In the Christian Science Bible Lesson September 12, 2011 Issue

A harvest of healing

For the lesson titled "Matter" from September 12–18, 2011

Michael Hamilton

Where I live, in the United States’ Lower Midwest, September brings the harvest of corn, soybeans, and milo. In corresponding regions in the southern hemisphere, farmers are planting their crops this month. The cycle of planting and harvesting—sowing and reaping—is the guiding idea in this week’s Bible Lesson on the subject, “Matter.” The Golden Text sets the tone: “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you” (Hos. 10:12). The phrase fallow ground, which also appears later in the Lesson (Section IV, cit. 13), means untilled soil that can be broken with a plow for planting.

Jesus, in his parable of the tares and wheat (see Responsive Reading, Matt. 13:24–30), uses a farmer’s predicament to illustrate his teachings. The strange sabotage of the crop by “an enemy” (verse 28) shows that this is no ordinary field. The farmer’s tools are not his plow and hoe, but his practical spiritual insight, which saves the crop and destroys the tares. Science and Health explains: “The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding,—yea, the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter,—are the wheat and tares which time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places” (p. 535, cit. 1). Paul writes in Galatians: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (6:7, 8, cit. 4).

Proverbs comes to a similar conclusion: “The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward” (11:18, cit. 9). This verse and the Bible passages from Psalms that follow in Section III deepen the demand for alertness and the sure rewards of dependence on God. An example from the Old Testament (Sect. IV) and from the Gospels (Sect. V) show what this means in practice, with Science and Health concluding: “We must not attribute more and more intelligence to matter, but less and less, if we would be wise and healthy” (p. 62, cit. 20).