Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

Gal. 2:11-14, Mark 10:35-41

A young pastor arrived at his new assignment to learn that the congregation was filled with conflict. The crux of the conflict came down to a disagreement over whether or not to stand during the Lord’s Prayer. Every time the pastor would begin the Lord’s Prayer, some in the congregation would stand and then scowl at those who remained seated. Those who were seated would signal for those standing to sit down for the prayer. It ruined the prayer time each week. Finally, the young pastor figured out a way to address this concern.

The pastor invited a representative of each faction to go visit a charter member of the church. The charter member was in a wheel chair in a nursing home. The representative of the standing faction addressed the charter member. “Isn’t it the tradition at our church to stand for the Lord’s Prayer?” The charter member thought about it for a moment and then said, “No, that is not the tradition.” The representative from the sitting faction jumped in and said, “Then, we are right that it is the tradition to sit for the Lord’s Prayer!” The charter member responded, “No, that is not the tradition.” The confused and frustrated pastor said, “I don’t understand. This congregation fights all the time over whether or not to sit during the Lord’s Prayer!” The charter member smiled and said, “That is the tradition!”

Conflict is our Christian tradition. If it were not for conflict in the early church we would be missing much of the New Testament. Every time we read the letters of Paul, we can give thanks for conflict. Most of Paul’s writing addressed conflict situations in the churches. If there had been no conflict among the early churches, Paul would not have needed to write the letters which help guide us in our faith today. Healthy conflict is a key ingredient in Christianity.

Jesus was not afraid of conflict. He turned conflicts between the disciples into teaching opportunities. When James and John asked for privileged status in the kingdom, the rest of the disciples became understandably angry. Jesus used the moment to talk about true leadership among God’s people.

Paul was not afraid of conflict. In fact, he helped to stir up some of the conflict. The passage of Galatians we are considering this morning involves Paul’s description of a conflict situation. He tells about the time that he had a face-to-face confrontation with Peter in Antioch. As a result of that conflict, Paul and the Apostles reached new depths of understanding regarding the gospel among non-Jews.

Why is it that many modern Christians tend to think of conflict as wrong? Many of us tend to think that a healthy church should never have disagreements. If the early followers of Jesus had disagreements, why should we expect the church to be any different today?

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’

Galatians 2:11-14

A man was looking for a dog obedience school. He discovered that Oral Roberts University not only offered courses on medicine, faith, and prayer, but also a special six-week class for dogs. The man took his dog to the first class and was told to return in six weeks for the graduation.

Six weeks later he watched in amazement as his dog obeyed everything the Oral Roberts instructor commanded. The man took his dog home to show the newly learned obedience to his wife. The owner commanded, “Rover, sit!” The dog sat. He commanded, “Rover, roll over!” The dog rolled over. He threw a ball across the room and commanded, “Rover, fetch!” The dog fetched. His wife was impressed. The owner wanted to show one more example of obedience, “Rover, heel!” The dog put his paw on the master’s leg, bowed his head and began to pray for healing.

Is the goal of a church to become like graduates of a dog obedience course? Is the sign of a great church that everybody lives in total harmony without any conflict? Another way of asking the question is this: Is the church supposed to be more like a dog and pony show or a lion and tiger act?

What word comes to mind when we think of a dog and pony show? The word that comes to my mind is “cute.” When the dogs stand on their back legs and dance across the stage, I think to myself, “Isn’t that cute?” When a little dog does a back flip I think it is cute. While the pony prances around the ring with a dog riding bareback, I enjoy how cute they look.

Contrast that image with the lion and tiger act at the circus. My adrenaline starts pumping when they pull up the large chain link fences to protect the audience. I begin leaning forward in my seat as they release five Bengal tigers and five African lions into the same arena. When a tiger takes a swipe at one of the lions and the lion roars, my heart pounds with the thrill of danger. When the lion tamer cracks the whip to separate a threatening tiger from a dangerous lion, the word that comes to mind is not “cute.” The theme of a lion and tiger act is not obedience so much as danger, power, and risk. The word that comes to mind when I watch lions and tigers in the circus is “awesome.” Did Jesus intend his church to be cute or awesome?

Last week we included a bulletin insert explaining that I am serving on a Presbytery Task Force related to the crisis occurring in our Presbyterian denomination. The insert reminded us that the crisis is much larger than the recent debate over ordination standards. Our denomination has gone from 3,000,000 members in the 1950s to under 2,000,000 at the same time that our nation doubled in population from 150,000,000 to 300,000,000. In our denomination’s heyday we were called “mainline” since we influenced our society with 2% of the population being Presbyterians. Now we are a “sideline” denomination that is forced to cut staff at the national level and is losing thousands of members every year. This is much bigger than simply a thirty year debate over “gay ordination.”

