THE MYSTERIES OF THE FOUR GOSPELS
Lesson Five. Luke 14.
Unity Interpretation of
The Feast and the Guests
CHARLES and CORA FILLMORE
02/12/1942
CHARLES FILLMORE: OPENING SONGS
We will sing No.2 — "My Eyes Have Seen The Glory":
1. My eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord.
He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He hath loosed the faithful lightning
Of His terrible, swift sword!
His truth is marchin on.
CHORUS
Glory! Glory! Hallelulah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelulah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelulah,
His truth is marching on.
2. He has sounded forth the trumpet
That shall never know retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before the judgment seat.
O, be swift my soul to answer him!
Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
3. In the beauty of the lilies,
Christ was born across the sea!
With the glory in his bosom
That transfigures you and me.
As he lived to make men holy,
Let us live to make men free.
While God is marching on!
Let's all join in the Lord's prayer: (In unison). .... Amen.
CORA FILLMORE: MEDITATION:
This is our fifth lesson, the sixth in the course “THE MYSTERIES OF THE FOUR GOSPELS”. Today our lesson is based upon the 14th Chapter of Luke, verses 12 to 15. Here we read:
14:12And he said to him also that had bidden him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich neighbors; lest haply they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. 14:13But when thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 14:14and thou shalt be blessed; because they have not wherewith to recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just. 14:15And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.
This lesson is deeply metaphysical, and it is a very important lesson, is it not? From a spiritual viewpoint, we know who the poor, the maimed, the lame the blind are. We know they are our own thought-people that need our spiritual help. We know that when we are working to redeem the consciousness in the silence, we don’t spend ay too much time on the highly developed states within the soul. But we begin working to raise up and to transform our weak, mistaken, sick, blind thoughts through declaring that they are beautiful, strong, illumined, redeemed through and through.
From a little different angle this Scripture may have another important side to it. I remember how this side was presented to me was many years ago, before I knew metaphysics. One month of my vacation I went to Chicago to attend summer school. I got what they called normal training under what was then a celebrated teachers’ school of expression, and there was one who was with the teachers of Chicago University. She was Emerson’s star pupil, I believe they said. On every hand you heard the remark she was the best Bible student in all the world, the best Bible reader in all the world. She was a Methodist. Surely she was a spiritual metaphysician. One day she read this lesson:
“When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors lest haply they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made. 13. But when thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 14. And thou shalt be blessed; because they have not wherewith to recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just. And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God”.
She explained it in this light: that every progressive soul is working to unfold strong, fine, reliable soul qualities, which we believe is true, and that this Scripture she said, held a great secret along that line. She believed and explained if we want to unfold some certain quality, to have some certain development, we were to go and seek out someone who was poor or maimed or blind, someone who didn’t seem to have a chance, an apparent chance in any way of receiving help from any other source. To select out such a person and try to arrange it so that they would have some kind of constructive work to do. Presumably they were doing this for her. This would open opportunities to aid them with support from time to time and one step at a time paying them perhaps a small wage for their effort. Of course, you gradually placed them on their feet so that they would be able to win their own way in life. All these we were doing for the Lord, we were told—working solely for the Lord, not for compensation from the Lord. But that we were simply doing it for the Lord in payment for the many many blessings we had already received. "[unreadable text] succeed," we were told, in this difficult undertaking to help the helpless to a certain degree. But the point is don’t hurry, keep at it, but also know it is the most important work in all your life. She explained, that by being persistent along these lines, and relaxing the selfish grasp of the mortal, which is in everyone, opened the way for the free flow of spirit in soul consciousness. Before we were aware of it, she assured us, we would unfold some of these rare qualities we would possess. No doubt she had tried this out, because she really had some wonderful powers.
Emerson said, “Tis nobler to first help them who cannot help themselves, and in so doing, we help ourselves it seems.”
