“Jesus said, ‘If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you’ve made a friend. If he won’t listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won’t listen, tell the church. If he won’t listen to the church, you’ll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God’s forgiving love.”
-Matthew 18:15-18
(The Message)
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus said. What a great reminder this is about Christian community… despite all the calling out for everyone to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ… it seems according to Jesus this doesn’t matter as much that we even have one unless we are able to share it with others… be it just one or two or in Jesus’ case… for 12 or for 70 or 5000… as this is one of the big reads of the Bible… with God not wanting man to be alone and God wanting the man and the woman to be fruitful and share in the love God has for all of us… with the Old Testament and New Testament both making references to God’s faithful in the plural… as in the people of God… the faithful remnant… the body of Christ… the elect of God… the saints in light… the servants of the Lord… the family of faith… the faithful nation…the righteous ones… the branches connected to the vine… the community in Christ… never in the singular… always in the plural… because God knows better than all of us that we are always better together than we are by our lonesomes… and yet… here Jesus is pointing out a certain kind of … be on the lookout for that moment… when you realize somewhere in the midst of that group of people … one of them…has sinned against you… has said something that doesn’t sit right with you… has acted out maliciously… and even though they may not have done that intentionally… has offended another… as the goal here in life is to live with grace and love and mercy and peace and kindness and generosity… and yet every so often that breaks down and if you recognize that… it’s a good move on everyone’s part to try to put the brokenness back in order… and maybe… that’s why so many seem to be offended these days because just about everyone has an opinion about this or that and have become an expert in so many fields… they want to make sure everyone else knows about it… because you know as well as I do…
Facebook has become the number one platform over the last 10 years where everyone has become a sought after voice in every matter under the sun and rather than reaching out to a person one on one when there is a difference of opinion… a person rather calls that person out in front of all of their 2,227 friends and followers to join in the finger pointing without saying anything to the person they are having an issue with … or maybe another way to say this is for those of us who remember watching Popeye the Sailor man cartoons recall Popeye’s mantra….
“That’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more…” or simply put… Jesus is giving each of us permission… in fact a charge and a challenge to engage in the arena by taking the high road to speak face to face… to talk to them rather than about them…. calling this “Conflict management 101— Jesus style” … after all… this is about brothers and sisters in their collective walk with Christ… as the word “conflict” means to engage in a collision… to struggle with or to be in opposition to… or as Richard Krebs noted… “not only is conflict unavoidable… it is actually preferred…”
Jesus modelled conflict behavior by coming to us going face to face with sin, death and the power of the evil one. The cross wins! And the one who said he was the truth, the way and the life gives us the good advice we need each day. Faith matters.
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
