The Church of Christ, Scientist, provides weekly Bible lessons on a recurring series of 26 themes. These lessons include citations from the Bible and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy. Below are thoughts that came to me one week when the Bible lesson included stories of both Cain and Ishmael.
Thoughts on Cain: I always felt sorry for Cain, and identified with him. What a terrible feeling to bring the offering of all you do to the one whose love you most desire, and have it rejected! The direction to humbly take instruction from the rejection and do better felt like a bitter and disempowered standpoint from which to work.
What I realized in this week’s lesson (and as a result of prayerful sharing with a friend) is that the Cain story illustrates the way Christian Science works with both the absolute and the relative to bring healing to whatever situation we may be in.
First I realized that the bad guy in the story wasn’t so much Cain as the false premise embedded in the story – that man is made of something other than God, and that he could bring forth an offering that would not be of God, but would be of some other substance, such that God would reject it. This premise is never true about man. When I find myself in the feeling of Cain, in that sense of not being acceptable and having failed, I have the immediate solution of opting out of the whole story, of saying, wait a minute - this isn't what's true about God and man. This isn't what's true about me. I'm the enduring reflection of Soul, Life, intelligence. I have the divine Mind as my sustaining infinite, and can't be unworthy. My fruits must always be of what my substance is, which is of God. What I bring forth must be spiritual, and it must be a blessing.
Meanwhile, in the human scene, there is the ability to take the counsel that Cain is given and use it to make sure that my premises, and therefore my fruits, are spiritual, are of God.
To help me understand how this might work, I took an example that’s sort of far removed from me personally but not from world consciousness. I thought of someone who was brought up in a culture of vengeance and vindication - in a state of war. That person might come to think that there was virtue in killing others. So an act of killing might be one of that person's fruits. If that person brought that fruit to God - to good - that fruit would be rejected as not being of God. The person looking for a sense of holiness and benediction from his act of killing would not find it. In order to get the feeling of holiness and benediction, he would have to turn and do something else with his life - submit himself to be governed by a higher motivation - to be governed by good instead of evil. So he would have to change his course.
But let's say Christian Science was the agent for his change of course. He would realize that, since he was the reflection of good, there was no way he could be motivated by hatred. He would sense that this whole story he had been caught up in wasn't a part of himself. He would feel a glimmering of his own preciousness and holiness. He would also feel, because of that, a separation from everything he had identified himself as before. He might feel great remorse, and a deep desire to change his actions. So he would change them. In this way, he would be both following the divine truth (that the Cain story presents a lie about being and doesn't have to be lived in) and the human footsteps (reform) outlined in the story.
So if I’m feeling bad about myself, I have the opportunity to recognize that whole thing as the same lie of the Cain story. I can opt out of it. At the same time, I might be led to change something in my life. But it won't be because I am a bad or an unworthy person. It will be because I am the delightful child of God.
Thoughts on Ishmael: There’s a disconnect in this story - the image of Hagar having the child on her shoulder and casting him under a bush makes it seem like he’s a very small child, but according to the age that Abram was when he was born, he was probably somewhere from 16-18 years old. So perhaps because of this, I hadn’t stopped to think deeply about what was going on and what it would feel like for Ishmael. This time I did.
I imagined him mocking: “Oh, Isaac is weaned – what a great accomplishment!” I imagined that in that house he had a fair amount of security as the son of Abraham, and felt at home there, and felt he had a certain amount of stature. Then suddenly, because of one slip, it’s gone. Overnight. The next morning he’s out of there, and his mom too. So he’s leaning on her shoulder, probably with a deep sense of shock, betrayal, and the horrible feeling that he’s brought this upon his mom as well as himself.
So Mrs. Eddy, in the Science and Health part, says suffering is often the divine agent for our rising superior to materiality. So this must have been what happened with Ishmael under the bush. He turned to God. He glimpsed that his home, his heritage, and his birthright came from a spiritual source, from the Father ever at hand, rather than from his relationship with Abraham and his relative stature in that household. And it says in the Bible, God was with the lad. Which shows that he succeeded in rising above materiality. So suddenly this story came alive for me with a new sense of hope and promise.
5 comments:
Hi Wendy,
I’m really intrigued by your discussion of Cain because I see a lot that seems consistent with Catholic teaching. But I admit to being confused by your main point. Maybe you can help me understand. I’m confused by your idea that it is impossible for man to make an unworthy offering to God. The idea was that I am made of the same stuff of God, something coming from me must be a blessing, I am always worthy because I am a child of God. So I'm wondering, where do the murders and vengeance come from?
