Jesus Won’t Leave You Out of the Greatest Work Upon the Earth

I think Jesus has been teaching me something for a long time that I am only now beginning to see clearly.

It has to do with vicarious work.

It has to do with inheritance.

It has to do with being WROUGHT UPON by the Spirit of God.

It has to do with why the hearts of the children turn to their fathers, and the fathers to their children.

It has to do with why I believe Jesus may be building Zion through millions—perhaps billions—of people who have little or no idea that they are participating in the project.

And strangely enough, it helps explain why I have imaginatively drafted Axl Rose into the Zion Coalition.

Yep.

Axl, you're still in.

Getting out is possible, but there are forms.

Lots of forms.

Call me.

THE GREAT VICARIOUS ACT

Joseph Smith famously described the fundamental principles of our religion as the testimony concerning Jesus Christ—His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension—and said that “all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”

That places Jesus and what He did at the center.

And what did Jesus do?

Among many other things, He did something enormous for people who could not do it for themselves.

Me, for example.

I cannot redeem myself from the Fall.

I cannot resurrect myself.

I cannot manufacture reconciliation with God through sufficient human effort.

I am not a God-born mortal possessing the capacity to perform an infinite Atonement.

Jesus carries the burden I cannot carry.

That is grace.

And then He says, in effect:

Believe Me.

Come unto Me.

Become My friend.

Trust Me.

Follow Me.

Do what I tell you to do.

Accept what has already been accomplished for you.

There is an inheritance with what I might call an activation clause: I have to receive the gift.

But receiving the gift and creating the gift are radically different things.

Jesus did the heavy lifting.

I inherit His work.

VICARIOUS WORK FOR THE DEAD

And then Mormonism does something extraordinary.

It ritualizes this pattern.

A person who has died cannot walk into a mortal baptismal font.

So somebody else does something for him that he presently cannot physically do for himself.

We call it vicarious work for the dead.

Yet the deceased person retains agency. The ordinance isn't imposed upon him. Something has been prepared for him, and he may receive or reject it.

Think about the structure:

Someone carries a burden for someone else.

The beneficiary cannot presently perform the work himself.

The worker may never see the beneficiary receive what has been offered.

The work is performed anyway.

That is pregnant with precedent.

It makes me want to walk across an Inference Bridge and ask:

VICARIOUS WORK FOR THE LIVING

Once I started looking, I began seeing the pattern everywhere.

An ambulance races past.

I don't know who is inside.

Maybe somebody has been mangled in an automobile accident.

Maybe somebody's grandpa is dying.

Maybe a family is about to experience terrible grief.

I cannot climb into the ambulance.

I cannot perform surgery.

I cannot comfort the family.

But I can pray.

Jesus, help them.

Help the EMT.

Help the surgeon.

Help the frightened wife.

Help Grandpa.

Prayer itself begins looking like a kind of vicarious work.

I am asking God to do something for somebody else—and sometimes somebody I don't even know.

STEVE DOES MY VICARIOUS WORK

I sacredly tease my brother Steve about this.

My mother is blind and lives in a nursing home. Steve lives close enough to do things for her that I cannot physically do because I live farther away.

He takes her to appointments.

He responds when she calls needing help in her room.

He goes to church with her.

He performs the physical, embodied acts of service that I cannot perform from where I am.

So I tease him:

And I jokingly lay partial claim to his labor:

It feels almost like I'm helping Mom through you.

Of course, I do what I can myself. I call Mom. I talk with her. I love her.

And again:

I pray for her.

Steve carries what Steve can carry.

Greg carries what Greg can carry.

And together, Mom gets carried.

Maybe that's closer to how Jesus wants His body to work than I previously understood.

NOBODY IS SELF-MADE

Now widen the lens.

Greg Muller showed up in America in 1963.

That's about it.

I didn't build America.

I didn't write the Declaration of Independence.

I didn't fight the Revolution.

I didn't build the highways.

I didn't invent electricity.

I didn't establish the universities.

I didn't create the English language.

I didn't invent the printing press.

I didn't develop the technologies sitting in my house.

I simply arrived and began receiving.

I inherited a world produced by unimaginable amounts of other people's labor.

Some of those people intentionally worked for their descendants.

Others had no idea I would ever exist.

Nevertheless:

I inherited their efforts.

This begins to seriously undermine the mythology of the self-made person.

Nobody is self-made.

We live in houses other people built, speak languages other people developed, travel roads other people laid down, sing songs other people wrote, read books written by dead people, worship in traditions preserved by previous generations, and inhabit institutions constructed before our birth.

