Introduction

Christian Science nursing is a needed, healing ministry that our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, wisely provided through her Manual By-law, Article 8, Section 31: “A member of The Mother Church who represents himself or herself as a Christian Science nurse shall be one who has a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice, who thoroughly understands the practical wisdom necessary in a sickroom, and who can take proper care of the sick.”

Perhaps we don’t give much thought to this healing work until we, or a family member, suddenly needs the services of a Christian Science nurse. Perhaps we come to a facility like Morning Light, or we ask for the help of a visiting nurse who comes to our home. Either way, we’re deeply grateful for the inspiration, calm and practical care brought to what are often challenging situations. With the nurses working side by side with the practitioner on the case, we know healing can result.

Nursing’s spiritual foundation

Today I’d like to make the Biblical case for how nursing is at the core of divine Love’s transformation of the human need, at the intersection where the human and divine meet and healing results. It all has to do with the word ‘practical’ in the By-law quoted above: “the practical wisdom necessary in a sickroom.” This aspect of practicality, grounded in the qualification the By-law states: “one who has a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice,” is what distinguishes nursing from the purely spiritual approach of prayer. You might say nursing puts legs on prayer, as the situation demands.

It is this aspect of the practicality of nursing that comes blazing through in any number of Bible stories and passages. Nursing is evidenced as God’s love seen in a way we can understand and in a way that meets the human need. This means that while we may not be a professional Christian Science nurse ourselves, we can apply the principle of nursing to the many situations in our lives that demand Love’s practical, transforming power.

The last section of that By-law states: “who can take proper care of the sick.” What about those sick over their economic situation, their job, a church situation, a school challenge, national and global politics, or the environment? Can we, through applying the practicality of nursing’s spiritual qualities of responsiveness, affection and alertness, positively impact the ‘sick’ in every facet of our lives? The

Bible would answer a resounding ‘yes’, providing Scriptural evidence that that is exactly what God expects of Her children listening for direction and guidance on how to serve our fellow man.

The relevance of Luke’s Gospel

Luke’s Gospel proclaims God’s universal love, extending the Christian message beyond just the Old Testament’s children of Israel, to ALL who are receptive to the message of salvation brought by Christ Jesus. Mrs. Eddy writes: “The cross is the central emblem of history” (p. 238, S&H). With its two axes, the cross symbolizes both man’s relationship to God with the vertical axis, and one’s relationship to his fellow man with the horizontal axis. To Luke, the way we demonstrate our followership of God (the vertical dimension) is through our fellowship with our neighbor, (the horizontal one), particularly those in need.

This horizontal dimension is what Christian Science nursing demands and why its Manual By-law provision extends beyond those who are professionally engaged in nursing, to the nursing qualities of tenderness and care each of us can bring to a whole spectrum of needs we may see with our neighbors.

Definitions

It’s helpful to start with definitions – even for words we think we know. In addition to the more familiar sense of the verb: “to nurse” (to tend or minister to in sickness), there is this definition: to look after carefully so as to promote growth, development; to foster; cherish. This is synonymous with the definition of a Christian who, in following Christ Jesus’ example, aspires toward fostering and cherishing the spiritual growth of all who cross our path. Such efforts help us stay alert to also meeting the practical needs of our neighbors, when possible, which reinforces Luke’s message that it is through one’s love for our fellow man that we demonstrate our love for God.

There is also this definition for the noun form for nurse: any fostering agency or influence. We could ask ourselves, in our role as “nurse” in daily encounters with others: is the influence I have on others a fostering one? Do I foster kinship and kindness or brusqueness and carelessness? Like the Bible’s Good Samaritan, am I alert to the practical needs of those who cross my path? Do I embody Love’s “tender mercies” that address the practical needs of family members, relatives, fellow workers, neighbors? Could I look for opportunities to nurse – to foster a loving influence – in daily encounters with the grocery checker, the toll booth taker, the fellow student, the church member not always easy to work with?

