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"Agree with your Adversary"
This piece of advice from the Sermon on the Mount is qualified by the injunction to do so quickly while still in communication with your adversary. It is followed up by a whole set of mostly positive injunctions:
Resist not evil; but whosever shall smite you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek.
If any man would sue you at law and take away your coat, let him have your cloak as well.
Whosoever would compel you to go a mile with him, go the second mile.
Give to whoever asks. Do not turn away those who would borrow.
Countermanded are traditional attitudes such as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, plus an injunction to love your neighbor but hate your enemy. Instead we have:
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you.
The "Ordination Sermon" given to the apostles in the Urantia Papers deviates very little in principle from the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew's gospel. And the Papers also take a strongly positive attitude:
The major error of modern religions is negativism….Strong characters are not derived from not doing wrong but from actually doing right.
Judged by some of the e-mail that floats around among Urantia Book adherents, quickly agreeing with one's adversary is not all that much in vogue.
In fact, to do so brings us up against one of the most strongly inherited traits of the animal kingdom. And, when all is said and done, basically we are first and foremost, animals.
One problem is our territorial-ism--"this is mine, keep out." Another is our dominance behavior--usually very strong in social animals. And further complicating matters is our self-pride, a "rather die than give in," attitude that, more often than not, is quite irrational.
However, if we are ever to come even close to living our lives as Jesus lived his, then for many of us, an extreme change in attitudes is going to be necessary. And that change is going to need to be to "agree with your adversary quickly." For us, perhaps "immediately" would be an even better injunction.
Nothing would revolutionize our social relationships so drastically and so quickly than for us to become thoroughly agreeable and helpful persons. [But nothing would ensure failure so drastically, so immediately, than our expectation that our adversary should do likewise.]
Think about all those recent occasions when we failed this test. What would have happened if we had taken Jesus' advice? What would we have lost? And would that have been such a dreadful thing?
If we are ever to have our indwelling spirit forces take charge in our lives, if we are ever to become useful in the divine program to enhance the spiritual advancement of this planet, then perhaps we have some thinking to do.
"And you are all to proclaim this gospel of love and truth by the lives which you live in the flesh. You shall love one another with a new and startling affection, even as I have loved you. You will serve mankind with a new and amazing devotion, even as I have served you. And when men see you so love them, and when they behold how fervently you serve them, they will perceive that you have become faith-fellows of the kingdom of heaven, and they will follow after the Spirit of Truth which they see in your lives, to the finding of eternal salvation." (2044)
Is the Spirit of Truth visible in my life? In yours?
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