During the late 1970s I was struggling through a difficult time. My family situation required that I go back to work after almost twenty years as a homemaker and mother. As a result of listening for God’s guidance in prayer, I was eventually able to find a job that was a good fit for me—secretarial work at a local university. Still, this was not what I had been expecting my life to be.
Then one day I came across this statement in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings: “To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice” (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 11). This made me realize how important Mrs. Eddy considered these teachings to be for all followers of Christ Jesus.
Jesus taught the scientific truth of being. He taught his listeners that God, Spirit, is the Father of all, and he illustrated in healing that each of us—as God actually created us—is spiritual, perfect, and that we live in Spirit, not in matter. His teachings and healing works appear throughout the Bible’s four Gospels. But in Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7, some of his most familiar teachings, including the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, are gathered together in what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount.
