You just can't not smile when he's smiling at you. And he's always smiling at you. But I wrote this note to pay tribute to President Steward in a way other than his smile. He taught me a wonderful lesson one day about standing up for your testimony.
In my younger years, I liked to sing. I still like to sing but I'm not nearly as good as I used to be. A lot of people asked me to sing at funerals and weddings. I got a lot of practice. On this particular occasion, I had been asked to sing at a funeral.
It was the oddest funeral I had ever attended. There was nothing odd for anyone who was a casual observer but this particular funeral was odd because, even though the deceased had never set foot inside an LDS chapel and even though the entire congregation was comprised of members that were, at best, mildly antagonistic towards my church, I was singing, another member of the church was playing the organ and President Steward was preaching the sermon.
As it turns out the deceased, a pillar of the community, was the father in law to one of our members and she had been tasked to arrange the funeral. Nobody in the congregation was aware of the fact, especially the two or three preachers and ministers that I saw sitting among the pews but, this funeral was brought to you by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The funeral progressed as most do. Hymns were sung, prayers were said, eulogies were offered. I sang, the sister in our church played, and then President Steward got up to preach. The words of his sermon were completely appropriate...if you were attending an LDS funeral. He chose, for the context of his sermon, the Plan of Salvation.
Other churches also believe in the Plan of Salvation. It's just that our church has a whole lot of detail that other churches seem to leave out. When he started his remarks, I looked at the organist and she looked at me. I wondered if my face was as white as hers and I whispered to her, "he's gonna water this down....isn't he?"
My question was shortly answered. President Steward had no intention of watering it down. There was no, "milk before meat" here, he gave them the milk, the meat, the entire course, soup to nuts. As far as I could see he left nothing out. I even noticed a few quotes from The Book of Mormon and The Doctrine and Covenants.
This event took place during an especially harsh anti-Mormon upheaval in our area. Just about every church was preaching against our church from their pulpits. A few of the preachers that were speaking out against us were out in the congregation. It was a bad time. Several members reported that their kids had been "uninvited" to parties when it was learned that they were LDS. A lot of people had friends in the community and groups from which they were shunned or ignored.
One would think that, given the times, a prudent man would try to 'go with the flow'; try and find the common ground between our religions and not stir the pot so to speak. And yet, here was President Steward whacking away at that hornet's nest of religious differences like it was a pinata.
The more President Steward talked, the more I prepared myself to see one or more of those preachers leap to their feet, denounce President Steward and call for his immediate expulsion from the stand. Since my song was already over, I would have gladly left then except I had ridden to the funeral with a friend. I silently resolved to never again accept a ride from President Steward.
As you can imagine, when the funeral ended and we were all still intact, I was intensely anxious to get the heck out of there but President Steward was determined that we should also attend the graveside ceremony. It's hard to argue with the man when he's smiling. I was really beginning to not like that smile so much.
At the graveside, President Steward and I were on one side of the grave and three preachers from other congregations were on the other side. I saw them whisper to each other and one of them pointed surreptitiously in our direction. I cast a glance about for tar and feathers. There were a couple of fresh graves being dug in the distance and I wondered if I was going to get one all to myself or if I would have to share with President Steward.
The one thing I was grateful for was that President Steward is one of the few men on the planet that I am able to hide behind. I took advantage of his size and slipped behind him. Every once in a while, I would peek from behind President Steward at the fidgeting preachers on the other side of the grave.
Sure enough, the second "amen" was said over the grave, those three preachers made a beeline in our direction. One of the men looked at President Steward and in a confrontational tone asked, "Sir, at which college did you obtain your degree in Divinity?"
President Steward simply looked at the man and smiled, "I don't have a degree in Divinity", he replied.
There was a very long pause during which I shut my eyes tightly and cringed. "Here it comes", I thought.
Then the preacher grabbed President Stewards hand and started to shake it vigorously.
"Well we ought to ordain you right here and now!", he said. "I have never felt the Spirit as strongly as I felt it when you preached that Sermon. You, sir, have a calling from God"
Whenever I feel like I want to water down my testimony, I think of President Steward...and I smile.
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