Conflict & Unity: Holding Vision and Reality Together – Gary Harder – May 6/07

Conflict & Unity: Holding Vision and Reality Together

May 6th, 2007

Gary Harder

 

Text:  

Acts 11:1-8

John 13:33-35

 

Introduction

As is often the case, the lectionary readings for today took me where I was a bit reluctant to go. Our Scripture texts today focus on two words – conflict and unity. To preach about unity seems appropriate just before I retire, but do I really want to talk about conflict?

We live with many unresolved tensions inside of us. We have ideals which we mostly don’t measure up to. We have dreams that we often can’t fulfill. We make resolutions which we soon break. Let’s face it, we are human. As humans we continually live in the tension between the idealism of our spirit and the reality of how we live out those ideals. One of our biggest struggles is dealing with conflict and living in unity – in our families, in our communities, in our world. We learn conflict resolution skills, and know how to apply them to others, but not always to ourselves. We talk much of unity, but don’t know what this means when we are in conflict.

Acts 11

The primary story in our lectionary reading from Acts 11 tells a story that is filled with tension and conflict. Some folks had come to believe, with very deep conviction, that Gentiles too can be followers of Jesus. Other folks, with equally deep conviction, were convinced that any Gentile who wanted to follow Jesus had to be circumcised first – had to become a Jew first.

Acts chapter 11 tells one piece of this very large and very complex story. Peter has just baptized a bunch of Gentiles who had come to be believers in Jesus. This was an astounding thing for him to do, given his upbringing. But he had a momentous conversion, change of mind and heart, through the vision that God had given him. And he had seen how Cornelius and the other Gentiles in his household had been filled with the Spirit of God, and he just knew that they were ready for baptism. This story is recorded in Acts 10.

Today’s story is the follow up to that event. Word travelled fast. And gossip with it.

“Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, ‘Why did you go to un-circumcised men and eat with them’”?

The critics don’t come right out to criticize the baptisms themselves. They give it to Peter for entering a home of, and eating with, un-circumcised people – with Gentiles. And they have a strong point in this critique. They have both tradition and the Scriptures on their side. According to their laws Peter – according to Moses – had made himself unclean by doing what he did. His was a very serious transgression.

Peter responds to these accusations by telling his accusers how God had prepared his heart to enter that gentile home and eat there, and to follow up with baptising these Gentile believers. Peter basically repeats the story that is already told in Acts 10. While in a trance he saw a vision in which God told him “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”. In other words, don’t call Gentiles and their food unclean. And then the Holy Spirit led him to the home of Cornelius, where, says Peter, “As I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them…(and I baptised them”).

This story, as told in Acts 11, ends very nicely as if the conflict was resolved and the church lived happily ever after. “When they heard this they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life’”.

Ah, if it were only that simple and so easily resolved. Maybe this little scrimmage was resolved, but the bigger war still loomed. Chapter 11 is kind of the “sanitized” version of the fight. In Chapter 15 it starts all over again. “Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ And … Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them.” No small dissension and debate with them. That would have been something to hear. I wonder what it would have been like to eves-drop on that meeting? What would we have heard?

So they hold a huge conference in Jerusalem – a conflict resolution conference – in order to try to sort out where the church is going to go with this problem of polar opposite convictions about what to do with the Gentiles who want to be followers of Jesus. Acts 15 tells this story.

In the end, after all this dissension and debate, it appears that Paul and Barnabas and Peter and James are able to persuade the delegates – based on their experience of seeing the Holy Spirit active in the lives of these Gentiles – to let these believers into the church without insisting that they be circumcised first. There is some compromise involved. These Gentiles believers will be asked to keep three other laws very important to the Jewish community.

All settled. The conference is a success. Conflict resolution at its best – debate, hearing all sides, some compromise given, and a decision made which will change the course of the Christian Church.

Well yes, and no. Conflicts don’t go away that easily. And again, Acts 15 is a bit of a sanitised version of what actually happened. It is perhaps the more official set of minutes, with the remaining undercurrents left out.

Undercurrents do remain. The conflict pops up again. The “circumcision party” isn’t permanently silenced, and they start agitating for their position again. And to top it all off, the leaders themselves start quarrelling with each other. Yes, Paul and Barnabas and Peter and James start fighting among themselves. And they were essentially on the same side of the debate.

The end of Acts 15 already acknowledges this. Paul and Barnabas want to make missionary visits to all the churches they have already started. Barnabas wants to take John Mark with them, but Paul is adamantly opposed to taking Mark along because he had abandoned them on an earlier trip. Paul doesn’t think that Mark has learned his lesson yet. And Barnabas obviously thou
ght that Mark had grown up and was ready to go again. This disagreement became so sharp that Paul and Barnabas parted company, with Barnabas and John Mark going one way, and Paul and newly chosen Silas going another.

