Sunday, March 3rd, 2019 Roundtable
How Did Jesus Heal the Sick?
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Christ Jesus
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayers
Goodness never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing.
— from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 165
We, to-day, in this class-room, are enough to convert the world if we are of one Mind; for then the whole world will feel the influence of this Mind; as when the earth was without form, and Mind spake and form appeared.
— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 279: 27-2
Discussion points
“Choke these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of conspirators against health, happiness, and success.” (S&H 405) Little children know instinctively that well-being abides and well-being abounds, harmony abides and harmony abounds, perfection abides and perfection abounds, and that there is no room for anything else in the universe but the Presence of God that abides and abounds forever.
Two little children may fuss or fight together, but scarcely two minutes later, they are sharing the same lollipop, because little children feel the mood of disharmony as so uncomfortable that they will instinctively, instantaneously repent of it, naturally “choke” it, and choose better-feeling thoughts in its place. This is also because little children know joy, are joy, and live joy, the fruit of the Spirit, the well-being that alignment with God brings.
Little children feel the disorientation of misalignment in a pronounced, penetrating way, as a chastening more intense than that which the prodigal son felt when in the “far country,” far away from the Father.
Thinking the wrong thought over and over again — as adults oftentimes do — allows that thought to mature into a belief. This belief, persisted in, then attracts other wrong thoughts related to it, confirming its “reality.” At last, this belief matures into an inverted kind of understanding that the Bible calls “understanding darkened.” The haste with which little children banish misaligning thoughts comes from the honesty with which they sense the apparent “absence” of God that results from such thinking, leading them to automatically, unconsciously follow Mrs. Eddy’s inspired command to “stand porter at the door of thought,” to make sure this insidious thought-process is disallowed at the very beginning (S&H 392).
In Mrs. Eddy’s stupendous “An Allegory” (Mis. 323), the porter is standing on one foot, completely off-balance, his faculties of discrimination divided, rendering him unable to separate truth from error. Thus can an assertive wrong thought overwhelm the clueless, complacent porter as it gains entry into the promised land of Soul, beating its drum of self-insistence as the armies of the kingdom of personal sense occupy more and more of the sacred land over which God had long ago given man dominion.
Thus, I need to treat any thought — no matter how small, no matter how slight — that takes me away from that feeling of centeredness in Life, Truth, and Love as something so disordering that I immediately stop thinking it and constructively replace it, drown it out in flood-tides of spiritual thoughts: Christ-centered, Christ-elevating thoughts, thoughts of gratitude, of appreciation, mighty passages of scripture, psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, angelic thoughts of divine empowerment. This is the essence of Christ’s teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, which is God’s basic training manual on the “warfare with one’s self” (Mis. 118).
— from “Choke the errors in their early stages” by Parthens, from the November 2014 Love is the Liberator, page 23
Golden Text — “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” — Christ Jesus (John 14 : 6)
470 — WATCH and remember that, if you do not handle error in the first instance, it will handle you in the second, as the textbook says. This were no reason for discouragement, but a plea for watchfulness. The struggle to control evil thoughts is not a fight as mortal mind conceives of a fight; it is the effort to realize their nothingness as well as God’s power to dislodge them. It is the endeavor to realize your capacity to reflect God’s thoughts only.
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
Poem — Thy Way by Max Dunaway
Forum post — Renounce the hidden things by Bruce from NJ
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
— Luke 4:18 from citation 2 in the Bible portion of this week’s lesson
O Christian Scientist, thou of the church of the new-born; awake to a higher and holier love for God and man; put on the whole armor of Truth; rejoice in hope; be patient in tribulation, — that ye may go to the bed of anguish, and look upon this dream of life in matter, girt with a higher sense of omnipotence; and behold once again the power of divine Life and Love to heal and reinstate man in God’s own image and likeness, having ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism.’”
— from “Sermon” in The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy, page 14
11 And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him.
12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.
13 And he left them,
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread,
15 And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.
16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread.
17 And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them,
18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?
