"Well, I certainly hope [name withheld to protect the innocent] is reading the Bible Lesson As found in the Christian Science Quarterly today," I said to my husband one Monday morning. Christ Jesus' parable about the Pharisee and the publican (see Luke 18:9-14) seemed just the right rebuke to a church member who considered herself an authority on everything that concerned our branch church. How timely for this citation to be prominent in our lesson, I thought. Maybe she'll recognize herself.
Putting aside the morning paper, my husband asked, "What's in the lesson this week?"
"The Pharisee and the publican," I began eagerly. "You know, where the two men went up into the temple to pray, and the Pharisee thanked God that he was not as other . . . men . . . are." I put my hands to hot cheeks. Was I the Pharisee?
We never feel the presence of God, never appreciate the example of our Master and the teachings of Christian Science, more than during those periods when the beam is removed from our eye, allowing clearer spiritual vision.
We can be grateful to Dogberry, one of Shakespeare's comic characters, for reminding us of a truth about comparisons. Full of self-importance and afflicted with ignorance, yet dimly recognizing the fallacy of comparing one man to another, he announces, "Comparisons are odorous." Much Ado about Nothing, Act III, scene 5 We laugh at his malapropism, but the line sticks.
Personal comparisons are indeed odious. Not only are they based on opinion, they are also grounded in the false concept of dualism—two realities. There is no "other" in Spirit, in the one infinite God and His infinite manifestation, man.
Paul tells us to compare "spiritual things with spiritual." I Cor. 2:13 The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, tells us, "Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God." The passage concludes, "The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere." Science and Health, pp. 515, 516
Because I'd felt the need to see more harmony in church work, I had been working to know that God alone justifies our activities and that the greatest responsibility I had toward others was to behold a redeemed concept of man— man as the spiritual image and likeness of God. It was Love's intuition that alerted me to redeem the concept of man as officious, opinionated, unkind, by staying awake to man's wholly spiritual nature, and to stop laboring erroneously to correct the "other" person. As I heeded this spiritual message, I could see more harmony in church activities, as well as in my own thought.
The experience at the breakfast table reminds me of one day years ago when I was serving in the Reading Room. A student from a local Bible college came in. He was writing a paper on Christian Science, he said, and had some questions he wanted to clear up. We talked, but soon he was virtually demanding that I denounce Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. His concern, he insisted, was for "my immortal soul."
I tried to listen to God for answers to his questions, which seemed to rain down on my head. But this young man appeared like a physical and vocal Goliath to me. For close to two hours I responded with statements like "I love the Bible and study it with all my heart. Don't you think God will show me if my way is wrong? Please don't worry about my soul." But the only thought that kept coming to me was "You hypocrite, you Pharisee."
When the afternoon attendant appeared, the man left as suddenly as he had appeared. I burst into tears. Putting her arms around me, this church member comforted me. After a bit, she said, "This could not have happened if you weren't ready to learn something wonderful." Later, at home, my husband kindly offered all sorts of possible good answers, based on both the Bible and Science and Health, that I could have given the young man. After suggesting that perhaps he should have been serving at the Reading Room instead of me, I explained that all I could think was "You hypocrite, you Pharisee"—and that I couldn't say that!
Because the episode kept replaying in my thought, I knew I must continue to listen for divine Love's healing answer. And as I did, it came, clear and sweet—that there is no unanswered prayer and to keep working with what was coming to me. For years I had dreaded questions about Christian Science both because I didn't think I could answer them and because I had self-centeredly considered those who were not Christian Scientists wrong—somehow "unwashed"—goats, not sheep. My prayer for help had been and was being answered.
What I had needed to see was that God's child never was, never is, and never will be an unredeemed hypocrite—a human being who has all the answers or who is superior to another. Both the student and I were, in truth, liberated and safe—redeemed, as God's immortal, unflawed idea. Humbly I thanked our one God and Father for His ever-present care, for redemption from the Pharisaic lie that had tried to call itself my thinking.
Where a "Pharisee"—an unredeemed mortal —appears to mortal mind, in reality the Godlike man is. We must cast out the belief that we or another is unredeemed, mortal, egotistic, and see instead God's idea, spiritual man. There are no degrees of being the "joint-heirs with Christ" See Rom. 8:17 that Paul speaks of, no one more or less spiritual or sinless. We must awake from the mistaken view of man as a struggling, material composite of good and evil. Just as we would reject a lie or discount the actuality of a mirage, we have the power as heirs of God to refuse to accept the assumption of man as a "Pharisee."
In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy describes the deeper experience such as I had in the Reading Room that day: "Note this—that the very message, or swift winged thought, which poured forth hatred and torment, brought also the experience which at last lifted the seer to behold the great city, the four equal sides of which were heaven-bestowed and heaven-bestowing." Science and Health, p. 574
We too are seers (literally the ones who see) —and we "behold the great city"—when we recognize that our home is in spiritual perception and the understanding derived from Spirit. And we must also redeem thought from whatever would make "the great city" seem the opposite of "heaven-bestowed and heaven-bestowing." Mrs. Eddy describes this false sense in the first part of the Glossary definition of Jerusalem in Science and Health: "Mortal belief and knowledge obtained from the five corporeal senses; the pride of power and the power of pride; sensuality; envy; oppression; tyranny." Ibid., p. 589 The fact is, there is no place where God and His idea are not infinitely, omnipotently, omnisciently present.
It was Love's intuition that alerted me to redeem
the concept of man as officious, opinionated, unkind,
by staying awake to man's wholly spiritual nature.
Everything we need in order to see the truth—"the four equal sides"—and to redeem the Pharisee in thought, is constantly being imparted by divine Mind and is therefore at hand, even before we know to ask. This may be realized through God's angel messages appearing in the form of a citation in the weekly Bible Lesson, or someone's shared inspiration, or the "still small voice" of Truth in consciousness, or any number of other spiritually inspired ways.
As we awake spiritually from the false sense of man as separate from God, we will find no Pharisee present. Instead man in all his true glory will be seen—perfect, at one with God and all creation, the infinitely unfolding expression of omnipresent Mind.