And then Paul and Peter get into each other’s hair. Paul in fact gets so fed up and angry with Peter that he bursts out “You are a coward and a hypocrite” (Galatians 2 paraphrased). Apparently Paul felt that Peter was waffling in his support of Gentile Christians, and he was getting very impatient with him. And then he criticises James – James, who was the most moderate and wise of the mediators during that Jerusalem conference. He blames James and “his people” for persuading Peter to waffle in his support of the Gentiles.

But Peter and Paul and Barnabas and James are co-leaders in the church, and they are all on the same side of the issue. How come they are fighting with each other now?

Or is conflict and anger and impatience a normal part of any human community, including the church, and its leaders.

 

Unity

We turn to the other lectionary reading for today, John 13. And we turn to the theme of unity. John 13-17 describes the very intimate story of Jesus meeting for the last time with his disciples, meeting in the upper room at the Passover just before his betrayal and arrest. John fills in what none of the other Gospels do – the farewell words of Jesus to his friends.

Loving each other

At one point in this long, intimate goodbye speech, Jesus places this plea on their hearts. “Little children…I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:33-35).

And no doubt the disciples all looked around the table at each other, and nodded their heads, and, touched deeply by the words of Jesus, said, “Of course we love each other. We’ve been together three years now, and we’ve had our differences, but we know that you love us all and we really do love each other too. Of course we will love each other.”

And Jesus probably smiled at their enthusiastic response, knowing that reality will test that love over and over again. He looks into Peter’s heart and knows that Peter will soon deny him, denying that love. And he looks at Judas sitting across the table from him, and knows that Judas will soon betray him. And yet he says, “Love one another”.

Jesus ups the ante even further as he ends his farewell discourse by praying for his closest friends and for all of his followers to come. “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”. (John 17:20-21) Unity. “That they may be one so that the world will know that you have sent me”.

We know that there is a deep truth in these two challenges. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for another.” And, “I pray that you may all be one so that the world will know that you have sent me”. It is not usually our words and our claims that so winsomely persuade others of our faith. It is rather the witness of our love for each other, our witness of being one in our following Jesus. It is when people see in us a genuine community, a genuine love, a genuine following of Jesus, that they may be persuaded of the truth of the Gospel.

But here again reality intrudes. Christian unity? Aren’t we now carved up into hundreds of denominations and sub groups and sects? Haven’t we over the centuries killed each other off, and fought wars against each other, and labelled each other heretics, and held inquisitions and just generally acted abominably towards people who differed from us? We have lots of embarrassing history within our Mennonite denomination, lots of name calling and division and forming new and purer churches.

The Anglican Church world wide is in a kind of convulsive crisis today over the issue of blessing same sex marriages. The divisions are deep, partly because of playing politics, but maybe mostly over very strongly held convictions on both sides. I think the world will watch with great interest how this crisis unfolds, to see whether love for each other and unity will prevail, or whether having your side win will be more important.

Asks Rudy Baergen in the latest issue of “Vision”, “What does Christian unity mean when we disagree on politics, ethics, worship style, how to read the Bible, and even basic confessions of faith?”

Baergen says further,

“Our congregation is one not as a result of our own efforts. If our unity depended on us, we would have failed long ago. Conflict has left its mark on our church over the decades. Angry things have been said, which have left their imprint of pain, personal and corporate. We are not always of one mind theologically, even though we have a common confession of faith. We have disagreements about how to read the Bible on matters such as homosexuality, abortion, use of material possessions, and other ethical issues facing our society. We may even disagree about how to understand the authority of scripture. The unity we experience is not a consequence of our tolerance and inclusiveness. It is a miracle of grace. We are bound together in peace by Christ… (Vision, Spring 2007, vol.8, No. 1, p. 7-8).

 

And that is the key to unity isn’t it. It is not first of all our doing. It is God’s doing. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, it was Christ who broke down the barrier, the wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. It wasn’t the work of Peter and James and Paul. Rather, they witnessed that good news and then embraced it, and helped others to see it, even as they fought with each other. And those others would then have to decide whether they could live with what God was doing or whether they would opt out of that movement. We don’t create Christian unity with our tolerance and inclusiveness. Jesus created the unity by dying and rising for us, making it possible for us to be one with God.

Our unity is not our doing. It is not based on agreeing with each other. It is a gift of God. It is what God through Jesus has already given us. The question is only whether we will accept it or not.