The Biblical Basis for Influence

This definition of a “fostering influence” is founded on the deepest Biblical truth, what Mrs. Eddy described as “the signs of Immanuel, or ‘God with us,’ – a divine influence ever present in human consciousness.” You’ll recall that that statement placed early in her textbook – the Preface to Science and Health, p. 12 – refers to Luke’s Gospel, chapter 4. The setting is the launch of Jesus’ Galilean ministry and his first appearance in the Synagogue in Nazareth following the wilderness temptations. Think of the holy state of thought having been alone for 40 days and nights, working through the worst that the devil (or mortal mind) could throw at him. Christ Jesus emerged victorious and went to the Synagogue where he was invited, as a visiting Rabbi, to read from the Hebrew Scriptures. Of the 39 books he could have selected, he picked Isaiah 61:1-2 that prophetically describes the Christly influence his life would embody over the next three years – a ministry that changed human history and each of our lives. As the New Revised Standard Version translates it:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

How about this for a definition of the nursing work we are to daily practice as we too entertain the Christ, Truth, in consciousness? Breaking down the statement, we might say it is:

1. Bringing good news to our fellow man poor in the understanding of their natural spiritual perfection, or their reason for hope, or why joy is their nature, not just an aspiration.
2. Proclaiming their freedom from whatever would try to hold them captive to a material definition of identity, to any sense of lack of companionship or resources.
3. Knowing how Christ, Truth will recover their sight to any blindness to their natural worth, perfect health, satisfying relationships, full employment.
4. . Bearing witness to their freedom from economic,emotional or physical oppression, including claims of heredity, dysfunction, stress.
5. Approaching each day by proclaiming that this year, this month, this hour is the year of the Lord, the year of
   abundance, the year of health, the year of joy and fulfillment, the year of the full use of our spiritual talents in appropriate employment, the year of resolution of any lingering challenge.

Isn’t this the work of nursing each of us can practice in this larger sense?

Example from 2 Kings

Let’s look at a Biblical example in 2 Kings, chapter 5 that embodies this daily approach to nursing grounded in spiritual inspiration and the practical meeting of the human need: the story of Naaman a leper, his young female household servant, and the prophet Elisha The setting is the middle of the 9 th century BC (about 850), where there is a warring relationship between Israel and the Kingdom of Aram – an important nation in southern Syria, which flourished between the 11th and 8th centuries B.C.E. and had its capital at Damascus, the current capital of the modern state of Syria.

Naaman was Commander in Chief of the nation’s armies, having not only enjoyed battlefield success but the King’s trust – a kind of General Macarthur of the ancient world. Key to the story is a young woman who was one of the many spoils of war. The text says in 2 Kings 5: 3, “And the Syrians had gone out by companies.” ‘Companies’ is a polite way of translating the Hebrew for ‘marauding bands’. We can only imagine what she, like so many young girls and women, might have endured before arriving as a household slave to the General’s wife. While the story doesn’t give detail of her background, history has recorded the frequency of the exploitation of women in such conditions. That’s important only to appreciate the spiritual distance she must have traveled to play such a healing role.

But the text does reveal the quality of her thought: concern for her master, which must have arisen out of forgiveness for whatever wrongs had been done her; unselfed love to think of more than herself; and above all, a deep faith and conviction that someone in her defeated country understood and loved God enough to be able to help and heal her master. Perhaps this ‘little maid’ had seen firsthand some of the works of Elisha, or at the least, had heard of the healing provided others.

The modern equivalent of her unselfish act of referring her leprous master to Elisha would be someone slighted or wronged by a neighbor who had been unfair without cause, perhaps gossiping in a damaging way. How easy to be resentful in such a scenario. Then you learn that the critical neighbor is quite ill, hospitalized. Working through resentment by practicing forgiving care and love for another, you make a hospital visit, pointing them to the healing Christ, Truth that results in their complete freedom.

The little maid embodies the description of nursing we all can practice: she entertains that Christ consciousness that cannot co-exist with any personal sense filled with hatred, resentment or anger. (As a wise CS healer used to say: such feelings may be humanly justifiable but divinely inadmissible.) Next the slave girl takes the practical step to do something to meet the human need: in this case telling her mistress (Naaman’s wife) about Elisha’s healing ministry. Naaman goes to Israel and we know the rest of the story: his health is restored following his obedience to Elisha’s command to bathe seven times in the Jordan. What isn’t as well known is that an important relationship developed – because of this experience – between Elisha and the King of Aram that resulted in increasing peace between the two countries. All of this came from the nursing qualities practiced by a household slave girl.

