Texts:
“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ’every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (Matthew 18.15-17, NIV)
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12.18, NIV)
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." (James 3.17-18, NIV)
An important thought and attribution:
In order to help explain and develop the main points of the sermon, outside resources were consulted and referenced. Important principles and thoughts explained in this sermon are based on the teachings of two organizations devoted to teaching the principles of Biblical peacemaking: The ministry led by Ken Sande - Peacemaker Ministries; and the ministry led by Ted Kober – Ambassadors of Reconciliation. Paraphrases are included in this message that are based on the published works: The Peacemaker by Ken Sande and Confession and Forgiveness by Ted Kober. I am indebted to them for the wonderful contributions that they have made to Biblical peacemaking. I am also extremely thankful for having had the opportunity to study under Ted Kober.
Sermon:
It’s been all over TV and a number of Internet sites this week. The cause celebs for the family reality TV genre – Jon and Kate + Eight – announced that big changes are coming on the near horizon. Jon and Kate are getting separated. Their very public lives clearly showed the strains of a relationship that was on the rocks. We saw a husband who just sort of seemed to find cause to disagree with his wife or cause not to follow her instructions. And there on prominent display was a wife who seemed to be, well, let’s just say it, quite demanding and overbearing at times. Sad to say, but this young couple with ten years of marriage under their belts, could be the poster children to promote the need for Biblical Peacemaking.
Jon and Kate aren’t alone. Conflict rears its ugly head in all sorts of places. Conflict and a person writing off another person aren’t just the topics of conversation for a reality TV show are they? Conflict happens in the lives of most of us. Conflicts happen in just about every place that you could imagine. It happens because the evil one sows seeds of discontent every place that we can imagine. Husbands and wives fight. Parents and children fight. Brothers and sisters, siblings fight. Neighbors fight with each other. Institutions are in conflict with each other. Pastors are conflict with each other. Even people who belong to the same congregation argue and fight with each other. Luther once wrote: “Whenever God opens a new church; Satan opens a chapel next door.” How true! From that vantage point, the old, evil foe knows exactly what buttons to push to inspire division and conflict.
A few years ago, ORLC helped to host the National Hispanic Convention. The night before the Convention started, there was a meeting of the members of the National Lutheran Hispanic Mission Society. While the president of the National Hispanic Convention made a point from the podium, one of the people in the audience refuted his point by raising his hand and saying something like, “Well, the synodical president has appointed a Blue Ribbon Task Force for Hispanic Ministry – I’m a member, and aren’t you a member also, Eloy?” I hadn’t said a word and actually was counting on the synodical president, who was coming to the meeting to make the announcement of the establishment of this task force. "That task force was his baby, and it was up to him to make the announcement," I reasoned.
The president of the Hispanic Convention had obviously not been informed about this, nor had he been appointed to the Task Force. So at that meeting, when the young man raised his hand and brought this up – the guy at the podium literally exploded. He began to use pretty strong language and make some very ugly accusations. It was very nasty. And I got really, really angry with him. After the meeting I confronted this man and we really had it out. Finally, I said to him that his behavior was unseemly because he was a pastor. We established a truce – even hugged on it. But in my heart – I harbored a grudge.
I took that grudge with me to Saint Louis when I became the Associate Director of the Center for Hispanic Studies at Concordia Seminary. When it came time to pick our adjunct professors for the year, the name of the person with whom I had disagreed came up. He had been teaching one of our courses for years. In fact, he had been a professor of mine. But I argued against him teaching for us. I said, “Why would we want to expose our students to a person with such a terrible temper and bad disposition?” So we didn’t select him to teach for us that year.
Next year, I decided to enroll in a course on how to handle conflict and how to bring about reconciliation. The course required a lot of reading – 3000 or so pages. It was wonderful. Through this work, I got in touch with some incredible Scriptural peacemaking principles. And as I read, I became more and more convicted for the sinful resentment that I felt for my brother. By the end of the readings and course, I knew that I couldn’t go on with this bitterness inside of me. So I called him. I confessed my sin to him. I shared the things that had hurt me and how that drove me to avoid him and avoid conversations with him. I asked him for forgiveness. I could tell that he was choked up and so we reconciled. We’ve collaborated a number of times since then and I’ve even visited him and gone out to dinner with him.
This whole experience has driven me to truly value the whole process of Biblical peacemaking. I think that it is important for people and for churches. It’s important for families and for neighbors. It’s important for employers and for employees. In short – it the way God called us to live. It is a vital element missing from many of our lives.
