “donor fatigue”. Western governmental budget support to Africa began to dwindle while companies started to feel the pain of the economic downturn in the West. Therefore, the balance of payment deficits in the developing world worsened.

In response to these economic challenges, and through revelation, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints combined the Perpetual Education Fund and the Employment Resources Services to create the current Self-Reliance Services Department - a laudable initiative that is comparable to the brass serpent of Moses’ time. The international members of the Church, in particular, and the entire membership, were called upon to reintegrate self-reliance in the list of criteria that marked the true Latter-day Saint. The Church’s mission of inviting members to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him will not be complete until those invited are helped to become spiritually and temporally self-reliant.

This move in 2013 consisted of bringing self-reliance services to the door step of every member. The goal being to have every family begin a gradual rethinking and redesigning of self-reliance to holistically reflect the three legs of the equation: education, employment and self-employment. The Curriculum division of the Self-Reliance Services Department at Church headquarters is constantly brainstorming, sending out Missionaries, volunteers and employees to test-run new curricular in My Education, My Job Search and Starting and Growing My Business.  These new Self-Reliance products will soon be formally implemented in each unit of the Church. Is this not a “type” of a brass serpent in our time for the Lord’s covenant people?  The establishment of Self-Reliance Services Departments in each international Area of the Church, with model Self-Reliance Centers staffed by Self-Reliance Center Managers, Full-Time Couple Missionaries, Church Service Missionaries and Volunteers, all working in synergy to help members improve upon their readiness to be employable or to start and run their own businesses has been receiving a concentrated effort in the past few months.