Brothers and sisters in Christ, we’ve just returned to the office after a long and much needed break from the Roman heat of August. Thank you for your patience as we paused the On the Road Together Reflections for these many weeks. Our intention, as much as possible, is to carry the summer priority of “being before doing” into our work, and practicing what we preach in discerning leadership. Our intention, inspired by the passage describing the easy and light burden of Jesus’ yoke (Matthew 11:28-30), is that our actions might flow from our conscious connection with God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, more than reactions and old habits. Please join us and let’s hold one another accountable to this intention!
So, where does Jesus’ instruction in this Sunday Gospel from Matthew land for us as we consider our approach to injuries or perceived injustices? “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” Is this our usual custom and habit?
What immediately surfaced in my prayer was a memory of being seven or eight years old, sitting in the back seat of my family’s Ford station wagon, complaining to my parents that my little sister had taken one of my toys and wasn’t giving it back. Why did this particular memory come to mind? Did you have similar experiences of resorting to your parents to resolve disputes when you were a child? If so, of course you’re not alone. Hopefully, as you and I have grown older and matured, we have learned the capacities and skills for handling our interpersonal differences more effectively than always calling upon our parents or other authorities.
However, unfortunately, many of us live in individualistic, competitive, and litigious societies, where lawyers make fortunes from our immaturity, our poor conflict resolution skills, and the undervaluing of personal responsibility, respect, and mutuality in relationships. Instead of more effective or spiritually fruitful ways of transforming disputes, we often resort to indirect or transactional means, recruiting others to take our side, using various forms of power as leverage. What results can be a kind of “drama triangle,” a dynamic that psychiatrist Stephen Karpmann described as shifting responsibility for the real issues and avoiding the effective transformation of conflict.
It was not so different in Jesus’ time, and he understood how important it was to model a better way, especially for those who would call themselves his disciples.
Where does he begin? By suggesting that we take personal responsibility for addressing matters directly with the other person, Jesus is underscoring many values essential for both personal dignity and interpersonal harmony. When we have experienced some hurt or injustice, it is natural that we might take the stance of the victim, the wronged party. And certainly, there are so many examples of the tragic ways in which innocent people are wronged by others. But there are also so many examples of ways in which we can feel wronged, and yet, on reflection, we realize that we do have some responsibility. When this is the case, it is important to be honest with ourselves and others about how we could have acted differently. This sense of ownership over our side of the relationship helps ensure the dignity that comes with a responsible use of our own agency, and helps us avoid the counterproductive move of blaming the other party for an issue in which we had some part to play.
In the case of a real injustice for which we don’t have any personal accountability, then what? Clearly, Jesus believes that taking a direct approach that limits the scope of interaction to the offending party alone helps the other person to also take responsibility for their actions, supporting the personal dignity that comes with being a person with agency, their accountability for the consequences of their actions, and for their mutual role in maintaining the relationship. In beginning with a respectful and direct approach without involving others, we also provide a chance for the other person to “save face,” without making their mistake, ignorance, or wrongdoing public.
Of course, while that direct approach often works with people who have enough maturity, mutual respect, and shared values, that is not always the case. For the exceptions when the offending party is not open to immediate resolution, this is when Jesus allows for the importance of other means. He suggests the use of third parties, but in a gradual and thoughtfully intensified manner that does not risk escalating the stakes too quickly, risking not only the results of the confrontation, but also the relationship. This approach helps us understand how our conflicts happen in the context of a community, that we are not alone in our experiences of injustice, and reminds us that sometimes a third party has more objectivity about matters than we might have ourselves. More perspective means opportunities for more creative solutions.
In the face of the tensions we experience, how might we be invited to hold firmly to the living center of this tension, without tipping into extremes, neither denying it and seeking peace at all costs, nor escalating in sterile ways? What might be at risk for us if we engaged ourselves with more vulnerability? How might we trust in our capacity to meet the “Other” with truth and compassion? It is precisely there that tension ceases to be a threatening source of fear and becomes the very place where the living presence of the reconciling Christ emerges.
When we consider our history and our relationships, what is our experience of how conflicts are best sorted out? We may come from cultures where we have tried and true methods that rely on shared values, norms, and processes for resolving disputes. But when we operate in pluralistic cultural contexts, things get more complicated, and more awareness and skills are necessary, especially when the stakes are high and the relationships are essential. Fortunately, we have excellent resources for expanding awareness and for developing your skills!
Please consider these two pre-recorded webinars as resources for helping you to grow in your conflict resolution skills and for maturing in your inter-culturally competent leadership:
Transforming the Drama – Nomali Perera for Discerning Leadership
With you on the road,