For us to understand how to work through conflict, there are things that we need to know. First, I’m going to put a caveat out there: Not all disagreement is bad or evil. The Bible tells us, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27.17) There are things that we need to disagree with, even among brothers and sisters. If I started to say things like – well, you know, there may be other ways to heaven apart from the forgiveness that Jesus won for us – then you would not only need to disagree with me, but you would need to take me on for the sake of my salvation and for the sake of the people God has gathered here! When we are standing firm for a clear Biblical principle, it is essential that we find our voice and stand tall – even if we have to disagree. But that is never a reason to be nasty, or ugly, or judgmental! The call from our Lord is to seek to restore. That was the whole message of Jesus in our text from Matthew 18. We are to engage a brother one on one, then with witnesses, finally in front of the whole Church, if it becomes necessary. The objective is peace – reconciliation!
You see, conflict that destroys relationships among believers does not honor our identity as God’s children. We are enjoined by Scripture to be peacemakers. We are called to be humble, as Christ was humble – even to the point of death on the Cross!
Another important point is that conflict needs to be addressed. It is important that we not let conflict fester and simmer under the service. Unresolved conflict damages the work of Christ among us. Think of unresolved conflict in terms of Paul’s description to the Ephesian believers. Conflict is like a fiery dart that finds its way into the Body of Christ. If it isn’t extinguished, it will smolder and burn until it becomes a raging inferno. (Ephesians 6.16) So we need to be proactive in dealing with conflict and address it for the sake of the Body.
Another thing we need to know is that conflict is rarely one-dimensional. Usually there are a number of facets to the differences among people. But these may generally be classed into either personal or material issues. Personal issues have to do with people simply being unable to be kind to each other. Three is mistrust and dislike for the other person. Their dislike for each other and their emotions and pride do not let them make peace.
Material issues or interests are different. Conflicts revolving around material issues may involve real property or other substantive interests that have tangible value - things such as money or property. Often, material differences will drive people to personal conflict, or vice-versa. In order to make peace, these two types of issues – personal and material - need to be separated and each addressed.
A friend of mine shared with me that after a conflict with another person over very specific material differences, their relationship got so bad, that it seems that they went out of their way to offend each other. After they were able to sit down and identify the personal differences and separate the initial material issue from the mix, they were able to make peace.
There are times when differences will be difficult to resolve, even after extensive attempts at reconciliation. Sometimes, peace looks like people saying to each other, “I don’t agree with you, but I respect you and value you as a sister or brother in Christ.” This is not wrong, and places emphasis on the value of the relationship.
In order to understand why people are at odds with one another, we have to get to the heart of conflict. And, beloved, the heart of conflict often involves idolatry. The First Commandment says: You shall have no other gods. But the reality is that we often do. Oh, these idols may not look like stone or wooden statues, but they are idols just the same. What often drives us into conflict are idols of the heart. These heart idols demand sacrifices and often what is sacrificed is relationships. We can test for idols of the heart by asking ourselves a few questions:
• What or whom do I fear most? If it isn’t God, this may mean that this thing has become a god to me.
• When a certain desire or demand is not met, do I feel frustration, bitterness or anger? If I crave something more than God, then that is the object that I worship!
• Am I sharply critical of others? Have I judged others in any way? Then perhaps I’ve made myself to be a god.
• Do I have the Lord God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – as my only and true God?
How we respond to conflict is often an indicator of how we view it and whether we are harboring heart idols. One interesting conceptualization that allows us to understand how conflict affects us is “The Slippery Slope”. As long as we are at the top of the slope and addressing conflict with sound, Biblical responses, we are acting as peacemakers. We are demonstrating that we value the relationship and want to preserve it. There may be material issues to work through, but for the sake of the brother or the neighbor or the employer, we work to address the conflict before it damages relationships.
If we begin to slide off the slippery slope on the right, we venture into the attack responses. These will take us from verbal or physical assault, to litigation to the ultimate attack response – the taking of a life. [The struggle over the right to life issue recently involved the murder of a physician who was one of the few who performed third trimester abortions routinely.]