The Catholic can affirm that man is created by the Good God in Gods own image and likeness. This means that man is of eternal and inestimable value with the dignity of God stamped in his very being. But does Christian Science have any place for the idea that sin cuts us off from God and our true selves?
In your example of the culture of vengeance I see the structures of sin that can predispose a person to evil acts make them even seem to him as good. This man is really trapped by the evil of his culture and his participation in it. His acts and “offerings” are unworthy because they are not true to his nature, because they spring from the broken relationship between him and God and his neighbor. I also see the solution to the dehumanizing power of sin in your example. He must turn away from the evil (repent) and return to God (be converted). In this way it will be possible for him to act in accord with his true nature as a child of God. And enjoy the blessings that righteousness brings.
The Good News as I understand it as a Catholic is that God himself has redeemed his precious children from the wages of sin and provided the way of salvation. In other words by Gods grace and provision we can find the way to live in accord with our true nature and bring forth a worthy and acceptable offering.
Is this what you’re saying? Or maybe you’re saying that the man chooses evil only because he’s deluded about his true worthiness. If he could get his thinking about himself straight he would change his actions?
Thanks for the food for thought.
From Theresa
Response about Cain,
Theresa, your question led me to think deeply about faiths vs. truth. I think truth is a thing that exists in a higher dimension than our words. So when we try to talk about truth, we have to do what a painter does in depicting a three dimensional object on a two-dimensional plane. And I think we have less ability to create a convincing portrayal than the painter does – I imagine that we can depict truth as the shadows it casts.
Let’s say truth is a cylinder. Because of differences in the viewing angle, some faiths would depict it as a circle, others as a rectangle. If you look deep at the faith of the ones with the circle, you’d find them saying, now this really extends down – it’s not just a circle. Likewise the ones with the rectangle would say, when you spin this image you get at what we’re really trying to express. But people with a limited understanding or limited attention to the faiths would say, these ones believe in the circle and these ones believe in the rectangle. There’s a geometric term, “the degenerate set” (meaning for example a cylinder with a height of zero) which I find myself thinking of when I hear these kinds of arguments between faiths.
When I read your description of how you would interpret the Cain story, I said, yes, that seems right. Then when I read the second one, I said, yes, that seems right, too. Then I had to notice what part of the three-dimensionality was missing from each description.
The missing part of the second one was most obvious – it would assume that salvation was just a matter of individual human will, that God had nothing to do about it. It sounded a bit like the degenerate set of the Christian Science description – that is, what people think it is if they don’t know to or don’t bother to take in the third dimension of Christ.
The first description didn’t really have a missing part, for you speak of man living up to his true nature, which implies that his true nature is in the image and likeness of God. But the degenerate set that sometimes gets spoken of in relation to this description (by people who don’t understand) is that man is a miserable worm without God – that man is basically unlovable but that God, through His marvelous grace, loves them anyway and so redeems them. I think it would impugn the nature of God to say that He would make a creation that didn’t match up to him in quality, or that He would lose control of His creation so it would fall. I believe the broken relationship between man and God is not something God knows, but a delusion of the human condition, which knowing God saves us from.
In the last year or so, I’ve really been enjoying some ecumenical relations with members of other churches in the U district. I find that it really helps my understanding of truth to see the way they express their faith. By putting the views together, not so much as an intellectual activity but in response to the love and the presence of Christ where we are gathered in his name, I’m getting more of the three dimensional picture. Thank you for being part of this dialog.
Dear Wendy,
I absolutely love your image of the cylinder which looks like a circle from one perspective and looks like a rectangle from another. It shows that our effort to discover the truth fully is limited by our perspective (our faith). It’s a great analogy and it shows clearly the need we have to try to change places with each other to try to see from another’s perspective something that we might be missing from our own. It’s way more complicated that this though because a cylinder is a simple irreducible thing and reality is broad and deep and interconnected with everything. A faith that is truly satisfying must also be broad and deep and interconnected. It’s pretty hard to just change places.
I think a faith is nothing less than an attempt to explain everything. A worldview?
(I think maybe a faith is like a scientific theory. The more of reality it accounts for the more satisfying it is. A new theory replaces an old one when it is seen to account for more of the data, and when it accounts for it more simply.) So when we try to account for the disease in the world, its way harder than accounting for the cylinder because it’s interconnected to everything else we believe.. It’s not simply a matter of trying to see it from another perspective because our faith is the thing we see with.
On another occasion you talked about faith as a window though which the light of truth comes. I love this analogy because it accounts for the fact that not all faiths are equally suited to letting in the light of truth. Some are bigger or smaller. Some glass is more or less clear or opaque. Of course, we have to be careful about declaring our own window to be the best one because we really know so little about all the others. But I think we shouldn’t let our reluctance to tell someone else he’s wrong, keep us from trying to find the best window.
