TowerPod: St Mary's Marston Moreteyne and Lidlington
4 Keys for dealing with conflict
Hello and welcome back to Talpod after a break. Thank you for coming back to listen. I'm going to start today by reading from the letter of James chapter three beginning at verse 13 because otherwise the sermon doesn't make much sense. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sewn in peace by those who make peace. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says? He yearns jealousy over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in us. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. This is the word of the Lord. And so now let's press on to our gospel reading and sermon as usual. Thank you. They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples saying to them, the Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands and they will kill him. And three days after being killed he will rise again. They did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, what were you arguing about on the way? But they were silent. For on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a little child and put it among them and taking it in his arms he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." May I speak and may we listen in the name of Jesus, in the love of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Hama. There's an apocryphal story told in the magazine of the US Naval Institute. There are two battleships assigned to the training squadron that had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. Perhaps weather like we've got had today. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog. So the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported "Light bearing on the starboard bow." "Is it steady or moving a stern?" a captain called out. The cat replied "steady captain" which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The captain then called to the signalman. Signal that ship. We are on a collision course. Advisory change course 20 degrees. Back came a signal advisable for you to change course 20 degrees. The captain said "Send I'm a captain." Change course 20 degrees. "I'm a seam and second class" came a reply. "You had better change course 20 degrees." By that time the captain was furious. He spat out "Send I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees." Back came the flashing light. "I'm a lighthouse. You're called." We changed course. Last Sunday our reading from James chapter 3 was about taming the tongue. Today the chapter continues about how to handle conflict. He says "Who is wise and understanding among you by his good conduct? Let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom." Meekness. Meekness or we could say gentleness. Meekness or gentleness was considered a weakness by the Greeks but Jesus elevated it to a primary Christian virtue. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your soul. Meekness doesn't come from being cowardly or being passive but rather from trusting God and therefore being set free from being anxious to promote yourself. Notice that the captain in our story wasn't meek and I think maybe we can glean a key on how to handle conflict from him. I have four keys for us today. Notice that when the semen replied the better change course he spat out "I'm a battleship." In other words he assumed that the semen was being awkward and got angry. In other words you could say if he assumed the worst and perhaps the key then is to assume the best and not the worst to pause and to be meek in our dealings with people. Earlier James tells us as much in chapter 1 verse 19 he writes "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." So listen assume the best, easiest said than done I know but nonetheless something to strive for in our dealings. In his sermon on the Mount Jesus gave his new what you might call eight kingdom commandments in the form of blessings. He was like Moses on the mountain. These are called the Beatitudes to live by and the third one is does anyone know? Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Paradoxically Jesus is saying that being meek is actually the key to inheriting the earth. Amazing it's not what we would think humanly speaking is it? But James says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble submit yourselves therefore to God. And then James goes on to ask if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart. And I think I don't know about you I think no I'm not that bad but I think maybe we shouldn't let ourselves off too lightly. We can take bit of jealousy and selfish ambition as a sort of headlines if you like above the minor details in the article below which might be things such as comparing ourselves to other people insecurity or superiority. James says you desire and do not have so you murder you cover it and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. And I might think I don't murder I don't fight I don't quarrel. But again those are broad brush strokes and we could include things like unhealthy anger or rage perhaps will be the word for that. Very different from righteous anger which aims at correcting the wrong things like resentment bitterness revenge or the desire to retaliate which extends them to hatred wishing bad things on someone unforgiveness judgment criticism accusation things we all go through at times were attempted by and there are kind of a constellation aren't they of things which from sort of a cloud above us. But then James contrast this with these words the wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle open to reason full of mercy and good fruits impartial and sincere. Now I'll share with you that this is one of my favourite verses of scripture and I'd like to suggest this verse as my second key a key for working out what's right and what's wrong and another word we could use for that is discernment in anything that we're trying to decide what to do or in conflict and for how to respond to the thoughts that come to us don't they. And it's I like to think of it as a kind of a yardstick I've got here my trusty Stanley tape measure I'll pull it out you know about a yard a yardstick against we can measure everything something which comes into your mind and you know this scripture if you imagine you know the scripture or you look it up and you ask is this idea pure or is it contaminated is it is it somewhat mixed is this idea pure is it something peaceable is it gentle me again is it open to reason if it isn't then there's something not quite right maybe is it full of mercy another way of saying that is is it kind and what will be the fruit be or be the fruit imagine you're going perhaps on a train and there's a junction up ahead one way is left another is right which way do you go well one idea if you think about a train of thought train of thought is to look for the destination is that end point of that thought leading you to a good destination in other words is it going to bear good fruit for example the thought comes to us could be anything you know could be a thought you know I'm rubbish at this or you know it could be to make a judgment on someone and that could lead on them couldn't it in a train of thought to criticizing them and the destination might be you know accusation and then ultimately a fight of some sort so by looking at the destination you can begin to discern and see what the earlier stations that leading you to that destination and whether you should be traveling that way and then is it impartial or fair perhaps asks and James fair perhaps another word for impartial the rotary club have their famous four-way test don't have you ever heard of that and it came in a moment of inspiration to one of the Christian founders and they recited at every meeting they say of the things we think say or do is it the truth truth is it fair to all concerned fair will it build goodwill goodwill and better friendships and then finally will it be beneficial to all concerned that helps them then to discern how they want to do their work in the rotary club and finally we can ask ourselves from that verse from that yardstick if you like is it sincere is it whole-hearted is it true and I've I've learned that verse and I've been blessed to use it all my life with varying degrees of success and but I do encourage you to as well and that's down as our spiritual practice if you choose to do it on the back of your sheets I want to suggest a third key and this one is from some Paul in Ephesians chapter 4 he says do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil it's something I always say to couples when preparing them for marriage don't go to bed without first making up and they often say they already know that they've kind of learnt that along the way somewhere perhaps grandma's told him or something and then I also say that you can agree to love each other still even if you can't resolve the matter that particular evening you can agree to deal with it later lest you give the devil a foothold once and Paul fourthly looking at how Jesus responds to his disciples arguing he asked them as maybe he asks us to from time to time what were you arguing about on the way and they tell him we are to tell him to bring it to him in prayer and Jesus takes a little child and a child is a picture of trust of meekness of trusting faith that Jesus our Savior has come his kingdom rule and reign are with us he died on the cross to bring us forgiveness and set us free to live for him giving us strength and power to overcome conflict from the Holy Spirit bringing us healing and peace which will be everlasting in our first reading Jeremiah prayed to you I have committed my cause our peace lies in doing that in taking things to Jesus in the words of the Psalmist an offering of a free heart will I give you my thanks for listening to town pod I hope you enjoyed it if you like it please subscribe and share with a friend have a good week and see you next time God bless you. 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