Church Conflict & Church Power

Church Conflict and Church Power

September 4, 2011

[Mat 18:15] "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.

[Mat 18:16] 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.

[Mat 18:17] 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.

[Mat 18:18] Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

[Mat 18:19] 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.

[Mat 18:20] For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

There are those Christians who are nostalgic for the day when it seemed that the church was in charge of America. In charge of society and set the standards for behavior.

There are those Christians who are nostalgic for the day when it seemed that the church could more or less impose its morality and sense of propriety on the rest of the culture.

I’m not sure there was ever such a day and I’m not sure that the standards and proprieties were particularly Christian. (I’d be happy to have a conversation about that sometime.) But regardless of whether they were or were not Christian, the more important thing to notice is that Jesus did not set up the church to impose a new way of life 

Over the last couple of weeks we have talked about the kind of messiah Jesus is. Jesus is not the kind of messiah who is to come to threaten, coerce, or impose the Kingdom of God. Instead Jesus comes and opens up a space. 

The space of the empty tomb that tells all who will hear the good news that the violence of threat, intimidation, coercion, and death has come to an end. Jesus is inviting all who will follow to live within the space of life and love that he  -- through his followers – is creating in this world.  

It is into  that space we are invited to live out  the call to justice, compassion, forgiveness, mercy and reconciliation. We'll hear more about that next week as we move further on in this chapter. 

Last week Pastor Margaret mentioned some larger stories about courage and justice to which followers of Jesus have been called. Ways in which the grace-filled power of God has entered the world.  Over the last weeks we have been hearing Matthew's Gospel making the large-scale basic affirmation that Jesus is the messiah/king/anointed one who has come to institute a revolutionary way of life, contrasting with the Roman Empire way. A way of life that is revolutionary without being violent. Jesus is one with divine power, but not to be used as an aid to a military uprising against Rome, but to model a different kind of kingdom, a different way of living. 

 The disciples are to be instructed by Jesus' words and example to begin a revolutionary movement that replaces threats, coercion, and violence with invitation, love, and grace. 

That revolutionary movement is to become the church - the followers of Jesus who will agree to set about living the kind of life he modeled.

 In our Gospel Lesson today, Jesus lays out a very specific set of instructions about how members of that community are to act when one member is wronged or believes they have been wrong by another member of that community. We will see that among the followers of Jesus, they are to live without coercion, retaliation, and threat.

What is to happen if we are wronged by one of our sisters or brothers.

There are four very specific steps that the wronged party is directed to take. Let’s remember that this is about what happens within a community/family/ongoing committed trust relationship. That is important assumption. Not a relationship that is anonymous or casual.

Not about irritations. Shake them off.

If someone offends you

1. Go to the offender and tell her or him that you feel wronged. If they apologize, you have regained the relationship. Healed. On the other hand, if she does not recognize her offense and take appropriate steps, then
2. You are to take one or two other trusted, related people to you and the other party and again make your case. If they recognize their offense and take appropriate steps, then you have regained the relationship. If not, then
3. You are to bring that person to the church to the whole group of trusted, related persons and again make your case. If that does not bring restoration, then
4. That person is to be regarded as an outsider, excluded from the relationship of trust.

Assumption is that there is to be openness and trust and a listening spirit among all the parties. Not about railroading the supposed offender. It is based on a desire to heal the injured relationship and offers opportunities for cooler heads and calmer hearts to engage the people with a dispute and help them to come to a way forward that is mutually agreeable and leads to a deeper, more committed relationship of trust.

These are relatively clear directions to restore injured relationships. The problem is that these steps are often ignored, even in the church.

What happens instead?

Ben offends Tom. Tom punches Ben out. Judy offends Arlene. Arlene “accidently” spills coffee on Judy’s computer.

Or maybe Tom or Arlene just brood on it and take it out on their spouse or their kids or the cat.

Or maybe their responses are more subtle.

Judy offends Arlene. Does Arlene go to Judy? No. Arlene goes to Ann-Marie and complains about Judy. Arlene and Ann-Marie have a good time talking about how nasty Judy is.

Ben offends Tom. Does Tom talk to Ben about it? Not usually. He tells his friends Bill and Jim. Then Bill looks for more evidence about what a skunk Ben is. Jim remembers that he didn’t like the tone of voice Ben used with him during a disagreement last month.

Of course, the relationships between Arlene and Ann-Marie becomes stronger after this. Tom and Bill and Jim are better buddies in their agreement about Ben’s bad behavior.

But the relationships between Ben and Tom and Judy and Arlene and their friends suffer. If Ben and Judy get wind of it, they may seek their own allies and we have a fight over some other issue just waiting to happen.

What are some of the reasons that it is difficult to follow these four steps?

Why is step 1 difficult?

