METAPHYSICAL MEETING, July 16, 2012
Contents
| - Topic | |
| - Call to the meeting | |
| - Readings | |
| - Participant contribution A | |
| - Participant contribution B | |
| - Participant contribution C | |
| - Participant contribution D | |
| - Participant contribution E |
Topic
First three of the Ten Commandments
Call to the meeting
You are invited to our church’s next metaphysical meeting discussing the first three commandments (see Exodus 20) on July 16, 2012, at 7:30 p.m. in our church’s reading room.
In your study of the first three commandments consider that they all focus on God: the only God, no graven images and not taking God’s name in vain. Also recall Ms. Eddy’s comment that the first commandment is her favorite text.
- First Commandment: Consider the unifying idea of one God and the story in Mark 5:9 where the spirit of man was possessed with many devils.
- Second Commandment: Is it possible to represent the ineffable and intangible with something material?
- Third Commandment: Why is a name important? What part does a name play as a description or part of an individual?
You are welcome to attend in person or via teleconferencing.
Readings
Ex 20:1-7
S&H 547:23-30
S&H 340:15-30
Participant contribution A
I really like the First Commandment because it is so all-encompassing. It brings a sense of calm.
Participant contribution B
Introduction:
The Ten Commandments are divine statues that define the nature of God and His idea, man. Obedience to spiritual law gives one authority. It uses the “thou shalt not” to empower right, productive, progressive action. The result is the dominion that God gave man when man was created (see 307:25 The).
1) First Commandment
I have a lot to say about the First Commandment, but I’ve condensed it down to a few thoughts about Principle and Mind:
Principle. You have no principles, laws, nor rules, except those which derive from divine Principle. You are not subject to so-called material health laws, economic laws, social laws, or physical laws, rather subject only to God’s law. Why? Because there is only one Principle, one Lawgiver, and that Principle is good. Because God, as divine Love, frees you from the impositions of error or multiple, conflicting, material laws in any form. Divine Principle is the only law we truly obey. It is the foundation of the rules of Christian Science practice.
Principle has nothing to do with heavy-handed enforcement of laws, rules, or discipline. A key component of Principle is Love — the two go hand-in-hand and are not complete without each other. The test of all discipline and law is whether it is the highest expression of divine Love. Conversely, the test of all love is whether it embraces the ethics, integrity, and morality of divine Principle.
Mind. Thou shalt have no other consciousness than the reflection of infinite, divine Mind. Divine Mind is always conscious and we reflect that consciousness. It is never oblivious, never wandering, never vacant. Divine Mind is never lost. We have that Mind which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5). Nothing can separate us from it. Mind is always cognizant and forever aware of God’s magnificent creation, and nothing else. Divine Mind is always aware of you, and by reflection, you cannot lose sight of Mind or its idea. Mind is limitless intelligence.
Unity is based on one Mind. With only one Mind, there is no divisiveness. There can be no human opinions, but a great willingness to work together harmoniously. This absolute unity heals schisms between nations, in our government, in churches, and in families. We’re all working on the side of God. There is no other side.
2) Second Commandment
The Hebrew word for “idol” means “good for nothing” or “thing of naught”. One of the definitions of the Greek word for “idol” is “phantom.” If an idol is “good for nothing” or a phantom, why would you waste your resources trying to make one or your time trying to worship something that doesn’t exist?
There are some very practical problems with idolatry. First, if an image of God is required in order to worship Him, then He loses His omnipresence, the fact that He is everywhere at the same time. He becomes a local deity, available to only a few people and only when they’re all together with the idol. Besides, how would we know what God looks like to make the idol?
Idolatry is “the giving of absolute religious devotion and ultimate trust to something that is not God” (Webster’s Unabridged Online). Note that this is more inclusive than the worship of statues. It includes anything to which one attributes more power than to God. What are some of the prominent idols of today? Money, sex, personal power, one’s car or home, intemperate ingestion of food, sloth, television, technological gadgets, computer games, military might, technology, material solutions, church buildings and traditions, and any good activity that is done immoderately.
The Second Commandment tells us not to “bow down” to these idols. “Don’t bow down” is a simple way of saying, “Don’t do obeisance.” My third favorite book after the Bible and Science and Health, Webster, defines “obeisance” as “a self-humbling gesture in confession of defeat or subjection.” I certainly don’t want to admit defeat or to be subject to something that God didn’t create.
