Conflict and Community: It’s Uses and Abuses
[A reading of Matthew 18:15–20 and Romans 13:8–14]
So we’ve been talking about what a new expression of our church is going to look like. We’ve been examining the scripture, having conversations. A big part of any community is conflict. Conflict is a very real thing. Let’s talk a little bit about conflict and some of the wisdom that we can see about how to best deal with it. Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of good things come from conflict.
Conflict can be a building block.
Conflict can lead to greater outcomes and can strengthen the community.
We’re going to examine this conflict through Matthew chapter 18. We’re also going to be looking at Romans chapter 13. These two texts were joined together in the lectionary from a few weeks ago. As I was discerning whether or not to to go with the lectionary that week, I was reading this book from Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, “New Monasticism.” You know that there’s just some stuff in this book that was really speaking to me that day, and I’m like, I knew that was what I need to preach on. But then as I got further along in the book, he mentions this very text, so it’s kind of like a sign that this was meant to be preached on.
Now, while Matthew 18 can really help the church work through conflict, it’s also been a source of major abuse in many churches. Some churches have really have used these texts in a way that’s actually cause more pain and more destruction, and in the longer-term, more conflict!
One thing to point out, when it comes to this idea of resolving conflict, is the idea of reconciliation. It’s the idea that there’s been a rift between either two individuals or people groups that needs to be addressed, that needs to be reconciled. Now, this is really important. As we are again in a time in this country where we are once again dealing with the fact that there is still racial Injustice, reconciliation is word we heard here thrown around a lot. Now here’s the problem, as Leroy Barber from our church’s Innovation and Vitality team has said, to be RE-conciled, reconciled, that means that we are at some point “conciled.” As a nation, this has never, never been the case. When it comes to race, it goes beyond Matthew 18. It goes beyond interpersonal reconciliation. Sure, at the individual level, we can apply these principles, but as a society, we need to carry our crosses. We need to follow Jesus to the cross, and lay down our lives. We, white Christians, need to die to our privileges, our status, our power, and to allow that to be crucified, so we can be resurrected into a repented life. We need to repent, to change.
Now, back to the text at hand, I’m looking at what’s a scholar NT Wright has to say about reconciliation, about the mending of conflict. One thing he points out, and I really like the words he uses here actually, “I think reconciliation, [real reconciliation], not patched up splits that will open again under pressure, happen more often and soap operas than in real life.” I like the way he points out real reconciliation, not patched up splits that will open again under pressure. Think of getting a splinter in your skin. Do you just put a bandaid and put some antiseptic on it? The splinter is still there! It’s still going to get infected and it needs to come out! Reconciliation is not just silencing the person that you disagree with, reconciliation is getting the splinter out. The root cause of what is wrong. It is getting it out! That’s what we we’re talking about here today.
Wright continues, “many of us prefer to pretend there isn’t a problem. We can refuse to face facts, swallow our anger, or resentment paper-over-the-cracks, and carry on as if everything is normal, while seething with rage inside.” What’s wrong? Nothing. You okay? I’m fine. Or, we can simply avoid and ignore the person or group and pretend they don’t exist. We need to get the splinter out!
So, let’s take a look at the text, what Matthew has to say about this. It starts with, if someone has sinned against you. Now, I’m using and going off of Warren Carter’s Matthew commentary on thisbecause it brings a lot of background information to it, verse by verse. It’s got some really important points here. First, if your brother or sister sins against you, that involves an observable, public behavior with witnesses. This involves another against you. Now, it doesn’t mean you just offended someone lightly, it means than actual observable sin against. An actual sin against you, not a disagreement with church doctrine. That doesn’t mean we didn’t come to an agreement over the songs chosen, this means an observable, public, witnessed sin against you.
Next, it says go and find that person and point out faults. That means the person who was offended will seek out the one who made the offense. It seems that the purpose of this is to establish some form of agreement on what the act was and what the reconciliation for that act is. Then, it says if the member has listened to you, then you have regained the one. We must listen with full understanding of what is at stake.
This whole process here that Matthew was referring to is what reconciliation looks. First, we acknowledged the wrong-doing, then we repent. We change, some sort of shift from what happened. Then forgiveness. That is reconciliation.
The next step, if this didn’t work, you then bring in witnesses. This whole concept of witnesses stems from Deuteronomy. This means this was something that his audience would understand. This was an ancient Jewish tradition. You bring in non-partial witnesses to represent the communities. Next it says if it still doesn’t work, you bring this in front of the church. Now why the church? As Carter points out, the alternative is government. City governments. Are we going to look at this as it’s under God’s terms or under Caesar’s terms? Lastly, it says if your friend refuses to listen to even the church, let such ones be as a gentile or tax collector.
