For many years I found myself confused about something Christ Jesus said in the Bible that seemed to be teaching his followers to agree with their enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his listeners, “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him” (Matthew 5:25). However, I have since come to understand that to “agree” in this context can mean to reach an understanding, or cease to argue. This is different than yielding to a foe or letting the opposition have their way.
In biblical times, if two parties disagreed about something, they would travel long distances to visit a judge who would decide the case. During the journey, these parties would often eat and lodge together for days, since they would be traveling along the same road at the same time. After spending so much time together, they would often reach a point of mutual amicability, cease the journey, and return home without actually needing to visit the judge. This act of “agreement” would not necessarily have implied that the parties compromised, or that one gave in to the other. Rather, it just meant they realized they didn’t need to argue.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, saw that this instruction of Jesus could be applied to healing disease. She wrote, “ ‘Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him.’ Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 390).
Sickness is a belief of mortal mind, which in Christian Science is the name for the erroneous belief in something opposite to the immortal divine Mind (or God). Mortal mind may seem to come into conflict or disagreement with the spiritual fact of harmony that God provides to His children. But because its suggestion of discord is a lie, it really isn’t even worth arguing with mortal mind about its erroneous claims. We can instead dismiss them. We can agree to disagree with mortal mind. Doing so zaps all supposed power from mortal mind and helps bolster thought spiritually and encourage inspired, powerful prayer.
When we are faced with some physical or mental difficulty, it is imperative that we stand firmly on the side of God, good. The mortal or material senses would depict human life as being full of strife—outside of God’s protection and care, subject to conflict, and disconnected from peace. Amid the clamoring of these material senses, it can seem difficult to quiet our thought and to recognize spiritual truth. But in reality we are inherently inseparable from God, our divine source of life. In the Bible we read, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
Now, does “agree to disagree” mean that we simply ignore problems in our life and they will disappear? Just the opposite. It is important to distinguish between dismissing error as nothingness and blindly ignoring error. Any thought suggesting God is less than omnipotent needs to be confronted and exposed as a lie. We must acknowledge whatever is wrong in our thinking and then dismiss the false thought as illegitimate.
To do this effectively, we must understand and trust God. When we strive to understand God, we are humbly allowing our thought to be guided and elevated by the Christ, Truth. As a result, the conflict between spiritual truth and the false material claim becomes moot, because we have risen above the lie and seen ourselves in our true spiritual nature as the perfect reflection of God. Dwelling in the realm of divine Love, we aren’t even on the same playing field as matter or mortal mind. Then it becomes impossible to truly entertain an argument between matter and Spirit. Just as light and dark cannot mingle, in reality Spirit and matter do not mix or interact, let alone argue with one another.
If we do find ourselves caught up in vacillating between Spirit and matter, waiting to see which side presents a more convincing case, we are embarking on a journey to see the judge. However, if we obey Jesus’ instruction, and if we understand ourselves as God’s spiritual idea, then we rise above the fray. In essence, we agree to disagree by simply ceasing to argue with what is untrue. Knowing that God is All, we begin to get a glimpse of ourselves as absolutely inseparable from God’s allness, and therefore as naturally reflecting God. By doing this we allow our thoughts to be uplifted out of the murky chaos of the material picture by the activity of the Christ.
Recently I was awakened from sleep by the sound of my daughter coughing in her room down the hallway. At bedtime she had been experiencing symptoms of a seasonal illness. My first response had been similar to how any parent might initially respond: I assured her that a good night’s sleep always helps and that she could expect to feel better in the morning.
At first I was secretly wishing for the problem to just go away. But when I was awakened in the night, I realized I had not risen above mortal mind’s argument of sickness. At that point I knew what I needed to do. I needed to agree to disagree with the false claim of illness, dismiss mortal mind’s argument (that matter is real and subject to getting sick), and turn wholeheartedly to God for help.
Even though I could still hear my daughter coughing, I could tell that she was sleeping and didn’t need my immediate care. From my room, I began to pray. I affirmed that God is All. What a powerful place to start prayer! As I let the magnitude of the meaning of God’s allness radiate outward in my thinking, I felt a conviction that I could stand with Truth and bask in the glow of God’s love for my daughter, for me, and for all humanity as God’s precious reflection. I dismissed the suggestion that beliefs about weather or contagion could harm God’s child. I rejected the belief that a lie (disease) could attach itself to God’s offspring. Because God is All, anything outside of God is nothing, and it is certainly “no thing” to fear.
These ideas were simple, direct, clear, and powerful. They quickly erased any sense of doubt that my daughter was well. I didn’t wonder if my prayer would work or if my daughter would be feeling better by morning. In the past, my prayers had sometimes been clouded by these doubtful concerns, but this time there was no question in my thought that God was in control. The Christ, Truth, had shone brightly in my thought. The coughing stopped and a sense of peace came over me as I drifted off to sleep. The next morning, my daughter awoke completely well. She had been healed when I understood the allness, oneness, and goodness of God.
Reflecting on this experience, I realize now that during my prayer, I spent much more time listening to healing ideas from divine Mind, as well as affirming God’s omnipotence, than I spent trying to argue about how mortal mind has no power. I found my thought was uplifted to understand God’s creation as perfect. I was never engaged in the kind of argument that would have built up what the material senses were presenting. I was able to dismiss mortal mind’s arguments when I recognized and knew that God is really in charge and in control. This higher understanding of God enabled me to stand as a witness to God’s goodness, and it resulted in healing and harmony.