19 When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.
20 And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.
21 And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?
— Mark 8 : 11-13 (to ,), 14 (to ,), 15-17 (to 2nd ,), 18-21 from citation 3 in the Bible portion of this week’s lesson
Leaven of the Pharisees
Matthew 16: Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
One definition of leaven from Webster’s 1828 is: Any thing which makes a general change in the mass. It generally means something which corrupts or depraves that with which it is mixed.
This morning nothing seemed more comparable to that leaven than the leaven of the fraud of materia medica and the pharmaceutics that continue to strip man of his higher intelligence and his reliance on GOD.
The Richard Oakes’ book, “Mary Baker Eddy’s Six Days of Revelation,” page 321 Mrs Eddy warned that the time might come when medical thought might be so organized that it would make the practice of Christian Science almost impossible.”
“The remedy given was not the counter power of Christian Science churches, but:” ‘When (that) time comes I want my students to take every means possible to make Science and Health available to the whole world.’
If I take the Truth and sincerely live it, someone might ask what I read (as I have been asked before) so that I can point them to Science and Health with confidence that if whomever is sincere they too will be blessed with this freeing Truth!!
— Forum post by Florence Roberts — 3/31/2014
Beware of the Leaven:
Matthew 16:
5. And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.
6. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
“Leaven” From the 1828 Dictionary: Any thing which makes a general change in the mass. It generally means something which corrupts or depraves that with which it is mixed.
The idea is that leaven “passes secretly and silently through the mass of dough.”
Jesus was instructing his disciples to be on guard when hearing the doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who espoused the inventions/traditions of men and lacked the spiritual sense of the Scriptures. He compares their doctrine to leaven because they sought secretly to “infuse their notions into the minds of men; and which, when imbibed, spread their infection, and made men sour, morose, rigid, and ill-natured, and swelled and puffed them up with pride and vanity” (Gill’s Exposition of the Bible). He advises his disciples to look about them, to watch, lest they should be infected with them.
What a great lesson to be watchful of the pervasive and secret workings of animal magnetism. The disciples at first did not understand his meaning.
— Forum post by Elizabeth from GA — 02/22/2017
Thank you for this post and thankfully Christ Jesus gives the antidote in Luke 13:20 And again he said, Where unto shall I liken the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
Mary Baker Eddy explains this in Science and Health; 117:29-5 Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human doctrines. His parable of the “leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened,” impels the inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ and its spiritual interpretation, — an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.
118:11-25 In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spiritual laws emanating from the invisible and infinite power and grace. The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically presented as three measures of meal, — that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws. This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.
“as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.” is a beautiful idea to me because it implies the material is no more and the conversion to the spiritual, prefect, child of God.
— reply by Mike from NY — 02/22/2017
When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible. The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus.
— Citation 1 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 180 : 25-30
Final Readings
Pet bird’s broken leg healed (1883-1888)
Mrs. Eddy was very fond of pets, especially birds …. On one occasion she had a little canary named Benny, and every morning he waited until Mrs. Eddy came down into the room, and would then burst into a flood of song. When she went to the Association meeting in Chicago, during her week’s absence Benny never sang, but the day that the telegram was received, notifying the household of her return, he suddenly again burst into song.
On one occasion another little bird named May was given her, and in her spare moments, Mrs. Eddy would allow the birds to hop freely about the room. One morning someone in moving a heavy arm-chair rolled it on one of May’s tiny feet. Mrs. Eddy picked up the bird, whose broken foot was hanging by a shred of skin, and laid her gently back in the cage. A few moments later a lady visitor called and while conversing with Mrs. Eddy suddenly stopped and said: “What is the matter with that bird?” indicating Benny, who was singing and chirping, flying to May’s cage and back to them, and making a great noise. Mrs. Eddy replied by asking the visitor to look in May’s cage, when the lady said: “Why, this bird has a broken foot!” Mrs. Eddy said: “Benny is sympathizing with her, and wants to tell us about it. But never mind, come back in three days.” The lady did return at that time, and was amazed and delighted to see little May perfectly well, hopping about her cage and singing joyously.
