Practical Peace: Lessons on Conflict from Matthew 18

Introduction

So we’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Romans 12, looking at Paul’s guidance for Christians on how we are going to BE in the world: the diversity of our giftedness and how we’re encouraged and called to use them, and how we belong to and behave in community. Namely, in peace.

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." — Romans 12:17-18

Building on Paul’s guidance for faithful living is this week’s gospel text. Matthew 18 is one of the examples that reminds me that as much as we can encounter scripture as thought exercises, theoreticals, and points of debate, we can also encounter scripture as immediately practical and applicable to our lives.

Matthew 18 also holds a special place for me. It was one of the foundational scripture passages to the work of Tom Porter, one of my seminary instructors and mentors, as well as the founder of the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology.

Tom was a pastor and lawyer who, before teaching, had worked as a trial lawyer, legal counsel for churches and faith-based nonprofits, and as a mediator. Through the Conflict Transformation Program, I met practitioners who had worked everywhere from churches and nonprofit boards in conflict, all the way to conflicts in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Palestine. And for Tom, there was always something from Jesus’ life and teaching to serve as a guide. Most centrally, this passage in Matthew 18, and then the Last Supper.

Matt 18 Context and Setting

Matthew 18 is admittedly kind of an odd chapter. I could certainly make an argument that it needs to be divided up a little more because it feels a bit disjointed.

The chapter opens with the disciples arguing about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It’s an argument that on the one hand I can see a bunch of young men having, but on the other hand, almost feels invented just so Jesus could say the next bit. Because Jesus replies with, "unless you become childlike, you will never enter heaven." And then there are a few more things about children—mostly the whole thing about not putting a stumbling block in front of the little ones or else... or else you REALLY won’t be going to heaven.

Then there’s the quick interlude about chopping off your foot if it causes you to stumble. Then the story of the shepherd who has 100 sheep, but loses one. So the shepherd leaves the 99 to fend for themselves while going off to find the one lost sheep. But hey, a big group is pretty safe, usually.

Then we get to this whole bit about conflict, community, and forgiveness, followed by a story about forgiveness.

One Who Sins

The core of our reading today is Jesus’ advice for what to do when another member of your community—most specifically, when a member of our community, as in these folks sitting here with you—does you wrong. Or harm. Or... sins.

Practically speaking, the note about it being a wrong within your own community is important, because this is a relational process of working through conflict. Jesus' instructions here depend upon relationship and work towards restoring relationships that have been harmed, or even severed.

Hopefully, none of this is all that earth-shattering to you.

When someone causes you harm, talk to them about it. Directly. Face to face if at all possible. Don’t go and complain to someone uninvolved about it. Don’t let it fester in your soul. Confront them—with grace, but also honesty: "Hey, that thing you said or did hurt me."

The real tricky part of the process is how we receive it when someone lets us know we’ve caused harm. I know for me, I’ll want to get defensive. Especially if I didn’t intend to cause harm. (If I did... well, that’s a whole different problem that I probably need to work on with my therapist.)

So, although Jesus doesn’t go directly into this, there’s a real need for spiritual and emotional maturity in this process of working through conflict. It takes that maturity to receive the news that you’ve hurt someone with enough grace to really hear that, to take it in, and to apologize.

But of course, sometimes we don’t have that kind of maturity.

So, Jesus says, if you’ve been harmed, and you go and talk to the person and get nowhere... then you try again, but this time you bring a friend as a witness with you. I don’t think the point here is to have someone who will back you up, or help you accuse the other person better. It’s another person who has relationship as part of your community. Another person who can hopefully help the two parties—the one who experienced harm and the one who caused it—communicate, reconcile, and learn from the experience.

Because that’s another thing about conflict: it’s natural, inevitable, and some would even say it is necessary. Tom talked a lot about conflict coming from the natural friction caused by difference. And since God made us all unique, conflict must have been part of the plan too. Perhaps then, conflict creates opportunities for us to grow—especially to grow spiritually through practicing seeking, offering, and receiving forgiveness.

BUT... getting there isn’t always a smooth path.

Sometimes people just aren’t ready to hear that they have caused harm. Jesus says if they won’t listen to you, even when you’ve brought a friend... then bring the whole community into it. Not so that you can have a shouting match in the town square or during coffee hour at church... but because the community as a whole has a lot at stake when relationships are fractured and not being mended.

And if the one who sinned still will not listen... even in the presence of the whole community... as heartbreaking as this is... Jesus reminds us that perhaps at that point the relationship does not need to continue.

Don’t stay in a harmful or abusive relationship. Walk away.

Treat that person as an outsider... a gentile or a tax collector. Not irredeemable—Jesus redeemed many tax collectors and gentiles, after all—but also not someone you have to continue to invest relational capital in. ONLY after you have sincerely tried, now it’s between them and God’s amazing grace for reconciliation and transformation to occur.

Communion

In a moment here we’ll turn toward the Communion Table. THE table we are called to return to time and time again, to stay at even. It’s a meal, a sacrament, a ritual that tangibly reminds us of God’s grace—abundance, love, forgiveness. Things that we celebrate and remind one another of in the liturgy each time we gather at the table... what we remind each other of as we receive the bread and the juice.

The thing about ritual practices, as Dr. Marcia McFee writes in a collection of essays titled Conflict and Communion, is that by practicing the embodied ways of being in the ritual, we become people "disposed to be that way" (p. 69).

As we engage in the practice of sharing food and forgiveness, offering honesty and receiving grace through our ritual of Holy Communion week after week, we internalize this paradigm of relating and carry it into the world where it can mold our relationships outside the ritual... The more you are in Communion, physically participating in Communion, the more you get to be in communion when you’re not in Communion.

You may not always recognize it, but here at TUMC so much of what we’ve already done in worship—greeting and welcoming each other, the language in the prayers of seeking forgiveness—it’s tied directly back to ancient practices of coming to the table. And, they are practices of peacebuilding, ones that build the relationships, the foundations of community, that subtly over time enable us to engage in conflicts in a healthy way.

When you’ve practiced seeking God’s forgiveness time and time again, and been reminded each time that God’s grace and forgiveness are freely offered to you, seeking forgiveness from a neighbor is not so hard. Especially someone who has shared that same experience.

For the next few weeks on Sundays, we’ll be turning to the ritual practices, foundational beliefs, and practical, tangible ways we embody the invitation to make yourself at home here at TUMC. An invitation that is first offered to us by God, and which we embody as we come to the Communion Table where all are invited and welcomed, where forgiveness is freely offered, and where conflict may be mended.