The definition of “Elias” in the glossary of Science and Health has special application to both this story and Christian Science nursing in general. “Spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality.” (p. 585) “Elias truly shall first come and restore all things.”

Isn’t this the description of the spiritual roles and responsibilities of a nurse, or any of us who practice nursing to whatever in our lives needs such tender care? We are truly called to restore the material picture with spiritual evidence. That spiritual seeing is like a laser, cutting through the false evidence that tries to see a sick mortal, sick body, sick economy, sick relationship. Doesn’t every aspect of our personal and professional lives require such spiritual seeing, the nursing qualities embedded in this story and so many others throughout the Scriptures?

I experienced first hand the restoration of health as described in the definition of Elias and learned more of Love’s direct nursing care several years ago with what I later learned was a claim of blood poisoning. A work situation had occurred where people seemed unfairly dismissed from their executive jobs because of a disagreement with senior leadership. I was resentful, but even more challenging, seriously disheartened and sad. If people I so greatly admired had made such a critical mistake, then maybe God wasn’t truly in charge after all. After several rough days, my prayers for healing were answered when a practitioner reminded me of the correlative passage read each Sunday from I John 3: “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” The claim wasn’t blood poisoning but hopelessness.

This Christly message transformed consciousness from fear and despair to a spiritually grounded sense of hope based on God’s omnipotent governance. The restoration of hope had an immediate cleansing effect as wounds opened and within moments a pool of the poisonous liquid drained from the arm. Within hours the openings closed and that was the astounding end of the challenge.

This tender guardianship of divine Love, this divine nursing care, brought healing to the body but more, a profound shift in consciousness. I well remember the awe of seeing Love at work in such a practical way. Within weeks an additional practical need was met as I was effortlessly lifted out of that organization for a truly fulfilling professional activity that lasted the next ten years.

Paul’s example

Finally, there is special reference to nursing in Paul’s letters that is a further Biblical example of the practice of nursing in this larger way – by each of us whether a professional nurse or not.

As background, Paul’s seven letters to the churches he nurtured into existence are the earliest Christian documents, preceding the Gospels by a generation. Of the seven, I Thessalonians is the first. How instructive, then, to note that in this first great document of Christianity, a key metaphor Paul chooses to illustrate how he works with the fledgling converts is nursing. The setting is that Paul recounts his interactions with the Thessalonians, stressing his integrity while proclaiming the gospel among them, and his ongoing concern for them after he had moved on. It’s a letter of both admonition and encouragement.

Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province Macedonia and a Greek city with little Jewish population, so Paul’s audience are Gentiles who have had a long devotion to the cult of the Roman emperor. Paul’s purpose in writing is to strengthen the congregation by reminding them of his initial proclaiming of Christ’s kingdom, and to encourage them to be firm in persecution for their Christian beliefs.

The King James Version reads:

You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain but though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.

Here is the same passage in a modern paraphrase from The Message, by Eugene Peterson, a text that often captures the essence of the King James translation but in more current vernacular: Here is the same passage in a modern paraphrase from The Message, by Eugene Peterson, a text that often captures the essence of the King James translation but in more current vernacular:

God tested us thoroughly to make sure we were qualified to be trusted with this Message. Be assured that when we speak to you we’re not after crowd approval—only God approval. Since we’ve been put through that battery of tests, you’re guaranteed that both we and the Message are free of error, mixed motives, or hidden agendas. We never used words to butter you up. No one knows that better than you. And God knows we never used words as a smoke screen to take advantage of you. Even though we had some standing as Christ’s apostles, we never threw our weight around or tried to come across as important, with you or anyone else. We weren’t aloof with you. We took you just as you were. We were never patronizing, never condescending, but we cared for you the way a mother cares for her children. We loved you dearly. Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts. And we did.

Christian Science nursing demands nothing less from us: that we give our hearts – in gentleness, tenderness and practical care – to those around us to demonstrate that coincidence of divine Love meeting the human need. Then we’re daily living the Manual By-law for nursing our Leader so lovingly provides