A General Conference Odyssey post for the Women’s Meeting of October 1980.
In Boyd K. Packer’s talk, The Circle of Sisters, he mentions the story of Nehemiah, in the Old Testament. It makes me curious to see how Nehemiah’s story relates to the Relief Society, and so I did a little research.
Nehemiah’s Wall
The Jews have been carted off to Babylon and Esther has become the queen by this time. Nehemiah is the cupbearer or the guy who tastes the king’s food first. At any rate, he is very trusted by the king.
Jeremiah had prophesied (2 Chr. 36:21) that the king’s heart would eventually be softened to the Jews and allow them to rebuild Jerusalem. So, after much prayer and fasting, Nehemiah asks the king’s permission to begin rebuilding the wall around the city.
King Artaxerxes must really like him because he says yes. So, Nehemiah goes, with some families. They pass through the various kingdoms before getting to Jerusalem, with letters from the king allowing them passage. Sanballat and Tobiah are both from passing kingdoms, enemies of Judah.
At first, Sanballat and Tobiah threaten them. Nehemiah and these families ignore them and begin building the wall. Their threatenings become more violent, so Nehemiah outfits his people with weapons, so they are fixing the wall with one hand and holding their weapons in the other.
Seeing that that isn’t working, Sanballat begins sending letters; invitations to come down to the village and perhaps have a beer (or something like that). He sends up to five letters, each being a little more compelling than the other.
One day, Nehemiah runs into Shemaiah who insists that he enter the temple for safety, all in good faith. But that would have been blasphemous, and Nehemiah knew it. Realizing this, he also realized that Shemaiah had been hired by Sanballat and Tobiah to lure him into sin.
Letters continue, along with their fearful threatenings, until finally the wall is completed and can now cut off any future invaders. At this point, Nehemiah is granted the right to invite families to come and live in Jerusalem, but only if there is a genealogy of their families showing their right to priesthood.
Okay, now we have to figure out how this story fits in with Relief Society.
Relief Society
The obvious symbolism is how the wall is our protection from the world. This cannot be taken too lightly. We are a circle of sisters, or more likely, we must act like a wall of sisters guarding one another against temptation.
All the various ways Sanballat and Tobias use to trick Nehemiah into exposing himself is very interesting and is likely even more significant than the wall. Looking at our day, what are the many ways Satan tries to pull us away from our work in “building our wall?”
Fear is a tactic only used by Satan. Perhaps today we call it shaming. But if we are truly about the work of the Lord, recognizing Satan for who he is and what he attempts to entice us to do, do we have reason to fear or feel shame?
No.
Sometimes, we need to feel the confidence of “owning” our religion, even as an armor against whatever the world can throw at us.
Elder Packer tells us, in this talk, that sisters have a great work to do. We are meant to build Relief Society for ourselves and for our families. Do we see Relief Society as a protection from the world? He says,
“Do not allow yourselves to be organized under another banner. Do not run to and fro seeking some cause to fulfill your needs. Your cause stands under the authority of the priesthood of Almighty God; that is the consummate, the ultimate power extant upon this earth!”
And then he concludes with, “We ask our Sisters of the Relief Society never to forget that they are a unique organization in the whole world, for they were organized under the inspiration of the Lord. … No other woman’s organization in all the earth has had such a birth.”
He’s talking about us, sisters. We are the wall around our homes. We have priesthood power to protect our families with our goodness, our spirituality, and our ability to recognize, and guard against, Satan. Will we let anyone pull us off of our cause, the cause for Jesus Christ?
Finally, I think it’s interesting that families with their genealogies were only admitted into the city. What does that say about doing our own Family History work? And can I just add that at one time in Relief Society’s history, our name was synonymous with Genealogy work?
Genealogy is that much a part of Relief Society work.
Additional posts:
Had they only looked up Marilyn Nielson