Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Constructive Conflict: Wait Long Enough and It Still Won't Go Away

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, we live lives in a world that struggles with conflict. We read about it in the newspaper, here at home and overseas, conflict everywhere and even in our personal lives, we encounter conflict. We pray that today, as we begin this series, you will bless us, that you will give us your Holy Spirit and help us to look at things in a new and more careful way so that we might discover a way to manage conflict that will be healthy and helpful. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Today we talk about constructive conflict, not just conflict, but constructive conflict, how to deal with conflict in a positive way that will help us and help our relationships and help us to do things in a more positive way. And we’re going to begin with this topic of avoiding conflict. Now that’s one strategy and most of us know if there’s conflict out there and we avoid it, it’s not going to get any better. But knowing and behaving in a way that deals with conflict more constructively are two different things.

In fact, this is a problem that I struggle with from time to time. If I know somebody’s upset with me or if I’m upset with somebody, I’m more likely to give them a little extra space and maybe not call them as often and just kind of hope it’s all going to work out just fine. But you and I know that doesn’t work, right? We know that’s not an effective strategy for dealing with conflict. If you leave it alone, it won’t go away. In fact, you have to figure out a way to confront and deal with it and get through it in a way that won’t harm your relationship but maybe even make you closer and stronger in your relationship. So, for me, this is a challenging topic, how to overcome that desire to avoid those conflicts and how to deal with it in a healthier way.

We’re going to take a look at the story with Abraham and Sarai and try to figure out what we can learn from them and their experiences. The story begins much earlier than the passage we read earlier. The story begins with Abraham’s life and how God orchestrated them to move from their homeland to a new place and all the struggles that included and the struggle of their life together, Abraham and Sarai. Now they were elderly at the point where our story picks up and they had no children. And I can only imagine what that must have been like for them, no children. They had lived through those early years of marriage, their prime, where everything’s great and they’re strong and healthy and a lot of good things are happening and other people they know, their siblings and their contemporaries are starting families. Babies are coming and all the excitement with babies are happening in people’s lives but not for them.

Those years go by and with some sadness, they turned to the point where they’re at midlife and “It’s still possible for us to have a child but it seems improbable.” And they’re wrestling with the social pressure because they live in a culture where children and descendants are extremely important and, if you don’t have any, that’s a real big negative in your life. So they’re struggling with that social pressure. And the midlife years come and go. Still no children.

And now they’re just in their elderly years. Abram is 99. Sarai is 90. Medically and in every other way, it seems impossible that children would ever come. Abram, I can imagine, he’s not the kind of guy to talk out all his feelings and things like that except with God. And we hear stories about how he talked with God and the conversations he had and how God spoke to him. We hear the one about Abram talking to God and saying, “You know, I have silver. I have gold. I have goats and sheep and camels and cattle and everything but I don’t have a child. As it is, Eleazer of Damascus is set to inherit my whole estate,” probably a servant or maybe some distant relative. We don’t know exactly who that guy is but it’s not his child. And he’s just given up. And God says, “Look up at the heavens. See the stars. If you can count them, that’s how many descendants you’re going to have.” Abram’s like, “You’re God, I’m not but that seems just impossible.” He said, “If you could count the sand on the seashore, that’s how many descendants you’re going to have, Abram.”

He accepts it. God’s word, he accepts it. And scripture says, “And it was credited to him as righteousness.” He trusted God at His word even though everything pointed against that happening. Sarai, she’s in a different place. For a women not to have children is a disgrace and so it’s hitting her hard. And she’s to the point where she’s going to take matters into her own hands. “God says He’s going to give us a child. Well, I could see how He might if I give my Egyptian maidservant, Hagar, to my husband. Then we could have a child.” And in that culture, not in that faith, but in that culture and in that time, that was an acceptable practice, not unheard of. It was a way prescribed legally to continue to maintain your estate by providing heirs.

