[The above is substantially the text of the program released for broadcast the weekend of March 8–10 in the radio series, "The Bible Speaks to You," heard internationally over more than 800 stations. This is one of the weekly programs produced by the Christian Science Committee on Publication, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston 15, Massachusetts.]
RADIO PROGRAM No. 49 - The Christian Command to Love
HOST: Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if for just one hour everybody set aside grudges and hates, self-pity and bitterness, feelings of envy and suspicion—all the things that would separate person from person, nation from nation—and for that one hour simply let perfect love dominate his thoughts and actions?
Lewis Mumford, in his book "The Human Prospect," writes, "Everyone realizes, at least in words, that only through a vast increase of effective love can the mischievous hostilities that now undermine our civilization be overcome." He goes on to say, "The means are plain enough but the method of application is lacking." [Publishers, Beacon Press, Boston, 1955. Copyright, 1955, by Lewis Mumford.]
Surely everybody would agree that more love is the greatest need in today's world. The challenge is, What about "the method of application" which, Mr. Mumford says, "is lacking"?
SPEAKER: That's the very point that Jesus brought out so forcibly. His command is to love our neighbor as ourselves.
It's in the experience of Paul that we find an illustration of this love put into action. After a record of persecuting the Christians, he learned the importance of the love Jesus taught. But suppose Paul had not learned this lesson; would we today have the beautiful and inspiring description of Christian love in his Epistle to the Corinthians? Let me read some verses from it. The word "charity," of course, is now properly translated to read "love."
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I givemy body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. ... Charity never faileth. ... And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity" (I Cor. 13:1–8, 13).
And then from John's Epistle:
"Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth" (I John 3:18).
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love" (I John 4:8).
HOST: Those verses indicate very clearly what Christian love is. But how can they help us with the need to generate more love in daily living?
SPEAKER: Well, that last verse from John states that God is the very source of love, in fact, that God is Love. Infinite, perfect Love, always pours forth love to its creation. And so it isn't necessary to generate love. All we have to do is to wake up to the presence and power of divine Love and express more of it in our thoughts and actions.
HOST: But what about the feeling that it isn't always easy to be loving in the midst of conflict, misunderstanding, hostility?
SPEAKER: No, it isn't, especially if we're looking at the wrong man. We need to see man as God made him. In Christian Science, this means to understand that man is made in God's own image. He's not a mortal with a twisted mind, either unloved or unloving. His true identity, his pure and genuine self, is the very son of God. And so if we've been seeing ourselves and others as unattractive mortals, full of faults, apt to criticize, subject to anger, easily hurt, we can give up this wrong, ungodlike view of man. We can exchange it for the true concept of man expressing only the qualities of God, divine Love.
HOST: But can this understanding help us to resolve bitterness and resentment in the home, for instance, or disputes and misunderstandings on the job?
SPEAKER: It certainly can. As we see ourselves and others in the true light we resist the temptation to be angry, to hit back, to indulge in self-pity. Such negative thoughts dissolve into nothingness as we become conscious of divine Love's power and presence. In fact, divine Love is irresistible. It impels us to be more considerate, more courteous, more forgiving, more patient. The effect of the God-inspired love we express in our daily lives can't be measured. "No power can withstand divine Love," Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 224).
You know what happens when you drop a pebble into a pool. The ripples expand wider and wider. So it is when our hearts are filled with unselfed love for God and man and we express this love through earnest prayer for the welfare of all mankind. It helps the whole world.
The importance of putting love into action is brought out by Mrs. Eddy in these words (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 250): "Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf." And she continues: "Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power. As a human quality, the glorious significance of affection is more than words: it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; the silent, ceaseless prayer; the self-forgetful heart that overflows."
HOST: The experience of a woman from the Canal Zone ties in very closely with what we've been talking about. She felt she had nothing left to live for. Her health was gone, and her marriage was so inharmonious that separation seemed almost inevitable.
But through some relatives she became interested in Christian Science. As she studied it, she began to gain a clearer sense of man's relationship to God, divine Love. Social drinking and the smoking habit of twenty-five years' standing fell away; character traits such as self-pity, impatience, temper, criticism, faded noticeably from her experience. Her health returned to normal. There was also much improvement in the home situation.
However, one aspect of their lives seemed hopeless. Each time there was progress, her husband's periodic drinking habits would undo all the good that had been accomplished. She prayed earnestly to know how she could help. Finally she asked a Christian Science practitioner to help her through prayer. She expected a lot of sympathy, but in the tenderest manner the practitioner said: "My dear, he needs your love. Love him more. Just pick this off him as you would flick a speck of dust off his coat lapel. It doesn't belong to him any more than that speck does!"
Our friend pondered these words for a long time. She says: "I began to see the meaning of what Jesus said (Matt. 19:19), 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.' I realized my husband was my nearest neighbor. My only responsibility was to love him, that is, to see him as he really was, as God made him, spiritual and perfect. I did this even though at times I was tempted to think he'd get drunk again. Several months later I realized there'd been no drinking problem since I'd talked it over with the practitioner. When I mentioned the change to my husband, he said, 'Well, of course I've changed; you've changed.'" That was the end of the drinking, and the woman says, "Today our home is filled with peace and love and happiness."
