Picture one of the gates leading into the Jewish temple at Jerusalem. Daily, a cripple is laid outside this gate to beg. Two men approach. The beggar asks them for money, and they stop. To give him money? No. They have none to give. They give him something no one has ever given him before. They heal his crippled legs through their spiritualized understanding of God as taught by Christ Jesus. The man responds immediately. The Bible reports, "He leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God."Acts 3:8.
What had caused these two followers of Jesus, Peter and John, to stop? Had their sense of Christ-healing—on which Jesus said his church should be built— grown to correspond with the Master's teaching and practice? How easily they could have ignored the beggar and entered the temple without that compassionate pause.
At first the disciples' healing work may have been largely the result of faith in their Master. But at Pentecost they received an outpouring of the Holy Ghost that filled them with gladness and spiritual authority. Here was the touch of the Comforter Jesus had promised when he said, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever."John 14:16. During his time with them they had felt that comfort, that power of infinite Love, and they had seen it heal. As they put this power into practice, the Bible tells us, "mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."Acts 19:20.
As Christ was manifested humanly by the man Jesus, so the ideal Church must be brought to human comprehension in a form that is available for human use. As a latter-day disciple of Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy conceived of this spiritual ideal as "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Her definition goes on to give the practical application of this ideal in human life: "The Church is 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."Science and Health, p. 583.
Who would want to remain outside such a church? Active participation in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, can expand our view of God and man. It nourishes and gives identity and structure to our lives. I like to think of membership in The Mother Church and a branch church as a proving ground. Just as automobile manufacturers test-drive their vehicles to find and correct any errors, so church membership gives our lives a strengthening and healing thrust, "rousing the dormant understanding" and bringing material beliefs to the surface to be destroyed and replaced by spiritual facts.
A church is not separate from its members. Humanly speaking, it is its members. What would keep us from realizing our place within this healing institution? Do we sometimes feel that we're outsiders looking in, or that others are outside our sense of church? False humility and pride are two sides of the same coin called lack. The depleting mortal suggestion that whispers, "I'm not good enough or intelligent enough or attractive enough to be included" or that pridefully says, "Too bad 'they' don't fit in" must be understood to be invalid. An infinite God can permit no degree of limitation to exist. The same response to the Christ that brought the lame man into the temple leaping with joy can be ours today. We can correct the fear of lack with the understanding that everything needed for life has already been provided by our Father-Mother God.
Does it seem difficult, if not impossible, to keep from criticizing or being irritated by fellow members whose opinions or ways of doing things are different from our own? And is that irritation going out into the world with us? Are we believing that our church is deteriorating, losing its place in the community? Are we even seeing that deterioration in our bodies, our homes, our businesses, and our environment? Here on the proving ground of Spirit is where love sometimes finds its most subtle and divisive adversary— criticism, with its offspring, hatred and destruction.
In a car this polluting effect might be described as a fouled mechanism that results in rough, jerky riding, including some backfiring! But could "the structure of Truth and Love" be invaded by destructive criticism, distrust, lack of love and joy? No! As we steadfastly refuse to allow our God-centered thinking to be imposed upon or impressed by matter-based reasoning, we will see the church activity we are engaged in becoming correspondingly serene, harmonious, and productive.
Committee work is not busywork designed to make church members feel useful. Each activity is designed to expand human consciousness to a more spiritual comprehension of the Bible and Christ Jesus' teachings. Though the activity of our church may originate within its walls, the results of our work do not remain there. The mission of our church is to heal the world. As our love for each other grows and we become less harsh, less critical—as we perceive each individual as embraced by "the structure of Truth and Love"—we will carry this strength of purpose into the community, our businesses, our homes—our world.
There was a time when I was fed up with serving in my branch church. I felt put upon and pressured. I resigned from everything. I thought I wanted out—to give up. But the love of the members kept me in. As Edwin Markham says in his poem "Outwitted":
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
About two weeks after my resignation these words of Mrs. Eddy's came to my attention: ". . . rest assured you can never lack God's outstretched arm so long as you are in His service."Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 1. I realized that the nervousness and pressure had not come from my work for the church, but from a personal sense of responsibility. Understanding our Father's loving support and guidance in all right activity lifted that unnatural burden from my thought and healed the bodily tension, too. I returned to teaching my Sunday School class and to other duties with a freedom and joy that have never left.
Where are we standing in relation to Church? We can never leave it, for it never leaves us. To separate in thought even one individual (oneself or another) from the idea of Church is to weaken our sense of the completeness of God's universe. Man is the complete idea of God, and he includes Church.
Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."John 12:32. Christian Scientists do not walk by the cripple at the gate—the poverty, degradation, discord, that lie outside our churches. Roused as we must be from the morbid contemplation of the world's belief in sin and disease, we too can elevate thought to the "I," or Father of all. We will then see man as already present in the sanctuary of Spirit—the healthy, whole, joyful man God created. Lack, anger, and inhumanity must dissolve through the Christ-power made manifest in our churches.
There may be those who say: "I don't need a place to worship God. I feel closer to Him when I'm alone." Of course, vastly more than a particular building is at the heart of worshiping God. And certainly those times spent alone with Him are indispensable. Sometimes instead of obtaining the serenity and peace we're seeking from church, we may become more aware of the clamor of mortal mind's demands (the cripple at the gate). But to stay away because of the clamor is not to heal it. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, writes, "The prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively."Manual of The Mother Church, Art. VIII, Sect. 5. Can we afford to ignore the world's sins that come to be healed? Jesus told his followers to go into all the world with his healing and teaching. Mrs. Eddy followed the Way-shower in doing just that. Her work included a vision of Church that was universal, built upon the Rock, Christ. How is knowledge of this truth to be spread? By the unity of church members.
"Divide and conquer" is the strategy of animal magnetism. Unity is its doom. In a letter to the Corinthians Paul said: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."I Cor. 1:10. This is the sort of membership that adds a strengthening and healing thrust to our movement. This bond of unity with each other, based on our unity with our Maker, must ultimately break the mesmerism of a universe in conflict.
