Proper 19A - Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35 - 14 September 2008 - A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Taking On Conflict (With God’s Help)

Once upon a time I was a very prominent member of the CAC - the Conflict Avoidance Club. I haven’t been such a faithful member in recent years.. Part of me would still like to be a member. But God keeps throwing me out of the club. What happened? Life happened. I made it past 21, for one thing. I got married. I had children. I became a priest, and eventually a rector. And over time, I noticed that the conflicts didn’t decline in number, and that God didn’t seem to be doing anything - as much as I would have liked for that to happen - to make conflicts disappear from my life. One day, I acknowledged a great truth. Conflict happens.

Oh, yeah. Something else happened to me, too. I kept reading my Bible. And I noticed that conflict was happening all over the place in the stories I read there, too - from Genesis to Revelation.

One of the most famous conflict stories in the entire Bible comes to us in the book of Exodus, which is named, of course, for that historic event when the oppressed Jews made their exodus from Egypt. Backing up a little bit from the most famous part of that story that we heard today - the parting of the Red Sea - we have Yahweh’s call to Moses.

You’ll recall what the Lord said to Moses at the burning bush. “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters... and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians... The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:7-10)

Moses was called to enter into the midst of this great conflict, which was centered around the oppression of the Jewish people. And he was called by Yahweh to go speak, on Yahweh’s behalf, directly to Pharaoh - the most powerful man in all of Egypt. You’ll recall that Moses had some inner resistance to this. There emerged a great deal of conflict within himself, you might say, when God called him. And yet, he went. And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, as Yahweh predicted it would be. And it took all sorts of terrible plagues - ten of them in all, and with each one, another confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh - before Pharaoh finally let God’s people go. And then, of course, after he let the Jews go, Pharaoh changed his mind, and sent out his army after the people of Israel, and there was the showdown at the Red Sea.

Does this sound like a world where people can avoid conflict?

On a much smaller scale than what happened with the Exodus, Jesus acknowledges that conflicts would arise among his followers. We are people, after all. We do things that cause hurt to others. Usually not intentionally. But it happens. Jesus acknowledged this, and said, in effect, “Here’s what to do when those situations arise...”

We had this reading last Sunday, if you recall.

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:15-17)

If the scenario keeps getting worse, there may ultimately be estrangement, Jesus says. But the key point he’s making is this: Conflicts will happen. Start by directly entering into the conflict with the individual that you are having the conflict with. That is the #1 strategy, Jesus says. That strategy has the greatest chance for leading to reconciliation.

COMPLICATION - Our fear of conflict

Most people I know do not like conflict. There are some people out there who seem to relish a fight. A few, perhaps, are even looking to start a conflict. But in my experience, most people don’t like conflict. Add to this the fact that many of us in the church have this notion that people in church are always supposed to be nice, and what you tend to get is a recipe for avoidance. Many times, you and I hope and pray that if we do nothing, the problem will somehow go away.

What I have learned is that an issue that is not discussed almost never goes away. We might try to sweep it under the rug, but pretty soon there is big pile sitting there under the rug, and before we know it, the problem has gotten bigger and bigger. Some of the biggest regrets I have in my life have to do with not dealing with problems sooner, and then having a much bigger issue to deal with because I waited, and waited. Sometimes I waited not just weeks or months, but years - because I didn’t want to deal with an issue.

One time Julia and I attended a workshop with Katie Hendricks, and she left us one night with a question to ponder until the next morning. The question was this, “Why isn’t telling the truth more popular?” The next morning, the 30-40 of us who were there gave our answers, and they all could be boiled down to this: People don’t often tell the truth because they are afraid of what the other’s person’s reaction might be, or what their own reaction might be. People are afraid of conflict. And so things are not dealt with. And relationships pay the price.

Make no mistake. There is a huge cost to this avoidance approach.

If Moses would not have gone to Pharaoh, what would have happened? The people would have continued to be oppressed. Look how much it took before Pharaoh let the Israelites go. You think he was just going to see the light one day and start treating them better?

And what if your brother or sister here sins against you, and you do nothing? I’m not talking little stuff that can be overlooked. How do you define “little stuff”? It’s something you can live with, that truly doesn’t bother you or stay with you over time. You can let it go. But if it’s not little stuff, and you say nothing, just because you don’t like conflict, it’s not going to go away.