— from “Eugenia M. Fosbery reminiscences” in Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer Amplified Edition, by Yvonne Cache von Fettweis, pages 334-335
Hacking cough healed (1886)
Mrs. Eddy was very fond of pets, especially birds …. On In the first class I was in, a woman from Georgia seemed to have a hacking cough. Mrs. Eddy called her by name and said, “Why do you blaspheme God that way?” She never coughed again.
Mrs. Eddy was very fond of pets, especially birds …. On [More than] a year later when Mrs. Eddy delivered her address in Central Music Hall [Chicago], I met this woman at the door and we knew each other. Almost the first thing she said was “Do you know I have never coughed since.”
— from “Ruth Ewing reminiscences” in Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer Amplified Edition, by by Yvonne Cache von Fettweis, pages 347-348
Young girl with boil on her head healed (1897)
It was the year 1897, on the 4th of July, that Mrs. Eddy invited her church to her home in Concord, New Hampshire. She sent a telegram to a student here [in Kansas City, Missouri], telling him to come and bring his friends, and I was invited to go. I went with my sister and my two children.
When we were getting ready to start, we discovered that my little daughter, seven years old, had a boil on the crown of her head. Her hair was heavy and curly, and the boil was very much inflamed.
After we got on the train, she would not allow me to comb her hair. The confusion, the heat, and the crowded car made it difficult to work mentally, and her hair really went uncombed until we got to Concord. I did not try to comb it that night, because she cried so bitterly, but Sister and I put her to bed, and we sat down to do our mental work on the matter. The next morning we were to go out to Mrs. Eddy’s home. The boil by this time looked like the small end of an egg. It stood up pointedly from her head and was more inflamed than before.
I took the scissors and cut the hair from around the boil. Then I washed her hair and combed it, my sister working for her mentally all the while, and I holding to the truth as best I could while I worked. The whole thing was a most trying ordeal, and it was only through showers of tears that we finally got her ready to go. She had a little light straw hat with a wreath of daisies on it. She did not want to put it on, because she said it hurt her head.
Mrs. Eddy and a number of others spoke to us. When the speaking was over, Mrs. Eddy sat upon the porch as the people passed through the carriage-way, greeting her as they passed. When my two children, a boy of nine and this little girl of seven, got in front of her, they stopped the whole procession, and stood looking up into her face with a most joyous smile. She looked at them and then looked at me; then she looked back at them again and threw a kiss to each one of them, and somebody told them to pass along. I followed them.
I wish I could make the world know what I saw when Mrs. Eddy looked at those children. It was a revelation to me. I saw for the first time the real mother Love, and I knew that I did not have it. I had a strange, agonized sense of being absolutely cut off from the children. It is impossible to put into words what the uncovering of my own lack of real mother Love meant to me.
As I turned in the procession and walked toward the line of trees in the front of the yard, there was a bird sitting on the limb of a tree, and I saw the same love poured out on that bird that I had seen flow from Mrs. Eddy to my children. I looked down at the grass and the flowers, and there was the same love resting on them. It is difficult for me to put into words what I saw. This Love was everywhere, like the light, but it was divine, not mere human affection.
I looked at the people milling around on the lawn, and I saw it poured out on them. I thought of the various discords in this field, and I saw, for the first time, the absolute unreality of everything but this infinite Love. It was not only everywhere present, like the light, but it was an intelligent presence that spoke to me, and I found myself weeping as I walked back and forth under the trees, … saying out loud, “Why did I never know you before? Why have I not known you always?”
I don’t know how long it was until my boy came to me and said, “Come, Mother, they are going home.” I got into the carriage and drove back to the hotel, but that same conscious intelligence and Love was everywhere. It rested upon every thing my thought rested on.
When we got back to the hotel, there was no boil on my child’s head. It was just as flat as the back of her hand. Afterwards the hair [came out] for about two inches around where the boil had been …. She was totally bald on the crown of her head, but the hair grew back as naturally as [if] it had never been out.
I know that this revelation of divine Love came to me by reflection from dear Mrs. Eddy, and for weeks it had a strange effect on me. I could not bear to hear anyone speak in a cross, ill-tempered tone, or do anything that would cause pain.
— from “Jessie B. Cooper reminiscences” in Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, by Yvonne Cache von Fettweis, pages 356-359