7 September 2008

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

Sometimes we read the scriptures too uncritically. Take today's gospel. It starts off nicely, Jesus is talking, and has some good words to say: If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone, if the member listens to you, you have regained that one. Sounds fine, right?

But stop and think about it for a moment. There is something wrong with this line. Can you figure out what it is? Think about it. This line is what critics call an anachronistic thing. It presents a problem with time. The problem is this: At the time of Jesus, there was no church. This is a saying about how to get along in the church and Jesus offers it before there was a church to get along in.

What we have here is strong evidence about how, when and where the gospels were written. They were all written down later, after the events that they outline. Other people wrote them down later, in various places based upon what they recalled and what they knew that people needed to know about Jesus and his ideas. And here is a case where the writer wrote down a story about getting along in Church before there was a church.

But for some reason, the writer put this story down in the gospel. I think he did this because he thought that the story was valuable. And maybe because he, in his church, was having some trouble with people getting along. Perhaps he remembered that Jesus once said something about getting along with others and he decided to put the story into the context of a church squabble and thereby come up with a Jesus story applicable to the early church.

And the amazing thing is that this story is one that is universally applicable to the human situation. Jesus has words for eternity offered here. We can apply them to any situation in which there is conflict.

And how many of those do we live with day-by-day and week-by-week?

So, what should we do when we are in conflict with another person?

Be personal. Jesus says go to the person who has committed the fault and speak with him or her. So, the first principle is be personal, be direct. Don't write a letter. Keep away from voice mail, and keep your paws off the word processor. Why? Because if you write a letter or leave a message, you will not be able to respond to the other person's attitudes and you may go overboard with vitriol or anger. If you come directly to another person and bring up an issue, the other person may already be ready to apologize or take a new position—dumping a lot of anger may simply cause new animosity to emerge. If you are not speaking directly to another person, you will miss facial expressions or body languages that are such an important part of communication.