Here’s where the abuse often stems. This doesn’t mean some sort of shunning or excommunication in the way that has been done in other churches! I cannot emphasize this enough. I have seen it first-hand and have seen the damage it has caused. It has been done in the past in the Catholic Church abuse on up through modern churches. What it means to treat such one as a gentile or tax collector, this is acknowledging that some sort of healthy boundaries has been broken. To forgive is not the same as to trust. You can forgive someone and still not trust. Boundaries are healthy. It also means, as Carter put it, here the offender is putting themself outside the community on their own just by refusing to acknowledge their wrong. This also isn’t a permanent thing, after all, Gentiles and tax collectors are part of Jesus’s mission. Tax collectors were part of Jesus’ inner 12. The book of Acts is all about pursuing the Gentiles. The Gentiles were ingrafted into God’s kingdom. This means that we are to pursue, not shun this person, but from that more missional mindset. This is not a permanent thing and it’s not something to be abused.
So does this all seem like overkill? This whole thing for a simple disagreement? Well, as Stanley Hauerwas put it, at first it might seem like a little extreme little. But, as he states, “I’m angry at someone, but if I wait, I may discover that I get over it. Who wants to appear to others as too easily offended? However, these responses inadequately understand the kind of community that Jesus thinks is necessary if we are not to be stumbling blocks to the little ones.” I might not really care, this might be something small, but here’s what’s important to be the kind of community that Jesus thinks is necessary. Furthermore, as Hauerwas points out, these little ones often include ourselves and the lost sheep is often are brothers and sisters next to us in the pews. Such a community, “a community capable of protecting the little ones, a community who cares for the lost sheep, is a community cannot afford to overlook one another sins because doing so keeps the community from embodying the life of grace determined by God’s forgiveness through the sacrifice of his Son” (Hauerwas).
Remember, these sins are not personal sins, sins we’ve done secretly in our room. Purity tests. These aren’t the kinds of sins we’re talking about here. These are sins against someone else that was public and witnessable. What Jesus is addressing here is that we should be overly open. If something might be bothering us, that we might get over later, it’s better to be open about it and address it with that person because then we can get to the real root and build a stronger relationship with that person. We so often live in lives where we are in community with each other, but we don’t really know each other. We don’t really know each other because we keep it at the surface level. Jesus is saying that we are brothers and sisters with each other and that we must go beyond. We must go beyond the surface, the way the world does it. We must be a different kind of community, a community that over shares and over forgives.
Hauerwas points out that it’s actually not just a sin against another person in the church, but it’s against the whole church, because it affects the whole church. Broken relationships affect everybody else. This isn’t about throwing someone out, but helping someone realize they might be a stumbling block. It needs to be done in love. I have seen it too often with churches that have these kind of rules, that when someone disagrees with what the pastor said or has a disagreement with someone in a small group, it turns out to this power-trip and they kick someone out of the church. That’s not what this is for! This is supposed to be an opportunity for radical love to show.
There’s a reason this is paired with Romans. Romans says, “owe no one anything except to love one another for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Love does no wrong to the neighbor, therefore love is fulfilling all of the law.” This is like when Jesus said that the Greatest Love of All is to love God and to love people as yourself. Lastly, Paul says here, “the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of Light.” This is an opportunity for us to live a different way, to leave behind the ways of “never forget.” To leave behind the ways of grudges. Too often the church looks more like Hatfields and McCoys then it does like a radical loving expression of God on earth.
Now there’s a Pastor William Hopkins is a presbyterian Pastor in North Carolina. He said this:
As that sun continues to set on mainstream Protestantism in the West, there is no want of reasons to account for its galloping demise. For Robert Wuthnow, Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney, it is “declining birth rates”; for Tony Campolo, “affluenza”; for Martin Marty, “weekend trips”; for John Buchanan, lack of “mission” (defined as outreach ministries); and for Will Willimon, it’s because “Rotary meets at a more convenient time.” It is, I believe, the lack of forgiveness if not faithlessness itself that belongs at the top of the list. More than anything else, the unwillingness to perform the difficult task of forgiveness and reconciliation in the love and spirit of Christ is what robs the church of that quality of life that first attracted outsiders.
Radical forgiveness, radical conflict resolution. This is what it looks like to look out for the little ones. To show what a different kind of love, a different kind of life looks likes. In a life that we see displayed from Capitol Hill to our neighbors that don’t get along with each other, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to show what God’s Community looks like, to show what real forgiveness looks like, to show what real love looks like, to show what reconciliation looks like. So, we have an opportunity, an opportunity when it comes to larger issues like a race relations to go to the cross. We have an opportunity that is a lot easier than going to the cross when it comes to our own siblings in Christ. We have the opportunity to reconcile with one another and just show an awesome display of love.