It’s going to stew and fester and build, and suddenly two people are not talking to each other. They’re doing everything they can do to make sure that their paths don’t cross. When that happens in a family or in a church, you have trouble. Because it has ripple effects.

THE JOYS OF CONFLICT

Don’t start choking when I say this. Don’t start rolling your eyes. But here it is:

I’m trying to be open to the blessings of conflict. After all these years of avoiding conflict, and seeing its costs - to me and to my relationships - I’m starting to say, “God, this is really difficult. But help me have this conversation. Because I know I have some things to learn as we go through this conflict together. And probably the other person has some things to learn, too. Help us to keep our hearts open. Help me to see this as an opportunity for learning and growing.”

When Moses said to the Lord, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”, the first five words that Moses heard the Lord say were, “I will be with you.”

(Exodus 3:12)

Jesus said something similar. “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or there are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:19-20)

Peter thought he was showing graciousness when he asked Jesus if he should forgive another member of the church as many as seven times. Jesus said, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22)

I guess it goes without saying that we can’t usually forgive someone, we very rarely can be reconciled with another person, unless we are sitting down in the same room - looking in each other’s eyes, talking to each other, pausing, listening, and talking some more.

Yahweh says that when we do that, when we have the courage to enter into the conflict, He will be with us. Jesus says the exact same thing.

We are afraid of conflict. We want to avoid it at times like the plague. There is an antidote to our fear. It is called remembering the truth that God is with us. God is with us in the midst of our conflicts. When our voice is shaking, when our legs our shaking, when every part of our being wants to run in the other direction and just not deal with it, God is still with us, urging us on.

And why is God urging us on?

Because working through our fears and working through the conflict is going to bring us to the Promised Land.

The Promised Land looks like being reconciled with your spouse or your parent or your child or your friend, and discovering an intimacy that you didn’t know was possible in that relationship.

The Promised Land looks like justice for the widow or the orphan or the person with AIDS, or help for the survivor of the hurricane.

The Promised Land looks like you and me growing up, growing in confidence and maturity, in knowing that - more and more - we can handle whatever difficult situations come our way.

The Promised Land means not being stuck anymore in patterns that lead to nowhere - not being stuck in a victim place, not being trapped in depression, not being stuck in thinking that you have no power, no purpose, no voice.

We reach the Promised Land when we trust that God is with us, and take on the conflict.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes I still want to pull out my old I.D., so that I can be readmitted to the Conflict Avoidance Club. We’d like a world without conflicts. I got to thinking about that, and about the only living thing that I don’t have much conflict with is my dog, Sophie. I come home and she wags her tail and comes up to me for a greeting. Either that or she rolls over and basically says, “Rub my tummy!” The only time I’ve ever lashed out at my dog is when I had all sorts of inner turmoil going on inside of me, and I let it spill out onto Sophie - and oh my - once you come to your senses and realize what you’ve done, that is a terrible feeling to experience.

But the world is not just Sophie and me. And as much as I love Sophie, I wouldn’t want the world to be just Sophie and me. There are too many beautiful events in the world, too many beautiful people, too many challenges for you and me to rise up and meet. And so, there will always be conflicts. God doesn’t promise us a world without conflict. If you thought you were going to get married and live happily ever after, how long did it take you to wake up? If you think God is all about having a perfect world without conflict, just think for a moment or two about what happened to his Son.

God promises us help, guidance, love, grace, mercy, and faithfulness - in the form of his being with us always - as we enter into the conflicts of our lives. There are external conflicts we go through, and our own internal conflicts. And God is with us through all of them.

More and more these days, God keeps driving the same message home to me - in spades! “Pete, when are you going to fully, totally accept it? Conflicts are just part of life. You can learn from them. You can grow from them. They are part of what will form you and transform you. I am with you. I want you to learn how to embrace conflict, and receive the payoffs that come with working through them. Keep trusting Me. It gets easier.”

I am trying to burn my CAC card forever. I’m putting a new card in my wallet. It’s my TGIC card - Trusting God in Conflict. If you have a CAC card, I’m challenging you to burn yours, too. Together, with God ahead of us and behind us and in us, let’s move forward to the Promised Land.