She was known around the city as a sinner. Simon, the highminded Pharisee who had invited Jesus to a banquet at his house, was shocked that the Master allowed her to come near him as he ate—to wash his feet with her teardrops, dry them with her long hair, kiss them, and then tenderly pour expensive perfumed ointment over them. A man who'd let a woman with such a reputation touch him couldn't be much of a prophet, Simon thought. See Luke 7:36–50; see Harper's Bible Commentary, p. 1024 .
But Simon didn't know what had happened to the woman—what had changed. No one knew that but the Master. He alone knew what was in her heart. Was it breaking with sorrow for her past mistakes? Didn't her evident repentance show how much she wanted to start a whole new life? The overwhelming love she felt for Jesus may well have been something she'd never known before—an affection rooted in divine Love.
Then Jesus proved that he was a prophet, no matter what Simon believed, by telling a story that addressed the Pharisee's unspoken thoughts. He described two debtors who owed money to the same creditor. One owed a relatively small amount; the other owed ten times as much. Since neither debtor could pay the money back, the creditor "frankly forgave them both"—canceled out both debts.
The tearful woman, Jesus explained, was like the debtor who'd been forgiven the huge debt. Her gratitude and devotion were unbounded. Therefore, he said, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much."
Simon, on the other hand, was like the debtor who'd been forgiven a small debt and took his creditor's generosity for granted. "To whom little is forgiven," Jesus explained, "the same loveth little."
Mrs. Eddy found the story of this Biblical woman—who's traditionally been called Mary Magdalene—profoundly moving. In fact, Mrs. Eddy devoted the first six pages of her chapter called "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health to pondering this particular event in Jesus' career and the woman's special quality of thought.
What's the connection between this "woman ... which was a sinner" and the practice of Christian Science? Maybe it's that this tearful woman had the very qualities of thought one often needs in order to be healed spiritually—a burning desire to be regenerated, selfless humility, and an irrepressible love for Christ, Truth. And these are also essential if one is to be a Christian healer. Everything the woman expressed revealed a pure faith—the kind of faith that is so receptive to God's regenerating power that shattered hearts and bodies and lives are put back together again. After all, it was the woman's faith that put her own life back together again. As the Master said to her, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."
Drawing a dramatic contrast between the self-righteousness of Simon and the contrite self-effacement of the woman, Mrs. Eddy explains that Christian Scientists who want to help and heal other people must seek Truth the way the sinning woman did. They have first to redeem themselves—to break loose from the tentacles of sin and selfcenteredness that would choke out the natural flow of life-giving ideas from God to each one of His children. These ideas are really glimpses of spiritual reality, the healing truth applicable to any given human situation. They're visions of the beauty and seamless perfection of God's spiritual creation. And they have the power instantly to regenerate our view of a less-than-perfect situation—and actually to improve the situation itself—to make it conform to the goodness and all-rightness of God's spiritual universe.
Sheer willpower obviously isn't sufficient to keep our thoughts clear and clean enough to receive God's healing ideas. It takes love—the kind of unashamed devotion to the Christ that the sinful woman felt—to fight off the temptation to be sensual, domineering, grasping, or deceitful. But every effort we make to resist these tendencies—and so to put the welfare of others ahead of our own self-interest or personal desires—pays off in the kind of spiritual authority that enables us to free our patients from these tendencies.
Perhaps more than anything else, the woman who washed Jesus' feet represented to Mrs. Eddy pure Christian affection. And love, she knew from her own practice of Christian Science, is the primary qualification for a spiritual healer. Without our pure expression of divine Love, healing and reformation are slow in coming, if not impossible. With it, all good is not only possible—it's inevitable and often immediate. She writes in her discussion of the sinning woman: "If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine." Science and Health, p. 365.
A friend of mine became a Christian Science practitioner at a rather young age and with relatively little previous experience in the work of Christian healing. She had wanted more than anything else to help other people find their way out of suffering of every kind and discover how much their Father-Mother God really loves them. But when she thought about the responsibilities involved in filling the Christly office of a spiritual healer, she at first felt inadequate.
It's a matter of adoring the Christ—the tangible manifestation of divine Love—so much that you're willing to do anything to stay close to the Christ, to be more Christlike
Yet, in spite of this, she found that, with God's gracious help, she was able to help a number of people who asked her for Christian Science treatment. Then her name was accepted for advertising in this magazine as a public practitioner—someone available full time to pray for others.
Soon after that, a woman spotted my friend's name in the Journal and made an appointment with her. She said she'd been suffering for years from a number of complaints, especially dizziness. But when she walked into my friend's office, she had misgivings. She said she hadn't expected the practitioner to be so young.
As the two of them talked, the woman emphasized that her difficulties were extremely serious and had persistently defied healing. The new practitioner tried to convince the woman that no illness—no condition—could defy the all-power of God. The woman listened politely but ended up saying she needed a more experienced practitioner. Then she walked out.
Reaching out urgently to understand where she'd gone wrong, my friend turned to Mrs. Eddy's chapter "Christian Science Practice." As she read about the woman who wept at Jesus' feet, she thought, "I feel just like that poor woman did about her previous experience—like a total failure!" But as she continued reading, she realized for the first time how much Mrs. Eddy valued this woman's spiritual potential—her contrition, humility, and total commitment to the Christ. Suddenly my friend saw that the office of spiritual healer isn't a matter of age or intellectuality or brilliance or personal magnetism. It's a matter of adoring the Christ—the tangible manifestation of divine Love—so much that you're willing to do anything to stay close to the Christ, to be more Christlike.
That's when my friend realized that the successful practice of Christian Science wasn't an unattainable goal for her or anyone else. She knew she could at least learn to be repentant and humble like the woman in the Bible account and to treasure every evidence of the Christ the way that woman did. As she thought about these things, her heart soared with new hope that the Christ would redeem her, as it had the Biblical woman—and make her a better practitioner.
What happened two days later almost amazed her. The woman who had walked out of her office called to say that, after her visit with my friend, the next day had been the first day of physical comfort she'd had in years. And she asked my friend to pray for her so she'd understand that the peace she'd felt that day could last forever.
In a way, both this woman and my friend felt they had made a new start on life, that they had been redeemed of old ways of thinking that had held them back for years.
Really, every healing in the practice of Christian Science brings this same kind of redemption for both practitioner and patient. Every healing means "kissing the feet" of the Christ and being redeemed of the notion that a perfect Father-Mother God could possibly create an imperfect child. And in this sense, every spiritual healing involves shedding a few tears of repentance, lots of love—and a new beginning.
