Thought for the Day - Sunday 6 September

 Thought for the Day – Sunday 6^th September

‘“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”’ (Matthew 18:15-20)

 

‘Conflict resolution’ is one of the buzz phrases of our time and a whole plethora of so-called experts in conflict resolution have arisen. Experts who are raking in millions trying to resolve conflicts between families, between people, between companies, between countries and yet, all the time we only need look to the words of Jesus given here in Matthew’s gospel to see what we should be doing to order to try and resolve any conflicts which may arise among us.

 

Here in this Spill The Beans Story we are given an alternative reading of the scripture called ‘The Three Rules’, maybe as it elaborates on the process of ‘Conflict Resolution’ in the early church it will help us to understand how to resolve conflicts today.

 

I don’t know what your church is like but I know all about ours. Most of the time we get on fine together, but there are times when people rub each other up the wrong way, and sometimes people strongly disagree. All communities need to find ways to sort out their differences. Let me tell you how our church sorts things out.

 

We’ve worked out a set of rules.

 

The first one is that if someone thinks that somebody else has treated them badly, they are to go to that person, tell them what they’re upset about, and see if the two of them can sort things out between them.

 

The second rule is that if the person who thinks they have been wronged feels that the other person isn’t listening to them seriously, they can invite two or three people to come with them and listen to the argument, so that they know what has happened.

 

If this small group of people can’t sort things out, the third rule is that the whole church has to listen to the argument and decide who is right and who is wrong.

 

I don’t know what you think about our rules.

 

You may have other ways of dealing with problems, but they work for us.

 

If the church decides that someone is in the wrong we deal with the situation.

 

Our rules say that we have to treat the person who is in the wrong as if they were an outsider to our community. You might think that this means that we have nothing to do with this person any more.

But we remembered how Jesus usually treated outsiders, he listened to them, he shared meals with them, he told them stories, he told them about God’s love.

 

It is definitely better to have stuff out in the open rather than everyone gossiping about it.

 

It is hard for someone to behave badly when people go out of their way to care for them.

 

It is hard for them to pick on one person when everyone knows what’s gone on.

 

Some people continue to cause problems it’s true, but Jesus taught us that we have to forgive and go on forgiving, and when we do that we will know that he is with us, helping us to love our friends and our enemies too.

 

So that’s how we sort out our differences.

 

What do you do in your church?

 

Perhaps we should also ask ‘what do we do in our lives?’

 

It can be so easy to escape a situation of conflict, so easy to fight and argue, so easy to just give up, so easy to abdicate any responsibility for the situation but surely it is so much better to try and resolve any conflicts, to try and follow these three simple rules Jesus gives, to try and reach a consensus, which may just require compromise on both sides or forgiveness by one to another but which ultimately could just help to resolve the whole conflict situation altogether.

 

Prayer

 

Loving Lord,

Help us to listen to those voices that do not sound like our own, to those beliefs that disagree with our own, to the pain we do not know, to the fears we do not have. Help us to listen before we speak, to understand instead of lecture, to appreciate diversity instead of condemning difference, to learn and to grow with others not in spite of them. Help us to listen in a society of hurt, in a country of disagreement, in a world of noise. Help us to listen and give us the courage to truly hear. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

 

Blessing

 

Go into this new week seeking peace in your heart. Let go of the grudges, the resentment that holds you back, know that Jesus loves you and those with whom you struggle. May God’s peace, Jesus’ love, and the Spirit’s presence be with you. Amen.