PYCLs: Apply the 1st 2 Commandments. Compare what we learned about true Substance, with “matter”. Bring pails… What does matter look like?
Possible Younger Class Lesson ideas for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“matter”
for Sunday, March 19, 2023
by Kerry Jenkins, CS, of House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com • 314-406-0041
PYCL #1: WORK WITH THE FIRST TWO COMMANDMENTS.
Since the Commandments are one of the Sunday School directives mentioned in the Mother Church Manual (p. 63-63) under teaching Sunday School, this lesson is a good place to start.
What are “graven images”?
Do we still have them today?
How are they different from the golden calf that the Children of Israel had created when Moses went up the mountain and didn’t come back right away?
Most of us aren’t really tempted to worship a sculpture, so have a conversation about what we tend to “worship” today that is not God. Usually it is something that we are attributing power to [and so find ourselves thinking about often]. It could be something that we think will give us joy that actually won’t– like gossip, or excluding someone from a friendship circle or game.
Maybe we think we will get more respect if we cheat [or exaggerate with a “white lie”] so that we look like we are “smart” (even though we are — it might be a way to avoid looking like we don’t know something!).
Go through some scenarios that make this kind of false worship easier to recognize and stop.
How can we fix these things so that we truly do not “bow down” to other “gods”?
Isn’t a lot, if not all, of this kind of behavior based in fear?
We are afraid of not being accepted or loved, of being thought poorly of, or being the one left out.
PYCL #2: COMPARE WHAT WE LEARNED LAST WEEK ABOUT TRUE SUBSTANCE, WITH “MATTER”.
How do these two things compare? Is matter substance? What happens when we have a healing?
Does the “substance” of matter change from ill to healthy?
What was Jesus doing when he healed the woman in citation B12/Luke 13:11-17? Did he change her spine through prayer?
Or did Jesus’ understanding of her true, spiritually upright nature bring that true understanding into view for not only this woman, but for everyone in the temple?
What about the “substance” of Church law?
Was it substantial to oppose healing because it supposedly went against the Commandment to not do work on the Sabbath?
What is the spiritual purpose of that Commandment and how can we honor it today?
Perhaps pausing often to acknowledge God’s presence and power would be a good place to start?
We can also talk, even with the smaller children, about what is the apparent “substance” of matter? Obviously there is none, but what makes it appear so? Citation S12 states: “A material body only expresses a material and mortal mind.” (208:25-2 A)
And the last part of citation S11 states: “Science shows that what is termed matter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind.” (114:23) What is “mortal mind”?
Have a little conversation about this mind that claims to have identity outside of Mind and how we can learn to guide it, elevate it, and, eventually, get it to be quiet!! “Subjective” is a word that may need some defining. Contrast it with “objective”.
PYCL #3: WORK WITH citation S32/261:4 AND BRING SOME BUCKETS OR PAILS.
This passage is a great one to memorize. It is equally easy to discuss with little ones as it is with older children, you will just need to define or re-word it for the very young.
Give each small child a sand pail or bucket. Tell them we are going to fill it to the brim with things that last forever (enduring), things that are good, and things that are true. They will not be material things will they?
Since matter cannot last forever, or possess goodness or truth, it’s just a lump! We can mime adding love to the bucket, honesty, kindness, energy, joy, grace, intelligence, and so on.
Make a good game of it, maybe “energy” is active and hard to catch for your bucket! Now talk about how we can welcome these same ideas into our thought, hold them to us without wavering. We can notice that the pail doesn’t get heavier or harder to hold the more true things we “put” in it!
So we can do the same with our thought and hold on tight to these qualities. Then we find that the more we are thinking about being kind, the more we have opportunities to express kindness to those we see.
If we pause to think about it, we will have lovely sudden ideas of how we can be kind, even to people we don’t know!
How does it feel when we are kind to someone? Are we only blessing that person, or does it also make us feel great?
PYCL #4: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE TURN ON A BRIGHT LIGHT IN A DARK ROOM?
Obviously the darkness gets on its scooter and zooms into your closet right? No, it runs downstairs and drives away in your car?
But seriously, what happens to the dark?
Does it go somewhere? Does it have substance? No!
In the same way God and matter are opposites and cannot exist together because one just plain makes the other disappear, and that one is God! See citation S21/270:5-7 (to 2nd .), 10.
Consider what we know about God.
God is All, can there be something other than All?
God is good, can there be something that is substantial that is not good? No, because then God isn’t All, and all good.
You can go on from here. As we learn more about God, and fill up our thought with God as we talked about in PYCL #3, we gradually see that the lies of matter are no longer so tempting to believe.
Each healing proves this to us.
PYCL #5: WHAT DOES MATTER LOOK LIKE?
Just so we can identify it, we have a description in citation S23/96:12. When we are losing our material beliefs or they are being “broken up”, we may find ourselves struggling with “famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears.”
What are these things in your life? Sadness? Anger? Sickness and so on?
Have the children come up with a few of their own that they are eager to see “finally disappear”. This is what it looks like when we are moving away from seeing matter as powerful [and interesting to think about often].
But, like the darkness in your room, the light of Christ makes all these things diminish until they fully disappear. That’s healing!
We can maintain a peaceful sense of things because we know that matter is like that darkness — it is not substance!
Have a great week in Sunday School!