But it wasn’t God’s way and it wasn’t the promise that God made to Abram. But Hagar was presented to Abram and, using his normal way of dealing with conflict, avoiding it, he just kind of said, “Okay, I’ll go along with the plan.” But why did he? Why didn’t he stand up to his wife and say, “This is not what God told me. God said we will have a child.” Well, it’s kind of a pattern for him in dealing with conflict.

Remember the time there was a severe famine and they went to Egypt just to survive the famine and, while they were in Egypt, Abram looked at his wife and said, “You’re really beautiful and I know the Egyptian men are going to want to have you as their wife, so we’ll say you’re my sister.” Why did he do that? Why did he lie? Because he was afraid that they might kill him and take his wife.

Later on, Abram’s very wealthy and has all kinds of possessions and his nephew, Lot, who has also been with him all this time, is wealthy and has lots of possessions and their shepherds begin to quarrel over water and pasture and things like that. Abram, wanting to avoid conflict, says, “Lot, you just pick wherever you want to go and I’ll go the other way.” So, of course, Lot chose what looked better and Abraham left and made his land where God had promised in Canaan. Why did he just turn it over to Lot like that? Because he was afraid. He was afraid of the conflict between the shepherds, afraid of the conflict that might take place between his nephew and himself, between his family.

Why does he consent to this Hagar plan? To have children by another woman? Because he’s afraid. He’s afraid he will die without an heir. He consistently demonstrates that he prefers to avoid conflict. He comes up with and agrees to schemes to make conflict go away. Why? Fear. And if you’re like me and you struggle with avoiding conflict, this is important. Our avoidance is usually driven by fear and our fear comes from past experiences that were painful involving conflict. And we’re afraid that if we face conflict again, the pain will be there as well so we avoid it.

But how’s that working? How’s that working for you when you avoid conflict, when you manage around the problem instead of dealing with it? Do you agonize about the conflict, turning it over and over in your mind? And what’s it feel like when you come up with a scheme and how you’re not going to have to deal with it? “Well, I don’t have to talk to them. I can talk to their boss or I can talk to their coworker.” “I don’t have to talk to my sister. I can just send them a card or something like that.” You know in your heart you’re not dealing with the problem, you’re not dealing with the conflict. You’re just managing around it because you’re afraid and you’re avoiding it.

Well, I’ve learned through my experience in life and ministry that when you avoid conflict, it doesn’t go away. And every time I faced a difficult circumstance, if I avoided it, it got worse. It never got better. It wasn’t until we sat down and worked it out that things improved. So I’ve developed a healthy strategy for dealing with conflict and there are three parts to it: Faith, Facts and Feelings.

First, as Christians, you have to think about this, we’re in conflict just like everyone else. Conflict is a part of life, whether you’re a child in school or you’re an adult at work or just in family politics and all of that. We all have conflict but we’re Christians and that has to count for something. That has to offer us resources that the Creator of the Universe is our God and we have a personal relationship with Him. There’s something available to us that we can access when we feel ourselves entering into a conflict.

When we manage conflict by faith, God will bless it. God will bless us as we seek His wisdom and His guidance in dealing with our situations. So when we begin to feel ourselves confronted with a conflict and there’s somebody who’s upset with us or the situation is like a train wreck, the train is about to go off the track, rather than yielding to our temptation to want to avoid it and push it off to the side, first thing to do is pray. Involve God. Pray. Invite Him into that sticky situation. Talk to God from your heart, just like it says in Philippians 4, “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, transcends all understanding, will guide your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Now if avoidance is one of your struggles, too, then you know that peace is hard to find because we struggle with it. We think about it. We agonize about it. “I can’t go to Thanksgiving at their house because so and so’s going to be there.” Wouldn’t it be great if you could work it out with so and so and then be comfortable again, talk through those differences?

As we seek God’s help and respond to this conflict with faith, we have to remember He will never guide us in a way that is in conflict with His commands. He will never tell us that we should lie. He will never tell us to harm ourselves or harm someone else. He will never tell us to steal. He will never tell us to disrespect those who are in authority over us. God will always act consistently with His commands and, as you seek Him and His guidance in your conflict, He will give you a way that will be successful. So if a plan occurs to you that involves sin, it’s not from God and it’s not going to give you peace.

