Article October 15, 1938 Issue

"Pouring in oil and wine"

MURIEL NELSON

In the tenth chapter of Luke's Gospel there is given an illustration of the way in which Jesus taught the people the meaning of eternal life. When the lawyer asked Jesus the question, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus "came where he was." He met the lawyer on his own ground and asked the expounder of the law to state what was written in the law. This, of course, the lawyer was easily able to do. Jesus approved his answer and said to him. "This do, and thou shalt live." But the lawyer was not satisfied. Though he had cited the two great commandments in the law accurately, it is evident he did not feel that he himself was demonstrating eternal life, and so he said to Jesus. "Who is my neighbour?" Jesus then gave the parable of the good Samaritan, that parable which has remained throughout the centuries as a perfect illustration, in answer to the question, "Who is my neighbour?"

Our neighbor is anyone and everyone to whom we have the opportunity of showing a neighborly spirit; and the commandment is fulfilled only as this neighborly spirit is manifested. Jesus showed in his parable how the Samaritan expressed this spirit. First of all, he did as Jesus did with the lawyer, he "came where he was;" that is, he found a point of contact. He did not avoid the man who had fallen among thieves or pass by on the other side, thinking, This is not my problem. "When he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, ... and took care of him." Jesus made the point quite clear that to love God, good, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and with all the mind, did not mean love in word alone, but love in action, and that this love in action actually is eternal life. "This do, and thou shalt live." So there is only one way of inheriting eternal life, and that is to demonstrate love in action, here and now.

The scientific understanding and demonstration of eternal life have been given anew to the world by Mary Baker Eddy, through her discovery of the Science of being as practiced by Jesus. She has shown that the ordinary concept of heaven and earth is but a mortal belief. Eternal life is that consciousness of Truth toward which the hearts of men turn as the flower turns to the light. The reaching out for Truth is perpetual, and gives evidence of the all-embracing law of attraction of one Spirit, which blesses us, though we do not know "whence it cometh, and whither it goeth."

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