Bouts of Conflict: Jesus our Referee →

Conflict. I hate it.  I love peace, and I have been known to try and keep “peace” even when a little honesty and airing of disagreements would have served the relationship far better.  So if there are any of you out there who looked at the very TITLE of the post and didn’t want to read it, trust me, I get it.  

Yet Jesus had commands about handling conflict.  Teachings that are as uncomfortable to conflict avoiders like myself as they are to the confrontational.  I suspect that we would have real peace-the kind that’s all about reconciliation- in our churches and our homes if we would allow Jesus to referee our quarrels.  

Don’t allow yourself to be guilty of asking if the rules “work.”  Boxers know full well that a blow below the belt “works!” Rather the rules of the game are for the protection of all the players.  And if you are dealing with a cheater?  Let the Referee worry about him.  You play by the rules!

1. No name calling- This includes not only shouting curses but labels like “Pharisee,” and the venomous “Lib-tard.”  Jesus declares that this is an issue that can make you guilty enough to be sent to hell.  We have to tread very carefully here.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. (Matthew 5:22)

2. Every word counts- Jesus insists that what comes out of a man’s mouth reflects the contents of his heart.  That alone should be enough to make us blush for every time we’ve excused ourselves with “I didn’t really mean that!” Worse yet, he says we’ll standing in front of the Judge of the living and the dead one day and have to account for those words (Matthew 12:33-37).

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matthew 12:37)

3. No pretending with God- When things are out of sync with our brothers and sisters because of our sin, things are out of sync with God.  We can’t go on cheerfully praising Him, while we allow some sin of ours to infect a relationship. How many conflicts at home and in the church would be put to rights if the person in the wrong (both people many times) simply went humbly to the other and confessed their sin?  Put down your Bible, leave your prayer closet, walk out in the middle of the sermon on Sunday morning and make things right! 

 Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. (Matthew 5:23-24)

4. No personal vengeance.  None.   Although we make allowances in our heads for times when you have to “stand up for yourself,” by which we often mean more than simply, quietly telling the truth, Jesus says we may not retaliate.  At all.  Instead we are to bear the evil that the wicked do against us. As we will see in the next post this does not mean we should not confront our brother with his sin, or involve the church if he will not repent, but it does mean we cannot, must not, seek vengeance.

You have heard that it was said, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’ “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.  (Matthew 5:38-42)

5. Forgiveness is not optional. God, who gave his only son for the very people who crucified him, has walked all the way down the road of forgiveness.  And He can’t meet you there, if you won’t walk down it too.  There is no forgiveness for our sins, while we hold on to the sins of others.

 For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. (Matthew 6:14-15)

Conflict is unavoidable.  People sin.  I sin.  Even when we are innocent, we disagree.  In those moments Jesus has clear instructions for us. Rules for how to deal with conflict and come out on the other side brothers and sisters not enemy combatants.  If not for the sake of peace and community then for the sake of your soul, I urge you: Follow the Rules!

—Helene
 

The Sins of Un- (By Helene)

We often think of sin as "the bad things we do" or even the "the bad things we think."  More rarely someone understands that even the bad things we feel, for example hatred or covetousness are wrong and should have been submitted to Christ.   This is a "positive" view of sin.  In other words, this way of thinking understands sin as "The things we do, think, or feel that we should not."

However, this does not account for at least half of the Bible's definition.  God's perspective on sin includes "The good we fail to do". For example, James' famous line, "Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). This is one of those lines that in is apt to be read radically.  I can't save the world, feed all the hungry, house all the homeless, or take in all the orphans.  I know those things are right and I can't do them, so God is literally asking the impossible right?

No. 
 
Jesus didn't solve all the world's problems every day. After 3 years of work, the entire system of Roman oppression was still in place; injustice and immorality of every kind reigned.  If the measure of doing the right thing was instantly righting the world's wrongs, Jesus was a failure. 

Instead, on any given day Jesus not only avoided all those ugly actions, thoughts and feelings that plague us, but he also personified the positive things. For each person he came in contact with he was full of mercy, full of love, full of holiness.  In him the fullness of God dwelt bodily (Colossians 2:9). 

We on the other hand find ourselves in the category of "Un." We are ungrateful, unholy and unloving which 2 Timothy 3 lists with other sins such as malicious gossip.  We are without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving and unmerciful which Paul describes in Romans 1 as being among the results of not acknowledging God.   Simply put Jesus has in abundance what on our best day we have in meager measure.

How meager? Let's take me and Facebook for an example.  It's a great platform to promote a blog, a wonderfully non-invasive way to keep up with friends from around the world, and a great way to share a joke.  Yet, it's also the world's most efficient way to whine. I'd like to be above this fray, but if you scroll back on my feed, I feel sure you'd find more than one bellyaching session about things that irritate me (including electronics, Mondays, the weather, and not being able to find certain yummy kinds of tofu in my local grocery). I can be a whiner and a grump. 

Does that sound like positive sin?  Whining and complaining are sins themselves, but it's not just that I should refrain from grumbling, especially in such a discouraging and public format (although that is certainly true). It's that I have a deep poverty of gratitude. When I chose to complain instead of be thankful, I am declaring to the world that I am not grateful for God's good gifts. 

When I have to exert myself to show even a modicum of caring to strangers, when I have to force myself to find 5 minutes to read my Bible, when I sigh about teaching another semester of Bible class, I am revealing that I am among the people Paul was talking about. 

For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,  unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; (2 Timothy 3:2-5)

Or in Paul's more exact words while I may have an appearance of godliness, I am lacking its power.  What power you may ask?  The power of transformation.  I have not yet fully embraced the heart of flesh that God promised me.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26).

The heart of flesh that God promised me is a heart like Christ, one that overflows everyday with all the wonders of gratitude, holiness and love. Not the poverty stricken heart of stone I am sometimes plagued with.  I don't need to stop doing what's right just because my heart is not yet in tune with the will of God.  That's what obedience is all about: trustingly doing what he calls me to, even if I don't "feel" it.  But I do need to recognize that when I am ungrateful, unloving and unholy (even if no one sees) I am in need of humble repentance and a transformed heart.

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