Let’s go into the silence and think along these lines. “HELP THOSE WHO APPARENTLY CANNOT HELP THEMSELVES.” “THUS BY HELPING THOSE WHO APPARENTLY CANNOT RECOMPENSE US, WE ARE BLESSED IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST.
Let us go deeper therefore into the inner silence, and be one with the eternal in the silence in which the very God substance penetrates and permeates the soul. Unselfish thinking lends a close, very close fellowship with the Lord. We take this thought: ‘I AM NOW BLESSES AS I PARTAKE OF THAT DIVINE SUBSTANCE.” Together (Repeat).
“I AM NOW BLESSED AS I PARTAKE OF THY DIVINE SUBSTANCE.”
In His Name. Amen.
LESSON: CHARLES FILLMORE:
Today we are giving part of our lesson to the celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the great President and champion of freedom. He said in his Gettysburg address, that this “nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people cannot perish from the earth.”
We here, arranged by Professor Frangkiser today, a special musical program, and Lowell also has found a few items that connect Abraham Lincoln to the Unity thought, and he is going to read them before the quartet sings. Addressing Lowell: Your read extracts that will corroborate what I have said, Lowell: (Laughter)
LOWELL FILLMORE: These are just some of the sayings of Abraham Lincoln. You are all familiar them I presume. They were gathered up by some of the workers here to help me. I could not find them myself. But it shows the wonderful outlook that Lincoln had toward life and toward people.
- “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.” “I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to life up to what life I have.”
- “I must stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he stands right and part company with him when he goes wrong.”
- “I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if, as and when I come to lay down the reigns of power, I have lost everyone’s friendship on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.”
- “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.”
- Here is a humorous one: “He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents and when his sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds he was an orphan!”
- “It has been said of the world history that might makes right. It is for us and our time to reverse that maxim and to say that right makes might.”
- “I don’t know who my grandfather was. I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
- “Character is like a tree, and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it. The tree is the real thing.”
- “I shall accept new views as fast as they shall appear to be new views.”
- “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than speak out and remove all doubt.” (laughter).
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I know of. (I think Lowell meant: I think he can compress the biggest ideas into the fewest words.)
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with judgment in the right as God gives us to see the right.” (And that is from his Second Inaugural address.)
CHARLES FILLMORE: We will now hear from the quartet who will come right up here.“Tramp, tramp, tramp the Boys are marching.
Cheer up comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag
We shall breath the air again (Applause)
As I listened to the extracts Lowell read about Lincoln, I discovered that I had a few I would like to call your attention to, because Lincoln carried out some of the ideas that we are cultivating and demonstrated them to be well worthy of attention at least. And he gave us some points that right now we could apply. During the most strenuous period of our great Civil War, he insisted upon telling some of his very familiar and common jokes that everyone in his Cabinet meetings, we are told, when they were considering matters of tremendous importance, right in the midst of them, he would tell a joke and some of his cabinet were so disgusted. Stanton, we are told, one evening was discussing a matter of grave importance. Lincoln in the midst of it told one of his foolish little jokes. Stanton got up and left the discussion. Lincoln explained telling these stories relieved him of the great burden that was upon him. So I think that that is something we could imitate when we feel great stress of circumstances and everybody is moaning and crying. Don’t cry and don’t moan. Think of something happy. Think of something that relieves them. Not like Stanton.