There’s a little book by Timothy Keller that’s a real eye-opener with regard to the Second Commandment. It’s Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters. It was reviewed in the Sentinel earlier this year and is well worth reading.
3) Third Commandment
The idea of God’s name has a logical progression from Moses (Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain), to Christ Jesus (Hallowed be thy name), to Mary Baker Eddy (Adorable One).
“Name,” when used to identify God in the Bible, means:
- the power and presence of God;
- the essential nature of God;
- the manifestation of the character of God;
- the full disclosure of God and His character.
When we do things “in God’s name,” it signifies that we trust Him, hope in Him, sing praises to Him, rejoice in Him, and love Him. These responses to God’s name indicate our relationship with Him, and show that it is a relationship available to everybody — no intercessor is needed. One’s relationship with God is intimate — you might say that we’re on a first name basis with God.
In hallowing, or keeping sacred, God’s name, we are acknowledging His omnipresence and omnipotence and refusing to accept any characteristic that is unlike Him. We are recognizing man as God’s complete idea. We are reverencing the nature of God in everything we do.
Another aspect of honoring God’s name is adoring Him. This is not an emotional love. Mrs. Eddy writes that the “loftiest adoration” (16:1) is prayer that heals and distinguishes between sinless Truth and sinful sense. To achieve this lofty adoration, we must understand God and work to continue our progress in that direction. Truly adoring God implies an insatiable desire to understand Him. This impulsion leads to healing.
This commandment is particularly applicable today in the area of so-called “holy war,” a particularly egregious manner in which God’s name is taken in vain. And, don’t think this is confined to those who say they are fighting in the name of Allah. Any use of God’s name to justify social or political action is using His name in vain. It takes tremendous trust in the Almighty, understanding thoroughly that He is almighty, to seek spiritual solutions to societal issues.
The great promise of obeying the Third Commandment is found in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: “...whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).
Participant contribution C
1) First Commandment: Consider the unifying idea of one God and the story in Mark 5:9.
It means putting God first; the Daily Lift (http://christianscience.com) said to thinks of nothing more than you do of God.
In Mark 5:9, a man is living in a tomb, unable to be tied down because he had an “unclean spirit”. He always cried and cut himself. When Jesus saw him, the man came and worshiped him. He said, “What do I have to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God?” Then Jesus said, “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.” He asked the spirit his name and he said “My named Legion: for we are many.” Then Jesus sent the unclean spirits into a herd of pigs and the pigs drowned (2,000).
Dictionary definition of “god”: the one supreme being, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs, an image of a deity; an idol.
But, we can’t have more than one God, one Spirit. There is no “unclean spirit” if God is Spirit. Spirit is divine Principle. Spirit is “that only which is perfect.” (S&H 594:20)
John 4:24 “God is spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
God is everywhere, as we read in Psalms 139:7-12, which begins: “Wither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heave, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.”
2) Second Commandment: Is it possible to represent the ineffable and intangible with something material?
No, In the Glossary of Science and Health, the definition of “gods” includes: “God is one god, infinite and perfect, and cannot become finite and imperfect.” (587:17-18)
II Samuel 7:22 reads: “Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”
Idols are irrational, as we read in Acts 17:29-30: “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.”
3) Third commandment: Why is a name important? What part does a name play as a description or part?
A name gives us power. If we know someone’s name we can call them, order them to do something, or ask them to do something.
God’s name is “Holy” ( Isaiah 57:15), and “endureth for ever” (Psalms 135:13).
Participant contribution D
First Commandment: Consider the unifying idea of one God
In the Bible, we read (Psalms 5:1,2, & 3): “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation, Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up.”
We worship only one God. God, as “Mind, is the only I Am, or Us.” (S&H, 591:16) We honor only one God, not many gods or idols.
Acts 10:34: “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.”
God loves his beloved idea, man, and all of us.
In the spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, Mrs. Eddy writes, “And Love is reflected in love.” (S&H 17:7) God loves and cares for all of His creation.
In the Bible, we read (I Cor. 3:9): “For ye are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” God establishes us as perfect in His spiritual kingdom.
2) Second Commandment: Is it possible to represent the ineffable and intangible with something material?
