Conflict and Waffles

Sermon

An oyster makes a pearl because some sort of irritant has entered the shell, so that irritant must be covered with nacre, that luminous coating that we string into necklaces.

A child enters the world only through the painful contraction of muscles and the expulsion from the comforting, safe waters of the womb into a world full of light and sound and hunger.

Margaret Atwood once wrote, “In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”

In other words, without some sort of conflict, we cannot live full lives. But most of us avoid conflict like the plague. For good reason: conflict kills friendships, ruins families, creates wars. It is so much easier to avoid conflict, pull up the bed covers and go to sleep pretending everything is fine and dandy. Perhaps Phyllis Diller was on to something when she said: Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight.

In some ways, the most heartbreaking conflicts happen in churches because we are so shocked and dismayed and disappointed when conflict rears its ugly head in the midst of God’s sanctuary, in the body of Christ. Church is supposed to be the place where they’ll know we are Christians by our love, not the place where we fight with our gloves off. So often we church folk pretend that nothing is wrong, but unaddressed conflict in churches is like a cancer that eats away at the innards until suddenly there’s no one left and the last one out turns out the lights.

Church conflict that is addressed isn’t much fun either. In his years of work as a presbytery executive, Gregg encountered so much church conflict and says that by the time a congregation would call him in for help, it was already too late.

There have been conflicts at Westminster, of course. If you read through old Session minutes, you will see that there was a period of time when several elders resigned over something. There’s been conflict over whether or not to fly the U.S. flag in the sanctuary, conflict about how inclusive we were going to be with our LGBTQ siblings. In the 1960s there was conflict between the two pastors, related to the national conflict over the Vietnam war, that led to the presbytery removing both pastors. I cannot imagine what an awful time that must have been for the pastors and their families and for the congregation.

Sometimes I wonder if that event, fifty-ish years ago, still resonates here so that we are a bit conflict avoidant. Even though few today were here for that conflict, its memory is still in our DNA and so maybe as a congregation we get nervous when disagreement arises. That’s something the racial justice audit noticed about us—we are a bit conflict avoidant. And maybe we’re that way because of past hurts that we never want to feel again, and maybe we’re that way because we aren’t yet equipped to face conflict in a healthy and healing way.

That’s what Jesus is talking about in today’s text: how the church community faces conflict. Notice Jesus doesn’t say something about if conflict will arise; he talks about when conflict arises. There’s an assumption that where two or three are gathered, stuff happens.

Now notice what Jesus doesn’t say: he doesn’t say, “When your brother or sister, your fellow church member, is wrong and you’re right…” He says, “When a brother or sister sins against you.” There’s hurt involved. It’s not a matter of correct doctrinal interpretation or the proper views on this, that, or the other. It’s a matter of hurt that causes the wholeness of a relationship to begin to crack. To sin is also to go against the divine law, so we might interpret Jesus’ words as meaning something along the lines of “if a sister or brother or sibling fails to love you, God, or neighbor.”

In this passage, though, Jesus isn’t very interested in what the sin is. He’s way more interested in what to do to repair the breach after the sin has been committed. And in repairing that breach, what matters is not determining who is right and who is wrong; it’s not deciding on the depth of the sin so that the punishment fits the crime. What he is most interested in is making sure that as the process of reconciliation is happening, the dignity of all those involved is upheld.

Can you imagine? What would the world look like if when conflict happens, the guiding principle in settling the dispute is ensuring that dignity for all is present and no one is shamed in the process? I’m so sorry that the world does not work that way, but you know that it doesn’t as well as I.

But Jesus isn’t talking about the world. He’s talking about the community of faith, a group that is founded on the love of God and the call to love God and each other. Hurting someone is not loving them. But you and I hurt people all the time whether we mean to or not.

When I was in my third call, I served as associate pastor at a thriving suburban church. We had it going on there and it was a fun, if not also exhausting, place to work. I provided staff support to the Mission Committee, which for a few years was chaired by a woman I’ll call Jane. Jane was one of my favorites (if pastors can have favorites). Her mother was a legend in the congregation, beloved for her outreach work. Jane herself had picked up that mantle, and when she wasn’t at work as a social worker in geriatrics, she was doing something great at the church.

Well, once she missed a meeting. It happens—people get busy and forget to check their calendar for one second and boom! You miss a meeting. At coffee hour later that week Jane and I were chatting with a group of people and I teased her (or so I thought) about missing the meeting. In front of people. I meant nothing by it, but in retrospect, maybe I was trying to make her feel guilty for missing the meeting.

And she was mad at me. She was as emotionally mature a person as I’ve ever known, but by teasing her in front of a group of people, I embarrassed her. But it’s what she did next that is a learning I will always carry with me.

She asked if she could talk with me privately. She told me directly and plainly that I had embarrassed her and if in the future I need to give her some sort of feedback to please do it one on one. She lived out Jesus’ teaching in a way I had not.

I still feel shame that I treated someone I admired, respected, and loved so carelessly. And I have not repeated that behavior; at least I don’t think I have.

It can be hard to constantly remind oneself of the inherent dignity of every person and to treat them with the honor due them. Even in church, that can be hard, because church is a place where sinners have a home, where we who make mistakes all the time come to hear that we are loved and forgiven. Perfect people don’t need forgiveness. Brilliant people don’t need to be taught. But who among us is really perfect or brilliant.

A lovely quote that gets to some of this has been floating around my social media feeds this week. Adam Grant said, “In toxic cultures, people prove their intelligence by tearing others down. In healthy cultures, people use their intelligence to build each other up. Knowledge and expertise are not weapons to wield. They’re resources to share.”

But I want to get back to an earlier comment that we at Westminster are a bit conflict avoidant. As I mentioned, this came up during the racial justice audit, particularly in terms of our reluctance to have hard conversations about racial injustice because we think there will be conflict and we don’t know how to deal with conflict. Our racial justice workgroup has identified addressing our discomfort with conflict as a priority. Specifically, they hope working with Westminster’s leadership to find ways to process both conflict and our discomfort in talking about racism, and in that process to build community and promote healing and real welcome.

Before we begin that crucial work, maybe we best drink deeply of this particular teaching of Jesus. What he teaches us is this:

Someone in the community may hurt you, just as you may hurt someone, because we are fallible human beings. As we have hard conversations about racial justice, or any number of things, let’s remember that. And let’s remember that just as important as the outcome of the conversation, just as important as the conversation itself, is that we treat each other with dignity and respect through it all.

We will not get it right and we will make mistakes. We might hurt or get hurt. But being with each other in the presence of Christ is worth it, even when it’s hard.

And then, after all that hard work, maybe the best thing to do is break bread with each other. Or eat waffles.

See you after worship in the Great Hall!