I think we have called your attention before to the hard side which political leaders take. I don’t think Roosevelt is so much that way, but Churchill is, because he wants us to think of “blood and sweat and tears”. We don’t think along those lines because they are depressing. So I like to follow Abraham Lincoln ... (pausing) I think that has been read. This is something else. This one I didn’t find the exact authority for, but I remember reading once that during a balloon ascension—I don’t know but what I told you this one before. You will excuse me if I change it a little, because I don’t want to tell it just the same every time. The main points are true. It was a balloon ascension in New Orleans. Lincoln said it reminded him of “courtesy” ... the greatest illustration of courtesy he ever heard of. This was the courtesy of an old colored man. It seems at the balloon ascension a clown went up in the balloon and floated up in the country and landed in a cotton field. The colored people seeing the basket coming down got along. But the old colored man had rheumatism and couldn’t run with the balance of the colored people who ran to the woods. But this old colored man stood his ground. When the clown stepped out of the basket in spangles and tights, the old colored man doffed his hat and said, “Good Mawnin’, Mastah Jesus: How’s yore Paw!” (Laughter)
Here’s another that I got out of this book on Lincoln. Senator Summer of Massachusetts called at the White House early one morning. He was told that President Lincoln was downstairs. He thought he would go right down and see him. He went down and found the President polishing his shoes. Somewhat amused and amazed, Senator Sumner said, “Why, Mr. President, do you black your own boots!” With a vigorous rub of the brush the President replied, Whose boots do you think I should black!” He told this incident to Senator Henderson who when he heard it made a memorandum of it too. An item on Lincoln in Henderson’s book was:
“He said the only schooling he ever had was in a log school house when reading books and grammars were unknown so they read part of the time from the Scriptures there when all stood up in a long line and read the lesson. One day they read from the story of the Children of Israel in the fiery furnace. ‘It fell to one little fellow to read the verse in which the names Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego occurred. The little bud stammered and passed ‘Shadrach’, floundered on ‘Meshach’ and went all to pieces on ‘Abednego’. Instantly the headmaster dealt him a cut on the side of his head and left him floundering and wailing as the next boy took up the reading. But before the girl at the end of the line had time to read he had subsided into a sniffle and finally became quiet. His blunders and disgrace were forgotten by the other members of the class, until his turn was approaching to read again. Then like a thunderclap out of a clear sky, he set up a wail and howl and even the headmaster who was astounded, said with unusual gentleness, ‘What is the matter now, Bud!’ Pointing with shaking finger to the verse which a few moments later would fall to him to read, he quavered, ‘Look there Master! There comes them damn three fellers again!’ I read about these three fellers and could appreciate it, but that little fellow couldn’t”. (Laughter)
Now, we want to go back to our lesson again. In the class today are those who are working for credits and I would like to call your attention to the points in the lesson because you will have to remember them and not remember all these jokes.
I am going to read those verses again: “... When thou makest a dinner for a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich neighbors; lest haply they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; because they have not wherewith to recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just. ... and Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.”
Now spiritually the ‘dinner’ or ‘feast’ represents the appropriation by man and his friends, or his ‘faculties’—your nearest friend is your faculty, spiritually interpreted—and there are to be invited by you to appropriate this invisible substance, and that invisible substance if you appropriate it in the right way will recompense you.
Now the expectancy of reward for everything one does is the bane of human service. When we work for the love of the work and no thought of compensation, we shall work divinely.
Now with most artists, painters and sculpters this is in a measure appropriated and applied. There are many instances when the artist so loved his creations he refused to part with them, although he might be in dire want.
Now instead of looking to God for their recompense, for their reward, the human family have been taught to look to the material side and the first question when one is offered a job or anything that pertains to work and finance is, “how much is there in it for me!” ... looking to the reward.
Now if we would all enter into this consciousness of the Kingdom of God where the reward is always pressing toward us, it would solve all the problems of life. And we would have abundance and we wouldn’t have to work as we do now. I think it is Ruskin who said “every man was born with his work or his work was born with him.” Now that is a spiritual truth that is, when occupied, the thing you can do best is within your own soul, your own subconscious. Well, in psychology, you know business firms are applying that in hiring their employees to try to find out what the bent of the applicant is and if it is in line with their work, or they can see a tendency in that direction, they take him. So you can see we have within us an ability to do a certain work and if that were brought out—and the way to bring it out is not to look outside things so much, but believe in that which, as Lincoln said, goes on within us, within ourselves. And we demonstrate that up to a certain point, for our lesson calls attention again and again to this certain fact that we must raise up these many lacks, the lame, the blind, the halt, the poor, they must be provided for. Who is going to provide for them? We have to do it. At first glance this proposition seems ridiculous. But the productive ability of the human family is so great, if we all work and through our minds and machines which we can invent, we could produce more than the needs of the people.
