PYCLs– Let’s banish any thought that would keep us outside all the good God is raining down on us! (2) With even a touch of Christ, feel wholeness ! (4) And spiritual power! (5)
Possible Younger Class Lesson ideas for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Man”
for Sunday, September 3, 2023
by Kerry Jenkins, CS, of House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com • 314-406-0041
PYCL #1: Make a “standard”.
In the Golden Text (Isa. 49:22) it tells us: I will “…set up My standard for the peoples;”. Explain that in this case, a “standard” was a flag on a long pole that would be brought into battle so that you could always know where your “side” was located in the confusion of battle. In this case, God is telling us that no matter what challenges we are facing, what confusion, what anger, sadness, etc. Love will be visible, with us, tangible, guiding us to Her side.
Bring in materials, paper, or fabric (make your own plans according to your love of crafts!). Have the children write down the qualities that they would be drawn to in their own “battles”. If it’s very young children, they could simply draw pictures on the “flag”. Attach it to a long pole. You could just use a broom as a temporary version of this, or find an appropriate stick. Maybe the “standard” would be a class motto for your upcoming year.
PYCL #2: The Christ man inherits all good.
There is a focus in this lesson on what makes a “man” (family name, not gender) whole, complete. Is it our gender? Do we need to find our completeness in a male or female or other identity? There are a few lovely examples of man’s wholeness to share, and we’ll get to that, but we don’t often have the story of Zelophehad’s daughters in the lesson and we have them this week in the Responsive Reading–Num. 27:1 (to:) Rom. 8:16,17 to 2nd;. Tell the story with a background that explains that only the sons of families could receive inheritance. In this case, these women came to Moses to ask that they receive their father’s inheritance rather than giving it to another male relative, since he had no sons. Moses took their request to God and returned a positive response.
I love that we can see that in an era where women never owned anything and were utterly dependent on men, we see Moses turning to God for answers and actually hearing and carrying out what must have seemed very unusual to the people in their day. Obviously this is not a perfect example since it did not change the usual inheritance patterns if a male heir was available, but still, it was progress! Equally important to recognize might be the women’s sense of wholeness that caused them to petition Moses about something that, up to that time, would not have been considered.
Are we thinking of ourselves as deserving of God’s inheritance?
What thoughts do we have that put us outside of the abundance that Love is raining down on each of us?
Can we, like these women, be open to our rightful deserving of God’s, Wisdom’s, abundant good?
How do we leave ourselves open to this abundance?
When we see ourselves as deserving of good because we are the Christ man, not a random human, then we behave as this whole, Christ-like man. This leads us to feel that wholeness and accept the abundant good that God is giving us right now. Perhaps make a list of what we inherit from God.
PYCL #3: Make a quality chart of manhood/womanhood.
This Bible lesson makes it clear that gender is not our identity and does not limit us, nor give us freedom. What qualities can the children list that are characterized as male/female, father/mother, boy/girl. List a whole bunch of good qualities and afterward see if you can decide which are “male” and which are “female”.
Are the qualities physical or spiritual? For example, in most cases among grownups, men are physically stronger than women. But is strength a “male” quality?
Or does everyone have strength: strength of character, spiritual power, strong love, and so on?
Which kind of strength lasts?
Do we really want to be defined by physical aspects of ourselves? (There is nothing wrong with enjoying the physical strength and freedom to express ourselves athletically etc., I’m merely talking about not clinging to this as our sense of identity).
PYCL #4: Where does our wholeness come from?
I touched on this earlier but this is worth a chat with your students. We look for how to feel about ourselves in a variety of ways throughout our lives. Zelophehad’s daughters (unnamed!) were not whole because they did or did not receive their dad’s inheritance. They were whole because they are Mind’s expression of Life and they saw their wholeness and received an expression of that in the human inheritance that gave them a means to live.
The woman in citation B22/Matt. 9:20-22 was told that her faith had made her “whole”. She was healed of more than a decade of bleeding in a moment of Christ-man recognition. Her feelings of lack came from many corners: her illness that divided her (for religious unclean reasons) from society, her femaleness, the Bible story of Eve being dependent on Adam–taken from his rib, of being thrown from paradise because of sin or “separateness” from Love. All of these are suggestions of incompleteness. But when we recognize even a touch of Christ we can feel our wholeness!
Deborah in Section 3 (Judges 4:4-7, 13,14 (to?), 23), certainly saw herself as a complete idea, capable of inspired leadership and even battle. This was based solely on her spiritual vision, not on her maleness, femaleness, human strength, or her training.
Anna in Section 4 (Luke 2:21 his, 33,36 (to:), 37,38,40 was surely a woman who understood her wholeness, serving in the Temple as a prophet after she was widowed when she was quite young–she served in the Temple 84 years–that would have been after the death of her husband! Jesus was someone who recognized fully that his wholeness came from identifying with the Christ, these other Bible characters illustrate this Christ man as well. The Christ man is ageless, genderless and continuously unfolding to our consciousness.
PYCL #5: Share some of these amazing stories with the kids.
There are a few Bible stories in this lesson that are rarely included in our Bible lessons. We have mentioned all of them at least once. Look into the background of Deborah’s story, for instance, and share who she was as an early Judge of the nation of Israel before the kings. Look into the full story of the battle included in this lesson. Find out, for example, that the river flooded and destroyed and chased off the enemy in this account, so the power that Deborah demonstrated was clearly not simple physical prowess!
What was important about Anna’s story? What power stands out to the children after pondering this collection of stories (including the woman with the issue of blood)? Courage? Confidence in God? Wisdom? Love?
Are these qualities that the children have? How do they express them? Look up the stories in a modern translation and see if there is something new to see or understand and express.
Have a great week in Sunday School!