Here are dictionary definitions of ineffable and intangible:
Ineffable: Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words: “ineffable beauty”; too sacred to be uttered; something that cannot be expressed or defined in words: ineffable happiness
Intangible: Unable to be touched or grasped; not having physical presence: “cyberspace or anything else so intangible”. Syn. Impalpable – untouchable
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, “Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods with the actual spiritual law, the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. If Christian Science dishonors human belief, it honors spiritual understanding; and the one Mind only is entitled to honor.” The marginal heading is “Belief and understanding”. (183:26-32)
One of the spiritual lessons I learned in my high school Sunday School class was that the table is a spiritual representation of a divine idea. It is a spiritual idea. We are looking through a spiritual lens as we view God’s creation. In Science and Health we read, “The only intelligence or substance of a thought, a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it.” (S&H 508: 5)
3) Third Commandment: Why is a name important? What part does a name play as a description or part of an individual?
“The attempt to mix matter and Mind, to work by means of both animal magnetism and divine power, is literally saying, Have we not in thy name cast out devils, and done many wonderful works?” (Miscellaneous Writings 175:28)
A name is important to identify a person, place, or object. We live in a life where labels are very important. It’s important not to identify people or things with the wrong label. We do not want to see imperfection in our world, but perfection. Perfect God and perfect man. Perfect cause and perfect effect.
As we work in the primary grade Sunday School class, we work to see spiritual qualities expressed in any individual. Principle expresses order and harmony, for example. We correct our view of man with a spiritual view. Our names are written in heaven. “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)
Participant E
1) First Commandment
The first commandment reminds me of the second verse of the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be thy name,” for which Science and Health gives this spiritual interpretation: “Adorable One.” That Oneness is a central feature of God, it allows no other existence, no other intelligence, no other knowledge, no other activity, no other future, than God, good. And this unity of God, good, and His ideas embraces all of us, all of the church, all mankind, and everything in the universe.
That puts Spirit at the heart of fundamental being, of divine laws. It puts matter-based laws and rationale out of consideration because they do not enter into the permanent good and progress that is natural to Soul, divine Love. Principle is One, not many.
When we see the Oneness of God everywhere, we don’t look elsewhere for satisfaction or for our future. We see church in its spiritual light, the “structure of Truth and Love,” which embraces the entire community of spiritual ideas that is the true man. Understanding this, we bring into our present experience the human manifestation of church, that “institution, which affords proof of its utility,” etc. (S&H page 587)
When we follow the First Commandment, we also follow all of the others, which are all derivatives of the first.
2) Second Commandment
From the human perspective, it’s easy to find worldly symbols or representatives of God. But God is infinite Spirit, which is dimensionless. Infinity is not a very large number, and eternity is not a very long time. In the Science of Mind, where divine Principle, Love, governs at every moment, we deal with the timeless now, and the unmeasurable all. And that’s where we and our church reside.
We cannot truly build a physical church that fully represents God, it’s merely a human tool, albeit a useful one. That church cannot be populated by a limited number of individuals, or by too many to be workable. It’s already complete as the working of Principle and the presence of Soul, illimitable Truth. Describing church any other way places limitations on human thinking, and these become items upon which we concentrate, we try to fix them, to manipulate them, and in this way they become little idols, or items of worship.
The counter fact is that the church belongs to God. All that needs to be done will be done by God, and all of that will indeed be done. Our duty is to see that we don’t carve off false responsibilities for ourselves, that in particular we set the human personality aside and claim our place as the recipient of the Christ, of the divine Mind, which brings us to the realization of what God has already in place, has already done. That’s the permanence of our church that exists wholly in Soul.
3) Third Commandment
Using God’s name irreverently or referring to Him jovially in our daily activities is counterproductive because it implies we aren’t holding thought steadfastly to Truth. We may be referring here to relatively minor events of the day, but Science and Health reminds us that “God demands of man every hour, in which to work out the problem of being.” (261:32) We are never let off the hook, so to speak, in our responsibility to God.
Actually, it’s the other way around. We are never for a microsecond anything other than God’s spiritual expression, His likeness. On that basis, we are most productive when we “Hold though steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true.” (S&H 261:4) In fact, we really cannot be any other way.
But humanly we need to work earnestly to realize this. And when we do, we can be confident that God, divine Mind, will direct all of our steps. He will also look after our church.
I see the third commandment here as an instruction never to relax thinking into a material, humanistic, intellectual, or physical mode that detracts from realizing divine Truth in our experience. That’s not necessarily easy, and constant endeavor is needed to realize it, but it doesn’t alter the divine facts of ever-present good, God. The purity of Spirit cannot be broken or divided, nor can be ever absent or ineffective.