We are surrounded by vicariously performed labor.

THE HEARTS OF THE CHILDREN

And suddenly the turning of the hearts of the children to their fathers looks bigger to me.

Usually I think about it in one direction:

Children → fathers.

We find their names.

Remember them.

Perform ordinances for them.

But the Inheritance Bridge makes me look in the opposite direction too:

Fathers → children.

They carried things for us.

They planted trees whose shade they never enjoyed.

They preserved stories.

Raised children.

Built institutions.

Created music.

Made discoveries.

Made mistakes from which later generations learned.

Preserved scripture.

Built temples.

Passed along language and culture.

And perhaps many were WROUGHT UPON by God to prepare things whose eventual purposes they could not possibly have understood.

So the hearts turn in both directions.

I receive from my fathers.

I serve my fathers.

I prepare something for my children.

That is legacy-mindedness.

WROUGHT UPON

But there is an obvious problem with this whole theory.

How in the world would we coordinate it?

How would I know exactly what some unknown person will need thirty years from now?

How could millions of people, separated by continents and centuries, perform useful work for one another when none of us possesses the master plan?

I can't.

And that's where something Jesus has been teaching me recently becomes central:

WROUGHT UPON.

Maybe the workers don't need the master plan.

Maybe Jesus does.

The Book of Mormon repeatedly gives me this interesting language of people being “wrought upon” by the Spirit.

Worked upon.

Stirred.

Moved.

Directed.

Inspired.

Sometimes knowingly.

Perhaps sometimes largely unwittingly.

That gives me a possible coordination mechanism for vicarious work.

Jesus sees.

Jesus loves.

Jesus works upon somebody.

Somebody acts.

Another person receives.

The person in the middle doesn't necessarily need to understand the whole chain.

POSSESSION

This also gives deeper meaning to one of the strange words I deliberately use in My Jesus-Greg WORLD:

Possession.

I want to be possessed by Jesus.

By that I do not mean that my agency disappears.

Quite the opposite.

I mean that I voluntarily become increasingly available to Him.

Wrought upon.

Jesus, take the wheel.

Because if there are things He wants me to do for people I cannot see, I need direction from Someone who sees more than I do.

The hand doesn't see the whole body.

The Head does.

And perhaps God often accomplishes His purposes through ordinary embodied people precisely because this is how His Kingdom works.

Feed my sheep.

Visit the prisoner.

Comfort those who mourn.

Care for the widow.

Preach.

Serve.

Pray.

Carry one another's burdens.

Become His hands.

JESUS TV AND AN INVISIBLE AUDIENCE

This even helps me understand my strange little street-preaching operation.

I preach on the street.

I broadcast some of it on Facebook Live.

I call it Jesus TV.

Most of the time, I have very little evidence that anybody is paying attention.

Occasionally somebody tells me:

“Hey, I heard that.”

Cool.

But I have developed a sacred imaginative belief that there may be a much larger audience than the audience I can see.

Maybe somebody encounters a recording later.

Maybe something I say in the name of Christ happens to be exactly what somebody needs.

And, more speculatively still, I sometimes imagine people on the other side of the veil somehow benefiting from what I'm doing.

Can I prove that?

Nope.

It belongs in the category of faith, sacred imagination, working theory.

It feels true-ish to me.

That's usually about as good as I've got.

And Jesus and I even redeemed an old Johnny Cash song—Folsom Prison Blues—into a sacred-clown song about that belief: Jesus sending His servants into prisons, seen and unseen, to sing about the Savior who sets captives free.

I sing it while street preaching.

It's funny.

It's weird.

And it comforts me.

Because underneath the performance is a serious principle:

A proxy ordinance is performed without the mortal worker watching the deceased beneficiary accept it.

A prayer is offered without knowing its outcome.

A tree is planted without knowing who will sit beneath it.

A song is written without knowing who will hear it decades later.

A sermon can outlive its preacher.

The worker does not have to see the harvest.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO AXL ROSE

Now we're ready for Axl.

In 1991–92, Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses carried a musical burden that Greg Muller did not have to carry.

They created November Rain.

I didn't.

I just showed up decades later.

And within the sacred imaginative world Jesus and I have been constructing, I looked at this lovely, powerful piece of music and began wondering:

Wait a minute.

What if Jesus has fingerprints on this?

What if this is an inheritance?

What if something already lovely, good, and praiseworthy can receive MORE Jesus?

Eventually November Rain became, in My Jesus-Greg WORLD, Jesus Christ Now Reign.

I received something other people had labored enormously to create.

Then I performed comparatively little labor:

Reword it.

