Consulting the pastor

I thought, when I attended a Sunday service with my grandmother at her branch Church of Christ, Scientist, that the church had no pastor—just two people reading from two books. That seemed a bit unusual to me, but what was read from those books caught my attention to the point where I wanted to learn more. 

One of those books was the Bible (which I had a copy of), but I wasn’t familiar with the other book. Then one day on my way to my summer job, instead of just walking by the Christian Science Reading Room as I had done many times before, I stopped to view the window display. It featured those two books open side by side with passages marked in each—passages that spoke together as a singular, very engaging, message—and I went in to explore.

After settling in a chair in the study area and reading from those books for a while, I bought a copy of the second book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. After that, I became thoroughly engaged in reading these books each night before turning out the lights. And somewhere along the line, after I had been doing this for a while, I learned what I was actually doing: I was consulting with the pastor of my grandmother’s church!

I remember the pastor of the Christian church I attended while I was growing up. He was kind, friendly, and wise—a comforting and reassuring presence—and I admired him. But it never occurred to me to approach him for consultation, even though I had lots of questions bubbling up within me—about the nature of God, Christ Jesus, and myself; and about how I could find practical answers to my problems. And even if I had turned to him and found satisfying answers, there were limits indeed to how much time he could give to me. Also, he certainly couldn’t be with me whenever I needed him, or wherever I happened to be. But these two books were doing all of that—and are still doing it many decades later. 

So, what is it that makes these two books a pastor worthy of consultation every day? 

Right away Science and Health began to make God understandable to me—the God the Bible talks about all the time and that Christ Jesus, as God’s representative on earth, lived, taught, and demonstrated in healing. It made good sense to me that God and His creation cannot be understood through the limitations of the material senses—but that God gave us spiritual sense, making it quite natural to recognize the unchanging nature of God as Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, and of man as God’s spiritual image and likeness. 

Right away Science and Health began to make God understandable to me—the God the Bible talks about all the time.

As I studied these two books together, I began to realize that understanding God is the foundation for finding all the answers to life anyone could ever have. And ever since I started consulting this pastor, new views of God, and of myself and others as God’s image and likeness, have been enlightening me and bringing practical solutions to everyday problems—including the prevention and cure of sickness, disease, and sin.

So I consult this pastor of the worldwide Church of Christ, Scientist, every day for the inspiration, answers, and healing I need for myself and for others. I love consulting with the various books in the Bible and the full chapters and pages in Science and Health—and I often mark the Bible Lesson in the books so I can read the passages in context. And today it is easier than ever to consult this pastor anywhere and at any time by reading or listening (on a computer, laptop, or smartphone) wherever I am. 

Getting intimately acquainted with the pastor is such a direct way of getting intimately acquainted with God. I never tire of learning the divine Science of Christ as explained in Science and Health. The chapter “Prayer,” for example, shows how Christ Jesus prayed, and how we can pray as he did and experience God’s care for us in all circumstances. It so gently (though always directly to the point) shows effective prayer as a thing not just of the head, but of the heart—of letting divine Love purify our desires and motives so that we’re praying not for what we want, but for Love to reveal to us its own nature and our true nature as Love’s reflection and to guide us into being true to God and man in everything we think and do. 

The pastor brings the Bible’s message alive to me with an expectation that never disappoints me. I’m always finding fresh inspiration even in long-familiar passages and stories, showing me how to live as a student and practitioner of Christ, Truth. During the Easter season a couple of years ago, for instance, as I read the thirteenth chapter of John, I felt as though I was right there with Jesus’ disciples as he washed their feet, told of his impending betrayal by one of them (whose feet he had also washed), and counseled them to love each other in the same way he loved them. I’m still turning to the pastor to help me follow Jesus’ counsel as given in this moving account.

It’s quite amazing to me that in all these years—of nurturing my family with all its varying needs, accepting calls for help from people needing healing, and fulfilling the various posts I’ve been called to serve for the Cause of Christian Science—I have never found the pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, leading me in wrong directions. It leads me directly to God and to lessons I need to learn. It’s true that I don’t always feel ready to learn those lessons, but I soon find that I am being led to the truth that makes me free and blesses others, as Jesus promised—and that keeps me coming back to my dear pastor.

Barbara Vining
Editor