Conflict Management
Posted on Sep 07, 2014 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen
A few months after my father died, my youngest sister announced that she was pregnant. That news brought some real joy into my family again. And then a few months later when she announced that they had found out the baby was a boy and they decided to name him Grant Marvin. You see, my father’s name was Marvin and so to have this new baby boy on the way whose name would include my father’s name was cause for more joy.
Now in many ways Grant is a lot like my father. He is built like his grandpa and has many of his features and he has a great sense of humor, but there are some subtle differences. My dad was one of those guys that loved to be around people. When I was really young my dad laid tile and drove a gasoline tanker truck for a living, but I remember the day he came home and announced he had a new job and he was no longer going to be doing manual labor. He had gotten a sales job, and man did he love it. He came to love his customers and his customers loved him. He was always having people over to our house and having parties. He loved people.
However, we learned when Grant was about four years old that he had a slightly different view of people. You see, my sister and brother-in-law live in California in the Bay Area, and on one of our visits when Grant was about four, we decided it would be fun to spend the day in San Francisco. When we got downtown, we decided to take a trolley car from Market Square to Fisherman’s Wharf. So, we waited in a long line and finally it was our turn to get on a very crowded cable car. As we got on the car, there was a lot of bumping and jostling to get everyone on. Now everyone was talking and having a good time, but as the car started to move, there was an instant when everyone went silent and in that instant, Grant announced to everyone within ear shot what he thought of people. As he sat on that bench snuggled tightly between my sister and Aunt Jill, Grant shouted at the top of his lungs, “I hate people!”
Now be honest, can’t you empathize with the lad? Aren’t there times when you just hate people? Aren’t there times when you just don’t want to be around others? Sometimes, isn’t it true that life would be awesome if it weren’t for other people?
A couple of weeks ago we heard Jesus announce that the church that is those people who would follow him, and gather in his name would form after his death and resurrection and that they would be a community. But, as we see this week, Jesus had no grand illusions that this community that would form in his name was going to be perfect. Just like the community that God formed in the wilderness after the great exodus, Jesus new there would be problems. He knew there would be arguments. He knew that there would be times that his people would do bad things and hurt each other and so today, he lays out a game plan for dealing with those times when his people, the church had people problems.
Now the formula goes like this, if you are harmed, sinned against, by a member of the community your first step is to go to that person who has harmed you and talk to them. Now, in that conversation if you can resolve things then the community can be whole again. But if that person refuses to listen, then it is your responsibility to go to one or two other people, within your community, share with them the problem and then all of you are to try and work out the problem. And then, if that does not work, it would be time to have the whole community get involved to resolve the issue. If after all this, the person who caused the harm still refuses to change, then Jesus says it is time to send them out of the community.
It is a very simple, straightforward system, but I find it fascinating that whenever we read this text, most people really don’t like it. When we studied this text in our staff meeting a couple of weeks ago, it was noted that it seemed like a “gang up on the person” mentality. Often times, I have people come to me and tell me about a problem they have with another person and most of the time when I ask if they have talked to the person, more often than not, the answer is “no, I can’t do that.” The truth is, most of us would rather not talk to the person we have a problem with, because we would rather talk to others and not face the problem head on.
But, the other truth here is that this action plan Jesus lays out for his community is not intended to be a step-by-step instruction manual for resolving conflicts. Simply following this process will not insure that the community will be whole again. Checking off these duties step-by-step will not guarantee a decision rooted in God’s love for us. Yes, this process could so easily be co-opted by selfishness, anger and a wide variety of other human frailties. And that final step that none of us like of expelling the person is only to be done as a last resort. Jesus was attempting to share with his followers that his community, the church, was going to be a very special place, in fact it would be a sacred place. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (18:20). In fact this community of believers is so sacred, that Jesus wants us, his followers to do everything in our power to keep it healthy.
In this text Jesus is not giving us a blueprint of conflict management, no he is telling us that this sacred community is so important that we ought to recognize each others frailties do whatever it takes to keep the community whole. Our love for each other ought to cause us to address our issues, not sweep them under the rug and thus allow them to fester. Our love for this community ought to cause us to have the desire to talk to each directly and not create gossip and rumors because unaddressed conflicts will most likely cause a community to not be able to function as God desires it to function and we see that all the time, don’t we?
Conflict amongst humans is inevitable, but unlike the teachings of our current culture that tell us it is best to be with only those who are like us, or who think like us, or those that won’t cause problems, Jesus says, no, talk to each other. Jesus says be honest with each other, recognize each others differences, forgive each other and only as a last resort, should a community break apart.
Brothers and sisters, as long as we live there will be conflict and there will be unresolved conflict, but we have a choice, we can ignore it, let it fester and eventually, let such issues destroy us, or we can do as our Lord has taught us and we can talk to each other. We can forgive each other and we can love each other, even when we have conflict.
So, our challenge this day is to consider this “conflict management system” Jesus has given us and to see how we might be able to make it a part of how we are the church, but as we do that, we are also challenged to ask what about those conflicts that just cant get resolved. Should they cause us to separate? If we are frail sinners who are going to always have conflict, are we doomed as a faith community? Let’s talk next week. Amen.