Second, when we encounter conflict, we must deal with facts. Gossip, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, incendiary comments are not fact. Opinions are not fact. Boil the conflict down to the facts. Luther’s Small Catechism gives us some guidance in this area as we look at the explanation of the 8th Commandment. The 8th Commandment says, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him or hurt his reputation but defend him, speak well of him and explain everything in the kindest way.

Third, when we encounter conflict, we will be blessed if we, in faith, respond and love our neighbor so that we’ll go one on one and speak to them. Matthew 18:15 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens, you have won your brother.” That is the goal. In conflict, it’s not to win the argument or to win the day or to get your way, none of that. The goal is to win your brother because, in our sinfulness, we’re going to have conflict. There are going to be times when we rub each other the wrong way or things don’t go the way we’d like or our expectations aren’t met. But what does God want us to do at those times? He wants us to go one on one, sit down in love, with love in your heart, with the goal not of winning the argument but winning your brother, winning your sister, winning your employee, winning your boss, winning your spouse, winning your children. Winning in a way that heals and restores and helps.

Finally, when we pay attention to feelings in conflict, we can deal more gently with the struggle. Challenge yourself when you start to feel this conflict thing coming on. Challenge yourself and ask yourself these questions: 1) How do I feel about conflict, conflict in general? 2) What about this conflict bothers me? 3) What do I anticipate will happen when we meet? 4) What am I afraid of?

Then ask questions about the other person, whoever it might be: 1) How might they feel? 2) What are they going through? 3) Is there something else going on in their life that has put them on the edge and whatever you did was just that one little thing that was too much? 4) Why did they act the way they did? 5) Have I hurt them?

As we ask ourselves questions, we can pray. “God, I’m so sorry I said those words. I’m so sorry I didn’t meet those expectations that they had. I’m so sorry about that thing that happened so long ago. God, I’m sorry. Help me. Give me the words I need to build a bridge and to make things right. Give me the words to open the door so we can love each other again. Give me the courage when I’m afraid, not to avoid it or to pretend it’s not there but to confront it and to have hope that it will turn out for good and not bad.”

When we sort through these questions, we begin to slow down our reaction to conflict and we’re less likely to cause more damage. And if you struggle like I do with avoidance strategies, the biggest thing you have to deal with is your fear. So if you can just get it down to what you’re afraid of, then you can focus your prayers on that and find the courage to deal with it. What are you afraid of?

With our fears, we can take comfort from God’s Word. In response to all these thoughts, Jesus says, “In this world, you will have trouble but take heart for I have overcome the world.” Jesus indeed has overcome the world. In fact, He conquered our greatest problem of all, the conflict between us and God. That’s why He died on the cross. There was hostility between us and God. Because of our sin, God, because He is holy and righteous, must punish. All of us were destined for eternal punishment but because of His great love, God sent His Son and He reconciled us to Himself. He made peace between us and God. He removed the barrier of our sin when He paid for it on the cross.

So if He can help us with that conflict, He can certainly help us with all of these lesser conflicts that we deal with on a regular basis. Conflict is part of life. Learning to manage conflict in a healthy way is crucial to your family, to your work and to peace in your heart. And I know it takes courage to confront in a godly way, in a loving way, in a compassionate way. It takes courage.

And so I pray that, as you’re struggling with this, just thinking about that person you’re in conflict with or those people who you haven’t talked to for awhile or that job that ended in a terrible way, just thinking about that is kind of hard for you. I want to encourage you to struggle with that and get God’s help in dealing with it. And if you want to go a little further, that blue study sheet that Pastor Robarge has prepared for you is an excellent way to take it to the next step. Take it to your small group. Talk about the things you’re struggling with. Take it to your family. Work through those differences that you have. Parents and children, that’s conflict that has existed forever. That’s why we have the prodigal son story. These are things God can help with.

Whatever you choose to do, I pray that God will bless your desire to restore, heal and maintain relationships in your life because that’s His desire, too. Amen.