PYCL: Stop asking the wrong question altogether. Dramatize the stories.

[PYCL: Stop asking the wrong question altogether. Dramatize the stories. (#1, # 2)]
Possible Younger Class Lessons for the Christian Science Bible Lesson on

"Adam and Fallen Man"
for November 5, 2017

by Kerry Jenkins, CS, House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com (314) 406-0041

Pycl #1: Once you've addressed the subject title and what it means to be "fallen", you can think about some dramatizations of the Bible stories in this lesson. The story of the man born blind is a helpful one. [A possible CedarS reenactment script to use or modify is available in the upper right download.] If you have a few children, or even just two, you can have one be a disciple asking Jesus why this man (someone can be the man, or you can have the man be imaginary) was born blind. Write some lines that might put it in modern English for the children. For example: "Why was this man born blind? Did he do something wrong so he deserves this? Did his mom or dad do something wrong? Is there some medical/genetic reason for this problem? Who/what can we blame? Is he not a good Christian Scientist?" After making sure you have reviewed what Jesus tells them…. that we are asking the wrong question altogether (see The Message)! What question should we ask? You can discuss this among yourselves before acting out the story. In any instance of sickness or a challenge of any kind, what questions should we be asking? Jesus tells us that it is really an opportunity to see how wonderful and present God is! And then he heals the man. You can come up with a few simple lines, and to make the "play" a little longer, you might read more of the story and see how it continues. Others could play the part of church elders who question whether this man is really the same one who was born blind ("healing isn't possible in this case"). Discuss the "Adam doubts" that can present themselves to our thought as we do have healings sometimes! Do we sometimes think that maybe we weren't really all that troubled after all? That maybe the problem would have just gone away anyway? These are other serpent suggestions that keep us doubting God's power and presence and make us feel less than full gratitude for God's ever present goodness.

Pycl #2: We could also dramatize the story of Lazarus in this week's lesson. Why is this story in this week's lesson? Why does Jesus refer to Lazarus as sleeping? What does this "sleep" have to do with the "Adam sleep" in this lesson, if anything? Why is sleep used as an analogy? How about dreaming? You can talk about all the aspects of the Lazarus story, even those not included in this week's lesson in order to broaden the scope of this drama as well. Why did Jesus thank God before calling Lazarus from the tomb? What does Mrs. Eddy mean when she says that Jesus never could have raised him from the dead if he believed that Lazarus had died in the first place? (S22). Feel free to bring some simple sheets or such to "wrap" Lazarus in. There doesn't need to be a big production about it. Discuss what these windings symbolize when Jesus says: "Loose him, and let him go". What does the stone represent? Could it be the hardness of people's thinking about death, or about the goodness of God, or the presence of Jesus as the Christ message to man? Could it be the stubbornness of human belief? Make sure that whoever is "moving the stone" does some good grunting and groaning at its weight! How can we remove these "stones" from our own thinking? I wonder if the questions Jesus has for Mary and Martha about where they have laid Lazarus is similar to how God asks in the Adam myth "where are you?" to Adam and Eve? Is Jesus calling on the sisters to come out from a material, shame-based belief of Lazarus' life, and step into a spiritual view of Life, eternally governing man in laws of harmony? The difference here is that Jesus raises Lazarus and frees him from this serpent suggestion of death. While in the Adam myth, Adam and Eve are kicked out of paradise, where they might have had eternal life!! Interesting juxtaposition. Does it make sense that God would make man, make it part of man's psyche to sin, then punish him for doing what he made him able to do in the first place? (S&H 356:25) (If this is going too far in Bible interpretation, feel free to ignore!)

Pycl #3: The story of Adam and Eve and what happens in the story are referred to as "original sin". Original has that word "origin" in it. What does Mrs. Eddy say about the importance of understanding our spiritual origin? (S5) She uses the word "causation" here, but there are also many references to our origin, where something starts. Where or in what do we "start"? Is it in matter? It sure does seem like that. Christian Science teaches us, like Jesus taught his followers when he healed the blind man and raised Lazarus from the dead, that even though we seem to have to walk around in matter, that actually, by understanding our spiritual origin or cause, we can see this spiritual nature surface and take precedence over the material seeming existence. This is what happens when we have healings. It is worth our time to daily spiritualize our consciousness, to replace material thoughts, with spiritual ones whenever we can! This is like opening a window on the kingdom of heaven that is within each of us. It shows us what the real "weather" is, every day. You could make a comparison to living inside a big house with no windows. You might never know what the world is like outside if you never step outside the house. If we never step outside of a strictly material view of creation, then we never see the true happiness, abundance, health, etc. that God is giving us. Imagine never, ever going outside that house, no matter how big it is!

Pycl #4: We have done this before, but look at citations B1 and B2, just the first verse of that one. God's creation is finished, complete, very good! Now show them a full glass of water, or anything that is completely full. Can you add anything to that glass? No! There is no sin, no error, no evil, nothing that can fit into something that is "complete". Talk about how the word "complete" also means "perfect, or whole". How cool is that in this context? Why would it be needed to know something outside wholeness? Is there something outside wholeness to know? We can also be sure that a loving, good, all-powerful God is not telling us that there is something "real" about evil.

Pycl #5: This is included in CedarS Met this week, but one way to recognize the "serpent temptations" when they come, is by what they are saying. For example, what does the serpent tell Eve in citation B7? He says that she and Adam will be "as gods". What do we know about God? Is there more than one? Isn't that the first give-away, that we will have some power that will make us better than God? We can be our own "creators", our own "originators". And that somehow, we will be more cool, more happy, if we know both good and evil, if we are more "normal" and do the same things as other people we might know? We don't want to feed into a culture that would be totally false, of thinking that we are somehow "better" than others because we believe in Christian Science. We definitely are not!! But we can take the truth that we have learned and enjoy sharing the joy and health and peace of mind that comes with this understanding, rather than getting down in the mud of matter with everyone and never elevating the circumstances we are in. [The benefits of “choosing the best, and… helping others thus to choose” between a Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 self-concept are spelled out in a simple poem in the upper right download. (My. 165:2)]

Have an awesome [Genesis 1] Sunday!