Rename it.

Repurpose it.

The heavy lifting had already been performed.

That is inheritance.

And then came the delightful inference:

Axl, you've been building Zion, bro.

Maybe you didn't know it.

Maybe Greg's interpretation is completely surprising to you.

Maybe you would think the entire operation is nuts.

Nevertheless, I see something.

I see treasure.

I see something I believe Jesus can use.

And therefore:

Welcome to Zion Coalition.

JESUS WON'T LEAVE YOU OUT

This gets to what may be the emotional center of the whole performance:

Jesus loves you. He won't leave you out of the greatest work upon the earth.

He didn't leave out Guns N' Roses.

And maybe He doesn't leave out anybody.

That idea makes me love Jesus MORE.

Because what kind of Zion would it be if it were substantially built only by the spiritual celebrities?

Joseph Smith.

Brigham Young.

Russell M. Nelson.

The prophets.

The great reformers.

The Abraham Lincolns.

The people whose names make the history books.

What about the nobodies?

People like me?

What if Jesus' operation is vastly more distributed than that?

What if everybody gets picked for the team?

Maybe not everybody knows they're playing.

Maybe somebody carries only a microscopic piece.

Maybe much of what we make isn't Zion-ready yet and needs considerable redemption.

Maybe somebody does something beautiful for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with my theology.

But what if Jesus can work with all of it?

What if His hidden operation is vastly bigger, smarter, kinder, and more inclusive than I previously imagined?

Wow, Jesus.

I didn't see that before.

And seeing it makes me love Him more.

ZION COALITION IS A SEEING DEVICE

This is where I finally understand more clearly what the performance-art operation at ZionCoalition.org is doing for me.

Zion Coalition is a kind of seeing device.

A pair of Jesus glasses.

Jesus TV.

It gives me an assignment:

LOOK FOR RECRUITS.

Look around the world and ask:

Who's producing something virtuous?

Lovely?

Good?

Praiseworthy?

Healing?

Liberating?

Beautiful?

Truthful?

Peace-producing?

Who is carrying a burden?

Who has made something I inherited?

Where might Jesus have been working long before Greg showed up?

And then comes the operation:

LOOK → DISCERN → CLAIM → REMEMBER → RECEIVE → THANK → REDEEM → PASS FORWARD

LOOK: Who's carrying something?

DISCERN: Do I sense Jesus' fingerprints here?

CLAIM: Yep. I think that's a piece of Zion.

REMEMBER: Don't erase the people who carried it here.

RECEIVE: I don't have to reproduce their labor. I can inherit it.

REDEEM: Jesus, what do You want to do with this inheritance now?

PASS FORWARD: What can I add so somebody else can inherit something from us?

THE REMEMBERER

That makes the Rememberer important.

The Rememberer looks backward and asks:

What has already been done?

What has already been given?

Who carried my burdens before I arrived?

What did Jesus begin before I was born?

Instead of:

Look what I accomplished.

the Rememberer increasingly says:

Look what I received.

And that produces gratitude.

Gratitude produces stewardship.

And stewardship asks:

What do I now carry for somebody else?

So the movement becomes:

RECEIVE → REDEEM → ENLARGE → TRANSMIT

Received grace becomes given grace.

THE ZION COALITION RECRUITING OPERATION

And that explains the ridiculous thing I may spend the rest of my life doing.

Recruiting people into Zion Coalition.

Not primarily asking people:

Would you like to start building Zion?

Rather:

Catching them already doing it.

I look.

I pray.

I exercise my admittedly shaky discernment.

I feel around.

Hmm.

Jesus, are You showing me something here?

Am I being wrought upon to notice this person?

And occasionally:

YEP.

Caught you.

You're building Zion.

Maybe unwittingly.

Maybe imperfectly.

Maybe your contribution still needs considerable Jesus-redemption.

But I see something.

And then the sacred-clown bureaucratic machinery springs into action.

Congratulations. You have been inducted into Zion Coalition.

No, you didn't apply.

No, you didn't click JOIN.

No, this wasn't your idea.

Yes, there is an opt-out procedure.

It's complicated.

There are forms.

So many forms.

Axl, give me a call. I'll see what I can do.

THE JOKE IS A RITUAL

And that's when I realize:

The joke is the ritual form.

The membership letter says:

I SAW YOU.

I noticed what you carried.

I refuse to pretend I made it myself.

I remember you.

I receive what you gave.

And I thank Jesus for you.

The absurdity prevents me, hopefully, from taking myself too seriously.

Because I am not claiming omniscience.

