From the window seat, flying over the barren deserts of the Southwestern U.S., I saw dried washes that seldom carried water. I had traveled more than two hundreds miles of arid terrain in the vicinity of what some call Area 51. The Aaronic brother who drove me to the airport told me about the Mormon pioneers who put down roots at places wherever they found the slightest trickle of water. Those roots were his roots and the spiritual landscape he had traversed over his life was often as unfriendly as the contrasting heat and cold in that high desert land.
While a young man he learned one sure thing about that rough desert life - he was sure he would leave as soon as he was of age and not return. Though he left when of age, God moved upon him to come back and pioneer in a sovereign work that required faith and commitment equally tenacious as the early Mormons who settled the area.
As I meditated on the events of the three previous days, my aged friend's comments, and his testimony of how God brought him back to the land he left; my mind was upon Joseph, the great patriarch of Egypt. Joseph was one who knew the hard road.
My friend and brother in Christ had lived the pioneer's life and seen many changes in the Aaronic community that God called him to labor in. These Levite/Aaronites were in a very real sense a latter day manifestation of the Qumran community near Jerusalem. And it was their peculiar call that made them outcasts by Mormons and Christians alike. They knew too well how quickly and widely false rumor could fly. Like Joseph of Egypt they knew the spirit of jealousy that arises against God given vision. Like Joseph, they experienced prejudice born of the spirit which proclaims "here comes that dreamer let us slay him!"
Turning from the window, still lost in my thoughts of the Aaronic community and my own hard road; I opened the scriptures and over the course of several hours received a sure witness of the Holy Spirit about the latter day call of the descendants of Joseph and the restoration of Levi and Aaron to the household.
I turned to the 50th Psalm and read, "But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and casteth my words behind thee. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son. These things thou hast done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set covenants in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none can deliver."
The Mormons had fulfilled these words in their treatment of the Aaronites. I read the whole chapter of the 50th Psalm over several times. I wondered why God had kept silent so long. I wondered why he allowed false accusation and the persecuting spirit to continue amongst those who professed Him.
I thought that the modern house of Levi and Aaron must have often cried with the psalmist" Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me; neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause."
In my limited experience, I identified with these Aaronites. I knew what it was like to follow the path of tribal identity. I had broken ranks with Gentile Christianity, feeling the estrangement of family and friends along the way.
Almost fifteen years earlier I had taken a path to my roots in Israel that had drawn out the worst in those who once counted me a brother in Christ. Though all would proclaim me in error on points of doctrine, none demonstrated the attributes expected of the followers of Jesus Christ. And, none would sit down and reason from the scriptures. If, I was in error, I wondered -"Where are the Christians?" I understood that to be a Christian meant you were Christ like.
But, there in that moment as I read Psalm 50, I understood that it was God's love and forebearance that restrained Him from action against those who professed so much love for His son. Those Christians thought God approved of them running down Joseph Smith, the Mormons, or anyone who opened the latter day scriptures to investigate them. They thought, like Saul of Tarsus, they were doing God's work.
According to the Psalmist writing the inspired words of God; they thought God was like them. My Christian brothers actually thought God would Himself run down a brother. They took God's silence as a sign of approval. After all, God had not stricken anyone dead for speaking against the latter day people - had he?
In my mind and emotions I never really understood God's silence in the face of such obvious sin on the part of those professing love for Him and His Son. I also took their lack of punishment as an approval of sorts. I saw God's silence as a flaw and I resented having to walk the hard road because God would not execute judgment in my time. Like the sons of Thunder who wanted to call down Elijah's fire; I often wanted God to execute judgment to show the right of my position and the error of my enemy.
I wanted God to stop the lying tongues of Christians who spoke against what they did not understand. I was their brother while I was amongst them, yet when I followed the path God placed before me; I was one to be avoided.
But, this was before I understood that God’s long silence was a proving ground for faith. This was before I understood the affect of God’s silence on those who sold their brothers out.
There was a long silence among the sons of Jacob/Israel after Joseph was cruelly sold into slavery. While Joseph worked his way through the opposition in Egypt, his brothers lived with the secret silence that the stained robe of Joseph was not Joseph's blood, but that of an animal.
It is no wonder that when hard times fell upon the household of Jacob/Israel and ten sons came into Egypt for food they proclaimed "Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anquish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded with us. This is why this distress has come upon us."
Though God had kept silence; their own consciences had not.
When the ten eldest sons of Israel sold Joseph into Egypt no immediate curse fell over them. Even with Jacob/Israel's great pain at the loss of Joseph there was some degree of normality and blessing upon the herds and families. How easily this forbearance on God's part could lead one to conclude that God was silent. And if God was silent it might have been all right to sell Joseph. And if it was so terrible why didn't God intervene?
When the plane touched down in Kansas City I knew that God’s breaking of the silence for all evil speaking and persecution of Israel was in God’s time.
And, more importantly; the lesson of the hard road of Joseph is that we can rejoice as ones numbered to bear shame for the name of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. In a small way we can identify with the one who was wounded in the house of his friends.
