In a world so full of conflict, so full of disagreement and dismissal and debate, where we can post or comment our unfiltered thoughts on the internet for thousands or even millions of strangers to take out of context, it only makes sense that in our day to day lives we would hope to minimize the conflicts and confrontations we have to endure. We are fatigued by opposing parties, competing companies, warring networks, feuding celebrities and public figures that walk the line between reality TV star and politician. We walk through life so anxious, so sensitized by a 24-hour news cycle and a nonstop global information exchange that the smallest slight can feel like a grenade thrown into our overwhelmed nervous systems. Life would be so much easier, so much simpler, if we all could just go along to get along, like the good old days when people minded their own business and looked out for their neighbor.
Only, those good old days are more nostalgia than reality. Things have changed with the times and with the development of modern communication technologies and globalization, there’s no question. But all we need to do is look in the pages of our Bibles to see that human beings have been fighting and feuding and arguing and hurting each other from the very beginning. If it weren’t a problem in the good old days, there wouldn’t be so many pages of Holy Scripture dedicated to giving us examples, both good and bad, of how to handle the inevitable tension of individuals colliding in community. If the earliest iterations of the church weren’t already dealing with conflict and struggling with how to address it, Jesus probably would not have felt the need to comment on it at all, let alone give us a clear framework for what to do with our inevitable clashes.
At first glance, our Gospel rules of engagement for interpersonal conflict seem very straightforward. Jesus said, ““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.” Solet’s break that down even more.
Step one – If someone at church sins against you, talk to them about it alone. If that works, then great. If not, proceed to step two.
Step two – If the one-on-one conversation didn’t work, take one or two friends from church with you as witnesses and mediators. If that works, awesome! If not, proceed to step three.
Step three – If mediation in a small group didn’t make a difference, take it to the whole community, in the hopes that the person who has caused harm will own up to it when confronted by their entire church family. If that doesn’t work, treat the offender as you would a Gentile and a tax collector.
It all seems simple enough, and honestly on one level it is. If every congregation, every family and community, approached conflict in exactly this way, it might actually work. But there are some tricky bits that make the implementation a little harder than Jesus makes it sound.
First of all, what exactly is meant by “another member sins against you”? Does that mean the big obvious stuff, like breaking one of the Ten Commandments? Does that mean the less concrete, more relational stuff like breaking the commandment to love one another as Christ loves us? Have we sinned against someone if we do not feel warm and fuzzy for them, or does it only count if we act badly toward the people we like a little less than others? What if we just don’t like their attitude, or the way they dress, or the way they sing the hymns, or the idea they brought up in a meeting? Have they sinned against us, or are they just different from us in ways that offend or inconvenience us? What if, on the other end of the spectrum, the sin is so egregious that we cannot safely confront them alone? What if they have caused us physical harm, or threatened to? What if they hurt someone we care about, and that person is unable or unwilling to point out the fault to the perpetrator?
Not so simple after all, Jesus. There are other concerns with this approach too, of course. Bringing witnesses can sometimes feel like ganging up on someone, or it can turn into bullying when one individual is confronted by a group with more social standing in the community. Escalation to the whole church can turn into a tribunal with a singled-out member being publicly shamed or denounced by the whole body, leading to extreme measures like excommunication, shunning, and isolation. Unlike the ideals on which our secular criminal justice system is founded, systems of social accountability very rarely assume innocence when someone is accused. A mob mentality can cloud judgment, obscure the facts, and make it easy to cast out one person to assuage the anxieties brought on by conflict or change. The church has done this poorly much more often than we have done it well, as world history attests.
The key that might unlock this whole puzzle for us lies in the strange little phrase at the end of Jesus’s instructions. “If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
How did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? How is he telling us to treat the people who refuse to repent and make amends after causing harm?
Jesus healed Gentiles. He talked with them, and had theological discussions with them, and sent Peter and Paul and Philip as missionaries to share God’s love with them. Jesus sat down and broke bread with tax collectors, and talked with them, and invited them to a different way of living. He made opportunities for them to repent and make amends, and he celebrated with them when they took accountability. Matthew, whose Gospel contains this instruction from Jesus, was a tax collector who left his booth to follow Jesus, and after his resurrection Matthew ensured that the Gospel would be remembered and shared with the world. It is Matthew who remembers Jesus telling his disciples to treat the unrepentant as tax collectors, as people like he once was. Not as an enemy to be destroyed or an outcast to be ignored. But as someone capable of change, and worth inviting to dinner. Someone with the potential to be a great witness to the Gospel. Jesus instructs his followers to treat the unrepentant as people who can be redeemed, to leave the door cracked and the porch light on and the invitation open. The way Jesus tells us to handle conflict is to assume that change is possible, that healing is possible, and to act accordingly, even toward those who have made the choice to turn their backs on the community. Jesus embeds within this teaching on conflict management the seed of resurrection; even what is dead can become alive again, no matter how long the grave has been sealed.
What Jesus outlines as the church’s approach to conflict is no less than what we owe one another as siblings in Christ. If someone has harmed us, we owe them the opportunity to take accountability and make amends. If we never tell them that the thing they have said or done has hurt us, they may never trulyknow, and we have robbed them of an opportunity to apologize and grow. If we have caused harm to a sibling in Christ, we deserve a chance to change, to apologize if it is possible. And, if what we have received as sin was a simple matter of personalities or cultures clashing, or a true misunderstanding, it is not a kindness to withhold the opportunity to understand one another better and grow deeper in neighborly affection. It is our Christian duty, our Biblical mandate, not to give in to the cultural temptation to gossip and grumble and hold grudges. As a resurrection people, an Easter people, we go against our very nature when we do not make room for truthtelling and forgiveness. Even when the other party is not yet ready to repent, even when their hearts are hardened, ours must stay soft. Not because our forgiveness should precede their repentance, but because our faith tells us that if even death does not have the final word on who we are and who we can become, there is no one beyond the reach of God’s mercy. So let us show mercy in confrontation and bring the promise of resurrection into our conflicts and debates and even the squabbles we forget nearly as soon as they’ve happened. Jesus has already promised to be there with us, in the middle of our relationships and our conflicts and our communions. Imagine how we might live, if we took him at his word.
Mother A Writes 