Conflict and community

Wow. Things sure were different in biblical times.

From what today’s Gospel tells us, it sounds like there was a group of people who claimed to follow Jesus, but they did things a bit differently than another group of people who also claimed to follow Jesus. And then one of the groups tried to interfere with the other group.

Crazy, right? That would never happen today. Today, we’re all just one big happy family. Isn’t it great that we’re past all that?

In case it wasn’t obvious, that was sarcasm. Because of course we’re anything but united today.

I think I understand why some early Christians retreated to the desert, why they tried to get away from the world, to focus on God in solitude. Because community is hard. Relationships are hard.

Sometimes it really does seem like it would be simpler to go it alone. But if there’s one theme of today’s readings, it’s that we don’t get to do that. A life of faith only works in community.

Unfortunately for us, community and conflict go hand-in-hand. And today, technology and easy travel have made our communities larger, more diverse, and more prone to conflict that they’ve ever been before.

So how do we cope with conflict?

You may have seen a cartoon online. A man is working frantically at his computer. His wife says, “It’s late. Are you coming to bed?” The man replies. “I can’t. This is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.”

It can be satisfying for a little while to be one of the good guys. To be the figure on the white horse, noble and true, the voice of reason, the one swooping in to save the day. But sadly, telling someone they’re wrong is pretty much the worst way to convince them of that fact.

So should we just avoid the conversation? I don’t think that’s the right answer either. If telling someone they’re wrong is the worst way to convince them, ignoring them completely is a close second.

I’ve found it a helpful practice to start by assuming that the people I encounter in life are trying to accomplish something that they see as good.

Not many people are flat-out evil. They may be afraid, jealous, insecure. But then again so may we.

It’s hard, though. It’s maybe even harder when you’re facing a disagreement with someone close to you. I don’t get particularly upset if I disagree with someone who lives on the other side of the world and comes from a very different background. There are lots of reasons we might see things differently. I do get upset if I disagree with people who are close to me, similar to me. I expect them to see the world as I do. And that means that I tend to judge their motives when we disagree.

I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as right and wrong. I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as truth. What I am saying is that if we hope to follow Christ, we need to do just that—follow Christ before we do anything else. Love. Don’t judge. Maybe even focus on our own shortcomings more than on those of others. Maybe take the log out of our own eye first. I think I read that somewhere.

Oh, but that’s tricky, isn’t it? Because, really, I am right. They’re wrong. And their opinions are not just wrong but also harmful.

I clearly still have some work to do myself on the whole judgement thing.

But the reality is that judgement doesn’t get us anywhere. In my experience, the only thing that changes minds and hearts is connection. And it’s connection that forms the heart of true community.

Community does have practical advantages. Community means that we don’t have to do it all alone.

In the book of Exodus, Moses’s father-in-law sees him working late into the night trying to resolve all the disputes of his people. And he tells him in very contemporary-sounding language that he’s working too hard. He’s going to wear himself out. He needs to delegate. In today’s reading from Numbers, it’s God who has a similar idea. Moses is overwhelmed, complains to God, and God brings in seventy other leaders to share in the work.

This sounds pretty good. Getting some help with my to do list would be great. I bet the same is true of you.

But the letter from James tells us that workload isn’t all we’re meant to share. We’re supposed to share our very selves. If you’re anything like me, that thought can be terrifying.

We’re supposed to pray for one another. Sing together. Mourn together. Confess our sins to one another.

Yikes. Going it alone is starting to sound pretty good again.

But whether we like it or not, rugged individualism isn’t a Christian value. Sure, it takes a certain amount of courage to be strong and independent. But it takes even more courage to be vulnerable, to allow others to see who you truly are.

Most of us can’t permanently retreat to a mountain top. Nor should we. We have to figure out how to live out our faith in a complex and messy world.

As we do that, it’s important to remember that Jesus walked this road before us. Jesus spent time in prayer on the mountainside, yes. But he spent even more time in the towns and cities of his time. He went to the mountaintop, but he didn’t stay there.

Instead, he chose to live and work and teach and die amidst all the painful complexities of human community. And that’s where we can find him still.

There’s a hymn that I particularly like that talks a bit about this. It’s called “Where cross the crowded ways of life.”

I like the hymn because it’s honest about how hard life can be. And because it holds out the hope of finding and following Christ even in the mess and muck of the world in which we find ourselves. It’s number 609 in the hymnal if you want to look at it later.

It begins like this:

1 Where cross the crowded ways of life,
where sound the cries of race and clan,
above the noise of selfish strife,
we hear thy voice, O Son of Man.

My prayer is this:

May we learn to share our burdens. May we sing together. Weep together. Pray together. And may we truly come to know one another—and through one another, may we come to more fully know Christ.

May we build the kind of community where we can hear, above the noise of selfish strife, the voice of Jesus.