(Note: This post is based loosely on a Sunday school class I taught once. I like the ideas in it, which I'm sure I borrowed from long-forgotten sources.)
Our preacher said once that dealing with the people around us can be hard and one of the most difficult things we have to do as followers of Jesus. But the way we deal with others is the only way that we let our lights shine in this world. More so than how much Bible we know, or how spiritually minded we appear to others, or how involved we are at church. Its like the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” As part of a community of faith, we treat each other with love and kindness, just as God treats us with love and kindness.
Sometimes we handle conflict poorly. Late one summer evening in Broken Bow, Nebraska, a weary truck driver pulled his rig into an all-night truck stop. He was tired and hungry. The waitress had just served him when three tough looking, members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang pulled into the diner, and decided to give this truck driver a hard time.They verbally abused him, then one of the gang members grabbed the hamburger off his plate, another took handful of his French fries, and the third picked up his coffee and began to drink it. How the truck driver responded is legendary. He calmly rose, picked up his check, walked to the front of the room, put the check and his money on the cash register, and went out the door. The waitress placed the money in the cash register, then followed after him, and stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night. When she returned, one of the cyclists said to her, "Well, he's not much of a man, is he?" She replied, "I don't know about that, but he sure isn't much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot."
Escalating conflict is the wrong way to go. Work to make things right during inevitable conflicts with people. People will always have conflicts. Even among Christians, people will not always get along. We have different personalities, different opinions, different backgrounds. Sometimes conflicts will be small, sometimes they will be big conflicts, but when it happens, we need to be the first ones to make things right. Sometimes that takes a lot of wisdom.
Two men who lived in a small village got into a terrible dispute that they could not resolve. So they decided to talk to the town sage. The first man went to the sage's home and told his version of what happened. When he finished, the sage said, "You're absolutely right." The next night, the second man called on the sage and told his side of the story. The sage responded, "You're absolutely right." Afterward, the sage's wife scolded her husband. "Those men told you two different stories and you told them both they were absolutely right. That's impossible -- they can't both be absolutely right." The sage turned to his wife and said, "You're absolutely right."
Unlike the truck driver's and the sage's methods of dealing with conflict, I want to look at a few ideas that Jesus taught about dealing with other in a God-like way.
Value people over principles, power, and possessions
Place more value on people than principles. In Luke 13:10-17, Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath. The leader of the synagogue was more interested in following the rules than in helping the woman. There were rules in the Jewish community of faith that governed what was work on the Sabbath. Some of the motives behind them were probably good. That is, making sure God was obeyed by making sure ‘work’ was defined carefully. But in this instance, the leader became more concerned with the rules, than with taking care of people. Not often but occasionally, we will have principles that unintentionally hurt people. We should not get so caught up in what we believe that we hurt others.
Don't value possessions more than people. Exodus 22:26-27 - “If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” God is saying that you can’t let someone suffer for your own gain. Just because a person in your community owes you, you can’t make them suffer so they’ll pay you back.
Value people over power, as David did in the cave. David had the chance to exercise his advantage over King Saul and kill him. David would have been taking the kingship that was rightfully his, but he knew that having power doesn't mean that you should use it.
To treat others fairly, especially those who have less than you, whatever power we have should be used for the benefit of others, not for our own advancement. The Bible is cover-to-cover in stories and teachings about dealing fairly with others, with an emphasis on dealing with those who are disadvantage or vulnerable, like orphans and widows. So when we deal with those in our community who are disadvantage in some way, we have to make sure that we are protecting them, and maybe over-protecting them.
The most important thing to remember and keep in our mind, is that this is how God deals with us.
God has always taken the first step to get people to come to Him, even though conflict with God is always our fault. When Israel was not faithful to God, He sent prophets to draw them back. When we are unfaithful to God, He always wants to make things right between Him and us, and He is always waiting for us to come to Him.
He valued us over his principles and power when he humbled himself enough to send Jesus to live with us. He was willing to give up his power and humble Himself to die at the hands of His own creation, so that we could be drawn to Him.
He has always treated His people fairly, giving them more than they deserve. We do not get what we deserve from God, but always get more than we have earned.
