Sermon of the Lilies
[Written Especially for Young People]
ONE forenoon in early spring, a student of Christian Science was rambling through some woods, where he was spending a brief holiday. Coming to a little clearing, he sat down on a mossy bank, and rested against a sun-warmed rock. The stillness seemed only to be accentuated by an occasional faint breeze sighing through the pine trees, distant, sweet bird calls, and the slow, scraping progress of a porcupine, as he clambered up the trunk of a near-by giant cedar.
With the exception of the evergreens, the trees were as yet almost bare, and all around him, as far as he could see, were countless thousands of white trilliums. They reminded him of Jesus' message in the Sermon on the Mount, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." He did consider them with delighted and rapt attention. He soon noticed that they were all facing the same way, towards the sun each slender stem bent gracefully at the same angle. Every lovely lily in this widespread floral carpet seemed to be paying tribute to the sun, completely receptive to the light directing it, and concerned with nothing else.
This quiet woodland scene recalled a favorite passage in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 209), "Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind." The student was again awakened to the necessity of keeping thought turned constantly toward the light of Truth, Life, and Love, and ever receptive to the government of divine Mind. As one looks steadfastly to Spirit, the only source of man's intelligence, happiness, health, and prosperity, there can be no cessation of these blessings, no cognizance of discord, disease, or failure. These seeming troubles result from turning away from Mind's perfect government in the mistaken belief that the human self has the power and ability to create all the conditions necessary to man's well-being. The false, mortal sense of self claims often to exalt itself in human thinking, and to say, "I can do this," or, "I must do that;" but the Master declared, "I can of mine own self do nothing." He claimed no personal ability; he gave God all the glory for his accomplishments, and assured his followers that they, too, could do the works that he did, for the Mind he manifested is equally ever present and available to all. Paul said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
Considering further the silent sermon of the lilies, the student noticed a few tightly folded buds among them. He knew that if he tried to hurry the opening of these flowers by forcing the petals apart, he would mutilate or destroy them, and this was a gentle rebuke to an error of impatience that sometimes tried to make him unduly rush a project toward completion. Regardless of how worthy the enterprise, or beneficial the results, the right way is to emulate the flowers, and trust Mind to unfold each stage of development at the proper time. Although a plant may be potentially complete in design, while still unseen under the frozen earth, each part of it, from root to petals, is revealed in orderly sequence, when conditions surrounding it are right. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 506), "Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear."
The truth taught and practiced by Jesus was very different from the religion of the scribes and Pharisees of his time, with its material rites and ceremonies. The Master taught wherever he happened to be, sometimes from a grassy hillside and sometimes from a fishing boat. Many of his illustrations were drawn from nature and the familiar things of everyday living. His teachings were practical and scientific, for they were supported by proof, the healing of every form of discord that perplexes the human race.
Students of Christian Science have found that their religion is available, whatever their environment, during the seven days of the week. They learn, as did Jesus' followers, how to turn from their vain gropings in the obscurity of material ways and means of solving problems, toward the light of Spirit, which dissolves discords as light wipes out darkness. Depress ing shadows, such as fear, unhappiness, sickness, or poverty, are seen to be nonexistent in this light, for Love is the only creator, and never made anything which could deprive its children of any part of their rightful heritage of harmony, health, and all blessings.
The Apostle Paul wrote; "As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." Mrs. Eddy, who has brought to this age the truth which was preached by Christ Jesus in Galilee, writes (Science and Health, pp. 458, 459): "Christianity causes men to turn naturally from matter to Spirit, as the flower turns from darkness to light. Man then appropriates those things which 'eye hath not seen nor ear heard.'"
