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METAPHYSICAL MEETING, March 16, 2009
Contents
| - Topic | |
| - Call to the meeting | |
| - Opening readings | |
| - Member contribution A | |
| - Member contribution B | |
| - Member contribution C |
Topic
To improve our ability, individually and collectively, to bless our communities.
Call to the meeting
The next forward step in our prayer journey will focus on our communities. We'll meet in our Reading Room on Monday, March 16th, at 7:30 to share our ideas. This is part of our on-going project:
“to gain a deeper understanding of Mrs. Eddy's discovery and our ability, individually and collectively, to practice spiritual healing, bless our communities, and revitalize our congregations and Sunday Schools [and Reading Rooms.]”
Here are some questions that might prove helpful as we prepare:
1) What is community?
2) What is our role in that community, however it is defined?
3) How can we participate in and support our community effectively and prayerfully?
4) How does our active practice of Christian Science benefit our community?
Suggested study references:
The Sermon on the Mount
The Message for 1901, especially p 31, lines 14-18.
We will follow the same format as our previous meetings: brief readings from the facilitator, silent prayer, individual sharing of (perhaps written) treatments and remarks, and general discussion.
Opening readings
From the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy.
Member contribution A
To bless our community, we must first define what our community is. In human terms, it could be our family, church, town, county, state, nation, continent, hemisphere, planet, solar system, galaxy, or even our universe! I didn’t want to limit my consideration of the topic. We feel close to some of our community’s members and not so close to others. We recognize apparently unfair distinctions between people and we want to help make it a better place.
But, what is our true community? Is it the collection of people who live in the same municipality? who go to our church? who share our political views? To me, whoever we embrace in our thought is our community, whether it be local, regional, or global.
It seems that often we have an “us” and “them” thought about the community. How do we get “them” to come to “us”? How should we go about serving “them,” reaching out to “them”? This builds an idea of separation, when in reality, there is no separation in the Kingdom of Heaven. It builds an idea of different-ness, of possibly conflicting goals. If the Church of Christ, Scientist is the Church Universal (and it is), then we must see the community as part of us, not distinct from us.
Sometimes it is said that the definition of “church” in Science and Health has two parts:
- the spiritual part: “the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle”; and
- the “practical” part: “that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.”
So, what is the practical good that church does in the community? It
- proves its usefulness to the community
- elevates the race
- enables spiritual understanding and demonstration of divine Science
The result of these three activities is the eradication of error and healing the sick.
How do we prove our usefulness to the community? I think we need to start with the reason our Leader founded our church: “to reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing”. She expected us to love our neighbor whoever and wherever she/he is (primitive Christianity) and to heal them, thereby enlarging our memberships. This is obeying Jesus’ command to his disciples: to go into the world and preach the gospel. He promised that those who believed the preaching, those who heard the disciples, would cast out devils, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, be unhurt by poison, and heal the sick. By preaching the gospel to our community, we are providing it with the tools to heal the sick. This promise was confirmed in the lives of the Apostles. We should expect that those hearing our preaching, in whatever form it takes, will also be enabled as healers. This would be the best service we could provide to our community.
In my treatment for this topic, I thought I’d touch briefly on several of the ideas that would seem to separate us from the community.
1. Nobody knows we’re here. God knows about His entire creation. It is whole and complete. God’s ideas are aware of His creation. There is no lack of awareness, no mental fogginess. The Christ is present as a light and all are attracted to that light. It cannot be hidden. I know that the community reflects the spiritual discernment of God without prejudice. Nothing can hide Truth.
2. Our neighbors want us to go away. “Thou shalt not covet.” “Love is reflected in love.” We, too, must not covet, for example, a large congregation or lots of money. Our needs are met by God and by God alone. There are no conflicts in the Kingdom of Heaven. God is working in us, all of us, for His good pleasure.
3. Other churches do community service, so should we so we’re noticed. We are reflecting God’s activity, which leads to right activity on the human scene. We fully reflect the transitional qualities in the second degree of the translation of mortal mind: humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance. We are constantly and consistently reflecting these qualities and our community is benefitted by them.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35, 37-39 in)
Member contribution B
I believe that reaching out to the community has everything to do with the impulsion to care at the risk of personal discomfort. It entails breaking patterns of what we are used to doing and cultivating a desire to follow Jesus. It involves overcoming the stigma of being associated with Christian Science. Being successful in this endeavor has everything to do with our motives. When I think back to some of my earlier encounters with people, it often felt like I was trying to meet my assigned quota for converting people to Christian Science: 10 the first year of church membership and 25 each year thereafter. Kidding aside, we have to ask ourselves, do we really love our neighbor? Are we stirred to be compassionate by the injustice we come into contact with? Do we care enough to drop our own agenda?