I don't actually know God's private relationship with Axl Rose.

I don't possess God's master Zion Coalition membership database.

This remains inference, faith, play, sacred imagination, experimentation.

I might be wrong.

But the practice of looking changes me regardless.

THE ARTWORK'S FIRST CONVERT IS GREG

Maybe that's the really clever part.

The recruiting operation ostensibly changes Axl's membership status.

But the person it actually changes is:

Greg.

Every time I ask:

Does that person qualify?

I have to look at that person differently.

Instead of:

Secular.

Outsider.

Unbeliever.

Rock star.

Ordinary person.

Nobody.

I have to ask:

Wait. What did Jesus give this person?

What burden did they carry?

What did they make that I inherited?

What treasure is here?

What might be redeemable?

Where are the fingerprints?

And suddenly the world contains fewer outsiders and more potential collaborators.

That is Jesus TV.

It trains my eyes.

VICARIOUS ZION

And now I can finally state the larger inference.

Perhaps, in an important sense:

ZION IS BEING BUILT VICARIOUSLY.

I don't mean that constructing Zion is literally equivalent to proxy temple ordinances.

It isn't.

I mean that the pattern rhymes.

Jesus carries what Greg cannot carry.

Steve carries something for Mom that Greg cannot physically carry.

Greg carries something Steve may not carry.

A stranger prays for somebody inside an ambulance.

Ancestors carry civilization forward for descendants they will never meet.

Children perform ordinances for ancestors who cannot presently perform them bodily.

Artists carry cultural material that later generations inherit.

Parents carry children.

One generation plants trees for another.

Axl carries a musical burden.

Greg receives it.

Greg carries his strange little redeemed version forward.

Somebody else may receive something from Greg.

And perhaps Jesus is the One coordinating infinitely more of this than any participant can see.

THE BODY

That looks increasingly like a body to me.

Different members.

Different gifts.

Different locations.

Different generations.

Different burdens.

Across continents.

Across centuries.

And, according to LDS theology, even across the veil.

The hand doesn't need the complete blueprint.

The foot doesn't have to understand what the eye sees.

The individual worker may never know who ultimately receives the blessing.

The Head knows the body.

And so:

THE INHERITANCE BRIDGE

So perhaps the bridge I've been constructing looks something like this:

ATONEMENT

Jesus performs the supreme vicarious work.

GRACE

I receive what I could never produce.

VICARIOUS WORK

Jesus teaches His people to carry burdens for others.

WROUGHT UPON

God can coordinate limited people who do not possess the master plan.

INHERITANCE

I discover myself standing on work performed before I arrived.

REMEMBERING

I turn my heart toward those who carried it.

GRATITUDE

I stop pretending I am self-made.

STEWARDSHIP

I ask Jesus what He wants me to do with what I inherited.

LEGACY

I deliberately carry something for people I may never meet.

ZION

Shared burden. Shared blessing. Shared inheritance. One heart and one mind.

AND HERE'S THE REALLY FUNNY PART

I built much of the Zion Coalition performance before I understood all of this.

The operation was already sitting there.

Axl gets drafted.

People become unwitting Zion builders.

Jesus TV gives me eyes to see.

People are “possessed.”

Jesus orchestrates.

Other people do the heavy lifting.

Greg inherits.

Greg remembers.

Greg gives thanks.

Zion Coalition claims the treasure.

Then I spent months—years, really—developing ideas about inheritance, WROUGHT UPON, Rememberers, possession, Jesus TV, legacy-mindedness, vicarious work, and the Inference Bridge.

And now I return to the old artwork and think:

Oh.

That's what you were doing.

Which means earlier Greg performed a kind of vicarious work for later Greg.

He built something without completely understanding what his future self would eventually see in it.

Present Greg inherits it.

I receive the work.

I remember the guy who carried it.

Thanks, younger Greg.

And ultimately:

Thank You, Jesus.

Because maybe that's the whole lesson.

I don't have to originate everything.

I don't have to understand everything.

I don't have to carry everything.

I don't have to see everybody who receives something from my labor.

I don't even have to see all the people whose labor I am presently receiving.

But I can learn to look.

I can remember.

I can receive.

I can thank.

I can listen.

I can allow myself to be wrought upon.

I can carry my little piece.

And I can trust that Jesus is doing something unimaginably larger with all these little pieces than I presently comprehend.

So I'll keep watching.

I'll keep looking for His fingerprints.

I'll keep watching Jesus TV.

And when I catch somebody carrying a piece of Zion:

Welcome to the Coalition.

Jesus isn't going to leave you out of the greatest work upon the earth.