We may continue to have all kinds of disagreements with each other. We may have conflict, and may get angry with each other, and impatient, and all the rest. But our uni
ty doesn’t depend on these things. Our unity is in Christ, not first of all in each other, or in agreeing with each other. We can choose to live in that unity or not to live in that unity. But if we do choose to live in that unity of Christ then we do treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Then we do have a deep respect for and love for other followers of this Jesus. Then we do live out a love for each other – especially when we are in disagreement and conflict with each other.

In the end it will be our love for each other, not our words nor our agreeing with each other, which will persuade a watching world of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gifts God has given us here at TUMC

Betty Pries, a former summer student minister with us, and now a very highly regarded conflict mediator, says that conflict is not just inevitable, but is in fact part of God’s gift to us. She says this despite seeing first hand how much conflict can hurt us. How then can conflict be part of God’s gift? In the latest issue of the Journal “Vision”, she writes,

– Each of us has been created as a unique individual. If our uniqueness is God-given, then it must follow that God celebrates – even intends – our diversity.

– As much as our uniqueness is a gift, it also limits us. We excel in some areas, and we do not excel in others. As a result of our uniqueness, we cannot survive alone; we need one another. In this sense, our interdependence is also God-given. Herein lies the rub: we need those who differ from us..

– In all our human variety, we are created in the image of God. We all – even those with whom we are in conflict – bear the stamp of the Holy One.

– If the above statements are true, then it must follow that conflict is, at least to some degree, inherent in God’s design of creation. (Vision, Spring 2007, Vol. 8, No.1, p.9-10).

Responding to Betty’s words, I want to suggest that our own diversity here in TUMC, and our own struggles with disagreements with each other, may be a real gift to us, a real blessing from God. I think God has blessed our congregation with “people of widely differing perspectives, needs, theologies, experiences, gifts, skills, preferences, and maturity levels”. (Nan Cressman, Vision, Spring 2007, Vol. 8, no. 1, p. 56). Among these gifts God has given us are specifically the following. You, I’m sure, could add many more.

– Our diverse Christian backgrounds. The majority of us do have a Mennonite background, but many of us come from other Christian traditions, and some from a non-Christian background. To me this is exciting. Faith explorations classes are always lively and stimulating. We bring many gifts to each other to broaden and deepen our faith perspectives.

– We have many people who have come to a very clear and deep confession of faith, which inspires all of us. But we also have a number of people who keep raising questions. It seems God has given them more of a restless, questioning spirit which keeps all of us from becoming formulaic and sterile in our thinking.

– We have folks in many different places on the theological map, from more conservative to more liberal and to many places in between. And we have different ways of reading the Bible and of interpreting what we read. That keeps us both more honest and more searching.

– We have among us prophets to challenge our way of life and keep raising social justice issues, priests to listen to us and care for us when we are hurting, sages to offer wisdom when we most need it, and prayers to bring us all before God. What more could we want.

– We have every age group well represented here, with their very diverse needs and perspectives and offerings. As well we have some physically disabled persons who challenge us to look with different eyes at access issues. And we have people from all parts of the economic spectrum, challenging us all not to make income a measure of our worth as persons.

– We are becoming more and more racially diverse. I think this is a particularly valuable and visible and beautiful gift God is giving us.

– We have among us many extroverts and many introverts, those who can be up front and vocal, and those who are perhaps more reflective and sometimes effective behind the public sphere. We have the thinkers and the feelers, those who articulate things and those who are more relational and sensitive to feelings. We have many organizers and hands on people, but we also have people who can respond more spontaneously and intuitively to the call of the moment.

– And lastly, I want to dare suggest that our process and our struggle around human sexuality and specifically around homosexuality, has, in the long run, been a gift to us. I know that we did some things very badly in our process. I know that we sometimes fought with each other in very politicized ways, and thus we did hurt each other (something like the early church did around the inclusion of Gentiles). We experienced some loses which we will never recover.

But, we also wrestled very deeply with the issues involved, with the Scriptures, and with each other. We learned to speak more directly with each other, to speak for ourselves and name where we are personally at. The process changed us. I think we are now more open to diversity and diverse perspectives. I think we are more open generally, and don’t see differing convictions so much as a threat to us. We are more open, but also more grounded in our faith in God.

And yes, we have restored many of the relationships which had been wounded then. And we have learned so much about healthy process, and about consensus, and about respecting each other’s opinion even when we disagree with each other. These are ongoing gifts to us.

Conclusion

In the end, I return to the farewell words of Jesus to his closest friends. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another…By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. I am convinced that we can love one another very deeply even if and when we disagree sharply with each other. Conflict loses its sting and it’s threat then, doesn’t it?

“I pray that they may be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”.

Our unity is not based on thinking alike or in agreeing with each other. It is based on Jesus Christ. Period. It is not our doing. It has already been given us. Thanks be to God.