This is brought out in that—well—imaginary product called the “Shop in Heaven.” I think it is by Johnson. He says this shop in Heaven was open to every inhabitant of Heaven and that you could have anything without cost. You need it go go take it. Everybody was pressing upon them; those who manufactured pressed upon the customers to take it. Instead of asking a price they had to give it because they had so much to give—they had produced more than they needed and pressed upon people to take it. The story goes a customer from earth dropped in and they told him he could have anything he wanted. He began to load up right and left. Everybody in the shop, customers and all the employees fell right out and began to pray. He was surprised because as he listened they were praying for his greed, that he might be released from that greed he had brought from earth. Well he began to put things back, so they all let up and began to sing psalms.
This is an imaginary illustration of what would take place in the earth if we would all cultivate this inner Mind of Spirit, which would provide for us so abundantly that we would never need to ask for anything—it would all be ours. Now then, as we get the lesson we take up the different points given here in detail.
The first, of course, is those who are encumbered with, I might say, with a sense of insufficiency. They lack, they are poor. Jesus said, “The poor you have with you always.” Isn’t that true? Why is it we have the poor with us? You look at the real attitude of our people. They are grasping things. They are storing up. They are laying up for a higher price compensation. Now we will always have the poor until we get rid of that idea of greed and selfishness. What’s the foundation of that? We think we are poor. We have got to get these things to live, because if we don’t there will be a time when we will want! You can see that’s based upon greed in the mind. You MUST FEED THESE GREEDY THOUGHTS, THE POOR THOUGHTS—are really poor yet they are greedy. Did you ever think of that? It isn’t altogether the rich people that have things who are greedy, who want things. What’s the difference? The same thing! They apply the law. You are still setting the law to work in the same way of struggle to get. We all want things. If we realize it, there is abundance. That would be an abundance for everyone, of everything. You don’t have to have a lot of things, a big bank account and so on, you don’t have to have these things. They are—well— just transitory. You know they are not real. SO WE MUST BEGIN TO FEED THE POOR. And that is a great feast, and you invite all your poor thoughts in to the feast, and you tell them how rich God is, how wonderfully He provides for everybody, and your poor thoughts are so filled with this inner Substance, that Divine Illumination of the One Infinite Mind, of Supply, they don’t see lack, nor do you see lack anywhere!
We come to the maimed thoughts, or maimed faculties, or thwarted ambitions, we will say. We have aimed high, our ideals haven’t been carried out and have sunken into the subconscious and they are retarding the development of our abilities. There again you must feed these subconscious abilities and hold as you keep working for the every idea, you ever had, is new being fed with divine ecstasy. There is a divine outflow. You have got everything you have ever longed for!
You say you haven’t what you desire! Never had! YOU DON’T KNOW! If you only keep using you mind, and work, you would draw everything to come your way. Now all are ideas, translated into ideas. I haven’t time to go over the whole category—but we don’t know—we have eyes, but we see not.
Now the Spirit, the Real Man sees with his mind. Therefore, one who limits his seeing to his physical eyes has a very small viewpoint. These eyes from the surface, of course, we can praise them and build them up, if possible, but we don’t TRUST OUR EYES! We have microscopes, telescopes and a thousand devices, glasses and all kinds of aids to the eyes. BUT NOW ARE WE GOING TO BE USING OUT THAT INNATE CAPACITY OF THE EYES! If the eye is simply our mind, why shouldn’t it express itself through the physical?