Why is it difficult to go to the offender and tell her or him that you feel wronged.

• Uncomfortable directly challenging another person.
• We are not sure what their reaction will be. We anticipate they may become defensive, angry, bring up things about us.
• Require that we admit that we were hurt. That could be seen as a sign of weakness or perhaps even pettiness on our part.
• If we surfaced the issue we could find out that we are wrong! So much nicer to think that we are right.
• So it’s easier to talk to our friends and those we think are our supporters.
• We might be wrong! We might have misunderstood!

But notice that what we are doing when we don’t take time or have the courage to directly talk to someone who has offended us. What we are in effect doing is that we are moving right to step 4: We make that person an outsider – we cut or diminish the relationship. As I said before, sometimes we do it by allying with another person who we make a special insider with us and our allies..

What are the difficulties of steps 2, 3, and 4? Step one comes first. Very unusual to get to 1. 2,3, and 4 would actually be a rare situation if we would seem much easier for many of us if we could get manage step 1.

So Jesus is very clear about these four steps.

Step two, engaging trusted friends can help clarify and calm.

Step three, tell it to the church. Again, not to accuse or punish, but to help and correct.

• One of the ancient commentators points out that it would be a less caring response to leave the offender alone.
• The goal is to bring the straying person back into community. Back into a right life. Or to correct our understanding of the situation if we are mistaken that someone has wronged us.
• The goal is reconciliation.
• Jesus knows that sometimes this is impossible. There are instances when someone may not be willing to accept that they have done wrong and no community can endure if there are substantial differences about how they will relate together and if people will not accept responsibility for their offenses.
• What we mean by a community is in large part a shared view of important matters of how people will live together, and a willingness to own up to our own responsibility. Not to avoid our responsibility or shift responsibility to others.

Step four: exclusion. No longer a trusted person and we cannot pretend that there is trust. But notice that even here:  Jesus says that they should be treated as a Gentile or a Tax Collector. What does that mean?  It means that the community continue to try and reach out and hope for an eventual change of heart.

Jesus came to offer us an alternative set of procedures. Procedures for restoring relationships. Reconciliation.

Jesus invited his followers to begin a way of being in the world that would be inviting to others and would contrast with the ways of imposition, power, threat, and retaliation that are the usual ways of the world.

Church Power is not about being able to dominate and impose. Church power is about living into the way of Jesus. We are called to embody a way of living among ourselves that testifies to Jesus’ teachings and the way he lived. We are called to with Christ create the space that forgiveness and grace can fill.

Paradoxically, it is in our conflicts, times when we hurt each other, times when we feel that we have let one another down that the power of Christ’s way has the clearest opportunity to shine through. Space is created for Christ’s way of peace.

And as truth-telling, understanding, forgiveness, and reconciliation emerge in real life situations, the power of God is revealed in the world.

The power of God is not in imposing order or rules, but in the ways in which we create room to open ourselves up to each other in grace – even and especially in the midst of conflict.

The second half of today’s passage says:

[Mat 18:18] Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

[Mat 18:19] 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.

[Mat 18:20] For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

Again we see the theme about the interlocking/interpenetrating dimension of heaven and earth in which we are living. Heaven is in our midst. God’s will is not opposed to ours, but God is longing for us to agree and work together to bring forth the love and peace God has implanted in creation from the beginning. We sometimes try to crowd it out with our own plans, our own ego, our own needs to be right.

The search for gracious agreement/reconciliation is a clear sign of God’s power. As we pray and sing and work laugh and cry together we create the space for God’s Spirit to take hold.

As we forgive and receive forgiveness we create space for the life of Christ to flourish in our midst.

Notice too, however, this takes place within the bonds of trust, commitment, integrity, and by being a community that disciplines itself to work together toward mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation with integrity, this power also extends outward as in invitation to a different way of life in which all the world can participate.

These instructions and promises of Jesus are meant for real life. Here and now so that the Kingdom of Heaven, the dream of God, the reality of God’s presence and power takes hold around us.

It takes practice. There are clear instructions. Four steps when we have been hurt by someone. They are not always going to be easy.

Pray earnestly for the power to take these steps when you have been wronged. If you think you can’t do it on your own, ask for help.

Seek a way to move toward reconciliation. On the other side, if someone takes the initiative and tells you that you have wronged them, take that seriously. Engage and work through. Seek to understand without defensiveness. Seek reconciliation from your side.

Integrity and compassion, honesty and mercy, trust and cooperation are needed on all sides. This is the life to which Christ calls us.

But the secret is that as we do so the Kingdom of Heaven is taking shape around us. Let’s encourage each other in this direction. Help each other find the courage to be direct and the patience and humility to listen and learn together.

Thanks be to God. Amen.