In fact, I preached a version of this same sermon a few months ago at the Presbytery when they asked me to lead in worship and set the tone for a major debate. One of the reasons I became a Presbyterian was that I appreciated a safe place where followers of Jesus can debate and disagree with each other. I love that we are a denomination of lions and tigers. I love that the five Presbyterian pastors of our own congregation do not see eye to eye and have wonderful healthy discussions. One of our goals in this congregation is to create a safe place where followers of Jesus can think for themselves. We can practice the grace of disagreeing without becoming disagreeable. We follow the examples of Peter and Paul in the early church.

When Peter arrived at the church in Antioch, he took turns eating at various tables during fellowship suppers. He sometimes ate with a table of Jewish Christians and other times ate with a table of Gentile Christians. However, as soon as a political contingent of strict Jewish Christians arrived from Jerusalem, Peter stopped eating at Gentile tables. Paul considered this shift to be hypocritical. He told Peter, “How dare you try to force Gentiles to act like Jews!” Paul considered this to be an issue where being right was more important than being nice.

What, then, made Paul’s confrontation with Peter a healthy “tiger and lion” conflict as opposed to becoming an unhealthy “dragon” conflict? The answer was simply that Paul kept the discussion honest and face to face. He could have gathered a group of discontents around him and whispered his criticism against Peter. He could have taken a poll to determine how many of the Gentile Christians felt hurt by Peter and then sent an anonymous letter to Peter stating, “Some in our church do not appreciate what you are doing.” This is the way dragons do things. They stir up trouble under the surface but do not openly address their concerns in healthy, helpful, honest ways.

Paul would have agreed with Dr. Scott Peck’s thoughts on the difference between healthy and unhealthy organizations. According to Dr. Peck, a healthy organization is one which “actively and effectively is addressing or healing its problems.” In other words, all organizations have problems. All organizations have conflict. So health must be defined as “not so much the absence of dis-ease as the presence of an optimal healing process.” Part of what our Presbytery Task Force is trying to do is work for an optimal healing process in a denomination that has become diseased.

Ten years ago Kathy and I celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary in Israel. In fact, the wedding bands we now wear were exchanged during a brief marriage rededication ceremony in Bethlehem. Specifically, we exchanged our vows in the cave where St. Jerome translated the Bible into the official Latin version during the fourth century. In some ways, St. Jerome is one of my heroes.

During the Middle Ages Christians made up legends not only about their favorite Bible characters, but also about their favorite saints. St. Jerome was so popular that numerous legends grew up about this Bible translator and Christian scholar. One of the legends is about St. Jerome and the lion.

One day while St. Jerome was living in the monastery at Bethlehem, there was a clamoring outside, as the brother monks seemed upset about something. St. Jerome left his cave and found that a wounded lion had entered the monastery. Watching the lion limp on three legs, St. Jerome cautiously approached the lion, studied the wounded leg, and found a thorn in the paw. When he had removed the thorn, the lion began to follow him around the monastery.

St. Jerome wanted to include the lion as a part of the monastery community. He asked his fellow monks if there was something the lion could do. At first they laughed at the idea of a helpful lion. Finally, someone suggested that the lion could protect the donkey on its daily rounds. Many scoffed at the idea of a meat-eating lion protecting such an easy prey, but they were willing to give it a try.

For the next few weeks, the lion and donkey went out every day together. While the donkey collected wood for the monastery, the lion protected him from danger. One afternoon the lion lay down for a nap. When he woke up, the donkey was gone. He searched the hillside for the donkey. Unknown to the lion, a band of thieves had found the donkey unattended and stolen him. Finally, at sundown, not able to find the donkey, the lion returned to the monastery. Of course the brother monks suspected that the inevitable had happened. The lion must have eaten the donkey.

For the next several days, the lion returned to the forest and hills in search of his friend, the donkey. One day the same band of thieves returned through the countryside. When the lion spotted the donkey, he was so excited to see his friend again, that he bounded out of the forest toward the thieves. Thinking a wild lion was attacking them, the thieves fled to the nearby monastery. When the lion and donkey arrived together at the monastery, the thieves fell to their knees, repented of their sins, and became Christians.

To this day, when we see a painting of St. Jerome, we see him posed in a sitting position as a scholar. If we look at the bottom of the traditional paintings, we will notice a lion lies at his feet.

Would this story have been so popular if it had been a story about a cute dog in stead of a lion? The power of the story was the danger and risk of St. Jerome taming a lion. Had it been about a dog it might have been cute, but it would not have been memorable.

I am excited that this church is not a dog and pony show. Can we be lions and tigers so that the world sees the awesome power of Jesus in our midst?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

How do you respond to situations of conflict?

When you have a disagreement with another person, what is your strategy? Why?

What do you think of the idea that organizational health is “not so much the absence of disease as the presence of an optimal healing process”?

What would make our church “awesome”?