Tell your eyes now that they are spirit; they have capacity far beyond what they are now expressing, and you feed those eyes with Infinite Life, Infinite Substance. There are many, in fact all kinds of aids to the eyes. I read a book yesterday of a new electrical microscope that makes a hair forty feet thick— increases the size of a hair forty feet! Just think of it: That shows us a hint of this Inner Substance or capacity of the eye. Are we trying to get the eye a device, or are we depending on the outer things? Why the outer! Then we think our eyes need food. That Substance is something only we can give—not somebody. Nobody can supply us with this Substance. So if you are a member of the class, let’s take up our eyes and give them a little treatment expressing a larger capacity and you can overcome a whole lot of this dependence upon glasses, microscopes, telescopes and so on. You will be able to see whether you ever saw before by just giving a little attention.
Every one of these lessons is really practical and needs testing. We don’t try out these things. We think Oh, that’s all right to just read about it—but we must apply the law. Take it up right now. Remember we are blessed when we eat this BREAD OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This Kingdom of God is the Spiritual Realm in which all things are provided and the BREAD you know is the Divine Substance, and we get a blessing when we feed our faculties with this Substance. That Substance is accompanied by Life, Intelligence, and Power of God waiting for us to appropriate it. ... Now we are going to have our offering.
CORA FILLMORE: OFFERTORY:
This is our opportunity to give our offering. We will ask you to take the offering in your hands as usual and repeat our usual words. The word is: DIVINE LOVE THROUGH ME BLESSES AND MULTIPLIES THIS OFFERING. (Repeat) ... In the Name of Jesus Christ. Blessing: Father we thank thee for this generous outpouring of substance. We know the gifts are returned to the givers multiplied many-fold. In the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
HEALING POOL.
CHARLES FILLMORE: We will have our healing meeting when we apply the law, while we are here together. “When two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them.” “Whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be done unto you.” The Lord knows the needs of all those whose names we have. We shall be bearing witness to the power of the spirit to supply every need. We are seeking all to loin with us in the acknowledgment, through the power of the Kingdom, in the acknowledgment of God’s presence, thought His representative, Jesus Christ. The healing power of the Spirit is now pouring out upon us and all those who have asked for help. We are all taking part in this realization, the Spirit is with us.
CORA: The word: I AM NOW BLESSED AS I PARTAKE OF DIVINE SUBSTANCE. (Repeat) Hold it for ourselves-for yourselves. Now hold it for these dear ones whose names we have: YOU ARE NOW BLESSED AS YOU PARTAKE OF DIVINE SUBSTANCE. Realize, these dear ones, sitting at a great feast, a spiritual feast, appropriating and assimilating health, freedom, prosperity, illumination, guidance, every good thing. In the name of Jesus Christ, these dear ones are blessed and blessed and blessed. In the name of Jesus Christ, they are healed. Now we have a special request: Don’t we have a special prayer for Singapore and Gen. MacArthur! Just as God is with us, visualizing his presence for the whole city of Singapore and with Gen. MacArthur. This power of holding back a force, holding the peace establishing it at Singapore for them: GOD IS THERE HELP. Now may we pray for these dear ones: SINGAPORE AND GEN MacARTHUR, We know GOD IS THE ONE AND ONLY POWER. GOD DOES NOT DESTROY, DOES NOT SEEK TO DESTROY. GOD IS LIFE, HARMONY, EVERY GOOD THING. THEREFORE THIS WONDERFUL CITY IS IN GOD’S HANDS. GEN. MacARTHUR IS IN GOD’S HANDS.
CHARLES FILLMORE: Let us rise please and let’s all join in this thought: Gen. MacARTHUR AND CITY OF SINGAPORE, GOD IS IN YOU, YOUR DEFENSE IS GOD. Let’s all be thinking about this. Hold to GOD AS YOUR DEFENSE. GOD IS YOUR DEFENSE.
Amen.
Transcribed by Lura Lisa Wall on February 28, 2017.
