© 2023 José Manuel Díaz
© 2023 Urantia Association of Spain
| Luz y Vida — November 2023 — Editorial | Luz y Vida — November 2023 | Urantia Questionnaire: Fernando Carazo |
¶ The difficult legacy that the Master left us
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life… is the vengeful attitude of retaliation that society adopted in primitive times and that all tribes in the process of evolution followed (Cf UB 70:10.9). Much later, this recognition was put in writing and considered the law of Moses.
Jesus’ response to this supposed law of Moses - which he totally disapproved of, since he rejected any concept of resentment or private revenge (Cf UB 140:8.5) - was: “Your rule is not to be measure for measure… You shall return good for evil” (UB 140:6.9). He dared to propose the novel idea of “doing something positive to save the evildoer instead of following the old principle of retaliation” (UB 159:5.11). “My disciples must not only stop doing evil, but learn to do good” (UB 156:2.7). Jesus abhorred both the idea of revenge and the idea of resignation to being a passive victim of injustice. So he boldly proposed this third way to the conflict.
We already have what I call the “first degree of difficulty” that Jesus demands of us in following him: returning good for evil.
Jesus also proposed the idea of brotherly love, or the so-called golden rule. In UB 101:5.11 the golden rule is equated with love. But what does this love or rule consist of? “Brotherly love consists in loving your neighbor as you love yourself, and this would be the proper fulfillment of the “golden rule”” (UB 140:5.1). This command of the Master demands “treating your neighbor in such a way that his fellow men receive the greatest possible good from their contact with believers. This is the essence of true religion: that you love your neighbor as yourself” (UB 180:5.7). And it is the faith of the believer that “obliges the religious person to live the golden rule heroically” (UB 101:8.4).
We already have a “second degree of demand or heroism”: treating others as brothers, so that they receive the greatest possible good in each specific interrelationship.
But Jesus was not content with these two challenges, which were already difficult to put into practice. He asked much more of us, at least that is what he taught his disciples - including, of course, his apostles - (Cf UB 140:5.1) and, therefore, to all of us who want to join in this heroic observation. From the Sermon on the Mount to the discourse at the Last Supper, he proposed an even greater plus: fatherly affection, which demands that you “love your fellow mortals as Jesus loves you” (UB 140:5.1). This tremendous nuance, developed in the last four beatitudes (such as compassion, mercy, promotion of peace and enduring persecutions), means that Jesus expected his followers to “strive so hard to be like God - to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect - that they could begin to consider men as God considers his creatures and, therefore, they could begin to love men as God loves them» (UB 140:5.3). This, which seems impossible, Jesus based on the personal and interior knowledge that we can achieve from the Universal Father: ”when you know the Father you feel confirmed in the security of your divine filiation and you can love each one of your brothers in the flesh more and more, not only as a brother, with fraternal love, but also with a father’s love, with paternal affection" (UB 140:5.13).
And here we have the “third degree of heroism”: treating others as if it were God himself who related to them, with the love of the Father.
The problem, and with this I finish, is that “there are very few authentic disciples…, very few of those who declare themselves followers of Jesus who truly live and love as he taught his disciples to live, love and serve” (UB 195:10.5).
¶ References
- Index of the magazine “Luz y Vida” of the Association of Spain
- This article from the magazine “Luz y Vida Online”
| Luz y Vida — November 2023 — Editorial | Luz y Vida — November 2023 | Urantia Questionnaire: Fernando Carazo |