3 Nephi 20

He told his whole huge audience to never stop praying, even when they feel they’ve outgrown the practice. It doesn’t have to be spoken. Thoughts work too.

Then he told them to stand up. (Fortunately he had healed the cripples so they could obey.) He gave everyone bread and wine and told them to eat and drink up. Which was odd, because this time no one had gone to the store to get any. But there was enough for everybody.

“So,” he said, “what do you think? I hope this was refreshing, because I have this elaborate symbol in mind by making you all eat and drink: just like you ingest material into your body and it becomes part of your body, you need to ingest me, my work, my empathy, my creativity, my everything, in a way that it becomes part of your soul.”

The crowd had felt that happening to them already and started to shout hoorays to Jesus, who then launched into an Isaiah-laced New World magnum opus:

I have now completed the checklist God gave me concerning you. But remember Isaiah? Keep reading him. As convoluted as some of you think he is, God really likes his style.

He talked about the Father’s contract with his people, which includes an agreement to ensure that even the specks of Israel scattered around the continents all get the same treatment, both favoritism and high expectations.

This land is your land, as I’ve said. It is in some sense my land too. But I’ve deeded it to you. If the Gentile invaders don’t shape up after getting so much from it, partly by wrecking your habitats and poisoning your cultural wells, then whoever is left of you gets to rise up like the grizzly bears in the north, lumbering into the Gentile encampments, ripping down their tents, kicking their pottery to pieces, and devouring the campers.

You will be the scariest savages ever known.

But I’ll still coo in your ears and get you all, wherever you live, whatever tribes, to come together. As for power and dominance, I’ll make you the mutant bull of the continent, iron horns, brass hooves, trampling whomever you please and raking up their loot with your horns to drop into the Lord’s relief fund for the poor.

Remember what I said about a child playing with a sword, then swinging it if provoked? Imagine now the Gentile countries with a sword hanging over them, swaying, about to drop on any who don’t love me well.

I’m an antidisestablishmentarianist, saith the Lord. I’m bent on establishing my people in this land for perpetuity. Old Jerusalem is obsolete. This will be the New Jerusalem. Heaven’s energy will be here, not there. I’ll be here, not there.

Moses wrote about an upcoming Moses-like prophet to come. That’s me. He said you should listen to him. Me. Any who don’t will be maimed like a butterfly with its wings pulled off.

This wasn’t just Moses, of course. Samuel and many others spoke of me.

And just as I claimed myself as fulfillment of prophecy, claim yourselves: God promised Abraham his seed would bless the whole earth. You’re that seed. Part of it, anyway. That’s why I came here. You have me as part of your birthright. And what do I do? Tell you to knock off sinning because of that birthright. I give you the Spirit to help.

Paradoxically, I’ll pour that Spirit onto the Gentiles too, so they can take charge of the earth and help hoist you from various kinds of poverty. (Hint: not just economic.) Before doing that, I’ll use them to whip you into shape. Then I’ll turn on them and use you to whip them into shape. Turnabout is fair play, as they say.

I’ll recall my promises, no matter how distant in the past. One of those is to give Jews their land forever. Once they hear about me, the best of them will start praying with my name as an imprimatur or dedication.

Their social scouts will see everything clearly. And they’ll sing about what they’ve seen. Then they get Jerusalem back. More songs, then. Make sure you sing, everybody (they’ll sing), because God’s soothing his kids, giving them a big city, showing off his muscles to intimidate other lands, and broadcasting his concepts to the world. (The latter includes the idea that he and I are inseparable.)

When all this happens, it will constitute the fulfillment of these Isaiah passages:

Wake up. Get up. Stop being so sluggish. Put your best clothes on, stretch, have a good breakfast. Because no dirty person will come in your door.

That means you have to be clean yourself, Zion. (May I call you that? It’s a pet name.) And, by the way, that necklace is too tight—it’ll cut off the blood flow to your brain, which you’ll need more and more.

Someone once stole you for slavery. I’m stealing you back. Someday you’ll all recognize me, though now it may look like I’m some random slave thief.

And when I’m acknowledged for who I am, someone will start up that old song that goes: You’ve got beautiful feet because you’re walking with good news. What is that news? Peace. Life. Security. A non-hypothetical God.

And then the background singers come in with: Move on, get down, wash up—you’re the dishwashers, after all.

Okay, I’m playing a little with you. But you’re supposed to get out of dirty situations if you’re carting God’s dishes around. On the way out God will back you up.

My personal servant, my head footman, does wisely by me. He’s headed for the top of my estate. Maybe inheriting the whole thing. Yes, he’s homely and sometimes frumpy, with an exaggerated look of anguish sometimes. But he’s going to spray the world with knowledge as a gardener sprays the hedges.

That’s all I’m after, God says. When I get it, I’ll take a break.