If we begin to slide off the slippery slope on the left, we again fail to honor the relationship, because we it leads to escape – running away from the problem. This may manifest itself as denial, simply saying nothing is wrong when, in fact, it is clear that substantial conflictive differences exist. It may lead to flight – or literally running away from the problem in order to avoid the conflict. Finally and very tragically, the ultimate expression of the escape responses involves taking one’s own life – suicide. [Young teen who was driven to take her life when she was berated by an older neighbor in Internet chat rooms.]
So what do we do? You see the key to living the reconciled life involves taking the promises of God seriously. We need to take God at his Word. We need to recognize that the foundation of all peacemaking is Jesus Christ. He is the only One that provides the peace that passes all understanding. It is Jesus who worked peace with God for us through his Cross. What Jesus did through his life, death and resurrection not only gives us the model – that is how he worked peace between God and man - but the forgiveness that Jesus won also provides us the strength to live in peace with others.
Just as confession and forgiveness is essential in our relationship with God, forgiveness and reconciliation is central to peacemaking in human relationships. We come to God to confess our sins and God offers us the wonderful forgiveness of sin that restores us into relationship with Him.
How does this look in our human relationships? Let’s talk about confession. Here are the seven steps – the seven A’s - of confession:
1. Address all parties involved in a conflict;
2. Avoid saying or using, “if or but” when confessing. This is simply rationalizing and gives the sense that the confession is ‘left-handed’ and that the conflict was justified in the first place.
3. Admit specifically. Confess to actual sins, not to generalized feelings of offense. Say what contribution you made to the conflict.
4. Apologize – say that you are sorry for the part you had in the conflict with that person.
5. Accept consequences. People may not be ready to trust you immediately or to offer you new or additional responsibility. There may even be a loss of the relationship if the other person is not willing to make amends.
6. Alter your behavior. This is called repentance. It means doing an about face. Show that the confession was real with tangible changes of behavior and attitude. This will require God’s help.
7. Ask for forgiveness and allow time.
Another thing that we can do as we engage the peacemaking process is to model the forgiveness after the way that God has forgiven us. The Scriptures tell us that God separates us from our sin as far as the east is from the west. Another example that the Scriptures give us is that God places our sin into the depths of the sea. So when we forgive, the forgiveness we offer needs to include the same things that God promises to us. Here are four thoughts that we need to share when we offer forgiveness to another person: [teach hand motions]
• I will not think about this;
• I will not bring this up again;
• I will not talk about this to others;
• I will not let this stand between us.
To summarize, all of these things fall into a broader process of Biblical peacemaking. Peacemakers Ministries coined the process and named it: The four G’s of peacemaking. This process has been adopted by Ambassadors of Reconciliation – a group that works to promote peacemaking among Lutherans. Each of these is strongly rooted in the peacemaking precepts of the Word of God.
1. Glorify God. This means that instead of focusing on our own desires or dwelling on what others may do, wee will seek to please and honor God. (Psalms 37.1-6; Romans 12.17-21; 1 Corinthians 10.31; James 3.17-18)
2. Get the log out of our own eye. We acknowledge our part in the conflict instead of attacking others or dwelling on their wrongs. We take responsibility. (Proverbs 28.13; Matthew 7.3-5; 1 John 1.8-9)
3. Gently restore. This means that we don’t talk about others behind their backs. We engage the matter personally and graciously. The process of reconciliation requires humility. Wounded pride has no place in this. (Pro 19.11; Matthew 18.15-20; Galatians 6.1-2; 2 Timothy 2.24-26)
4. Go and be reconciled. Finally, we must take the steps necessary to make peace. We don’t accept premature compromise or allow relationships to wither. (Matthew 5.23-24; 6.12; 7.12; Ephesians 4.13, 32; Philippians 2.3-4)
Let’s finish today by considering a couple of quotes, the first from St. Clement of Alexandria: “For the sake of each of us he laid down his life—worth no less than the universe. He demands of us in return our lives for the sake of each other.” The second quote is much more quotidian: “Life is relationships; the rest is just details.” (Gary Smalley)
In each case, these quotes express the Biblical reality that Christ calls for us to live in peace. We are to care for each other and to honor our identity as God’s children. This is based squarely on God’s love and forgiveness for us in Christ Jesus. Secondly, Gary Smalley hits the nail on the head when he tells us that relationships are the key. First and foremost is our relationship to God in Christ. We need to understand that our relationship with God is based on God’s forgiveness for the sake of Christ. And from that relationship based on forgiveness, flows the power to live in peaceful relationships with our brothers and sisters and neighbors. May this be so, beloved. Amen!