Christian Science is revolutionary. When Peter and John met the cripple at the Temple gate called Beautiful, they could have acted according to convention and simply given an alms, which they apparently did not have, or they could have bypassed the man. There are many other examples in the Bible where apostles and prophets encountered situations and could have simply behaved consistent with the status quo, but were impelled to step out of traditional mores. This is best illustrated in Jesus parable of the Good Samaritan. The divine demand is present in such situations, but are we responding to it?
Several months ago, I took my dog out for a run. Along the way, I stopped at the Post Office to mail a package. Inside the Post Office, sitting on the floor and leaning against the counter, was a woman who was ill and too weak to stand. I took my place in line and overheard the conversation about what was being done for her. She called someone from her cell phone, but it was unclear whether or not that person was coming to get her.. She spoke Spanish and there was little comprehension as to her condition. Another woman, a customer, who spoke only English, knelt down to attend to her and gave her cup of water. Finally the management called 911.
At the same time, I was struggling with what I should do. I did manage to know intermittent prayers, but I was somewhat surprised that the small gathering came so quickly to a consensus to call for paramedics. Was there anything I could do? Once my business was concluded, I left the scene and continued on my route as I heard the approach of sirens in the distance.
I recount this incident to illustrate my mental struggle as a Christian Scientist. I have had private encounters where my response was more forthcoming, but the public arena was a challenge to my comfort zone. What lessons are to be learned from this incident? Was the challenge to me to overcome my dismay at being inconvenienced in order to drop my agenda and show more compassion? Am I acknowledging and being open each day to opportunities for employing my spiritual understanding?
The premise for this outward focus is our growing recognition that there is something much more at stake than living “the good life.” We have to realize to some degree that “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” (1 Cor. 3:19) and be willing to step outside of it. Furthermore, we have to realize that the Christ comes to all mankind directly, that each of us is drawn to the Christ for redemption and transformation. There is no intermediary between God and man; the practitioner or healer and the patient both go to the Christ. As Christian Scientists, we are not charged with dispensing the Truth to the world. We all come humbly to the Christ for healing, even when we pray for others.
Was this why Mary Baker Eddy chose to open the chapter, Christian Science Practice with the story of Simon the Pharisee and Mary Magdelan? Mrs. Eddy could have recounted any one of her own dramatic healings, such as the one of the 18-month-old boy who suffered from a disease of the bowels to the point where he was reduced to a skeleton. The healing was so immediate and complete that “all the symptoms changed at once” and he called for his toys. (Christian Healer, p. 79) Mrs. Eddy draws a parallel between the inclination of Mary Magdelan and the true Christian healer: Do we incline ourselves with “genuine repentance, … broken hearts, expressed by meekness and human affection”? In other words, do we, as caring Christians on behalf of others, importune at the feet of the Christ for that Truth the stills all demanding, or do we behave as Simon, professing to hold the market on Truth and dispensing it to whom we may?
Perhaps you have heard of this quizzical definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Place this definition in the context of Jesus demand for repentance. This word is a translation of the Greek metanoyah, meaning “to think differently,” “to have another mind,” “to feel contrition and desire to amend.” (Bernice Shotwell)
What does Mrs. Eddy mean when she paraphrases Paul and states:
Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate. They must renounce aggression, oppression and the pride of power. Christianity, with the crown of Love upon her brow, must be their queen of life. (S&H p. 451)
Let’s take a moment or two in our busy day and stop the whirring mechanism of time long enough to glimpse “the ghastly farce of material existence” and, in its place, Love’s unrelenting promise of purpose and palpable presence in every byway or boulevard.
(Some of the above concepts have been borrowed from Dick Davenport’s lectures and a Journal article, “Our Posture in the World,” by Thomas McClain, Dec. 1971)
Member contribution C
See the article, Church Building in Christian Science, published in the Christian Science Sentinel, Colume 11, page 224, 1908.
Also, Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 127, lines 7-19.