I’ve been thinking a lot about your idea of delusion. I probably don’t understand what you mean by the word, but here’s how it looks to me: I think that we agree that things are not right in the world. But the question is what is the explanation for it? Where did the delusion come from? When we look at the story of Cain and Abel we see that Abel is dead. We see Eve, who started her life in perfect fellowship with God, now hiding herself from him. Not only that, one son is dead at the hands of another. My heart is breaking for her. Can the idea of delusion explain this? It seems that delusion is something that is in your head, but Abel is dead in the real world.
When we create something, it is a reflection of who we are, it is marked with our essence, our style you might say. But it is not ourselves that we create. Of all the things that God created only humanity is said to be made in his image and likeness. He wanted us to be like him, (infinitely less of course, but still like him) because he wanted to be in relationship with us. Not the relationship of a painter to his painting or an architect to her building. Not even like a gardener to her garden, but as a father to his children, a mother to her family. And this is why God needed to create something that he could lose control of. Love required it. Without freedom there can be no love. God is love, so to be in relationship with him we had to be created with the capacity to love. This meant we had to be created free. This touches on one of the essential mysteries of our faith. Yes, God is all powerful, but in the service of love he chose to limit himself. To allow us power over him.
Thanks for your blog. I love it!
Theresa
Theresa,
Your comment touches on three huge topics to which I’m compelled to respond: faith, the explanation for the state of the world, and freedom. There is so much to say about each of these that it’s good we don’t have to address everything all at once.
You said, “a faith is nothing less than an attempt to explain everything.” I think that is true, and more. A faith seeks not just an explanation of everything but a way for us to relate to it – not just how to think about it but how to feel about it and how to act because of it. Your comments about Eve and Abel illustrate the compassion for the human experience that is an essential part of faith and can’t be forgotten, no matter how the story is explained. Similarly, your comments about God’s love for man and desire for relationship with us show a depth of feeling that is essential for a faith to contain. Both speak volumes as to the power of your own faith.
As to the explanation of reality, in Christian Science we do have a different take on the Adam and Eve story. I’ll try to describe succinctly: If you compare the first account in Genesis – the first chapter and three verses of the second, you find a view of God and creation that is incompatible in many ways with the account that begins with verse 6 of the second chapter (God is even referred to by a different name in the original text.) Although the first chapter says God is All, and creation is very good, and everything God made is good, you suddenly have evil in the story, and you have God trafficking in it (planting a tree with the knowledge of evil in the garden). My sense of the story (as I have learned it in Christian Science) is that it presents several lies about God and then shows what happens when we buy in to those lies. It is really a very remarkable piece of work, as it manages to spell out all the elements of human misery, all the poignant and painful ways that we get tied up in knots in relation to each other and to our place in creation, all the threads that pull us and make us suffer. I find that, every time I am unhappy, and in every instance that the world seems to be in a mess, the roots of it can be found in that story. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, calls the story an allegory. I call it the map of a dream. I find that I can trace any suffering in my life to having bought in to the specific lies about God that are imbedded in this story. The solution, for me, is to get back to the first story, which I also believe to be the message of grace which Christ Jesus brought us.
Some thoughts on the doctrine of free will: When I consider the nature of freedom, I find that it means more than being able choose from any possible courses of behavior – it also must include our desire. If you define freedom in the common way of “being able to do whatever you want”, it’s important to note the last half of the phrase. To feel free, you have to have something you want to do, as well as being able to do it. It says in Jeremiah that God says, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” The Psalmist says, “thou hast possessed my reins.” It says in Proverbs, “the preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” To me all of these things say that it is God who puts our desires in our heart. In other words, God is who makes us want the things that we want. So if freedom is the ability to do what we want, then freedom doesn’t separate us from God. I don’t think that it is necessary for God, whom John defines as Love, to be something other than Love – to cease from providing perfect care for His children, in order to have a free relationship with them. I think it is beautiful love for God to give us our intense desire for life and beauty and love and fulfillment – and then grant us those desires.
I think when people think they want something that will hurt someone else, that can be traced back to some part of the Adam and Eve story – Cain specifically. When people believe they want something that will hurt them, that is right there in the part about the apple. When they understand the message of grace given by Christ Jesus, they find that their true desires are aligned with God, so they desire no evil and are able to find healing for themselves and for the aching world.
I’m enjoying this dialog, as it is helping me get a more fully dimensional sense of my faith. Thanks for writing!
Post a Comment