This sermon is a reflection on the lectionary texts for Trinity Sunday, you can read them here.
Last week was Pentecost Sunday, and this week is Trinity Sunday, so as I spent time with the readings I’ve been reflecting on relationships. Because each of the readings is saying something about relationships even though it may not be obvious at first sight.
The snippet from 2 Corinthians is perhaps the most obscure in that regard, but this is where I want to focus this week. To see the relationship piece in here, you have to know that the letter as a whole paints a painful picture. Paul has birthed a little church in Corinth and nurtured the community there for two or three years, and then although he moved on, he stayed in touch and visited again when he could. In his absence, however, a group of super teachers has arisen and they have been challenging Paul’s teaching, his authority and his leadership.
In this letter, Paul is at times scathing about those super teachers, and at times cajoling to the people he knows and cares for. He seems to threaten them with the consequences of making poor choices about whose teachings to believe and follow, and he tries hard to woo them back to his side.
There is out in the open conflict as fractures appear in the structure of the community – division, complaining, competition, name calling… it was all happening.
I find this really helpful because conflict is part of life, isn’t it? It’s everywhere. It can’t be avoided, not really. Because we are all so different. Because we’re made different, and we have different life experiences and different ways of interpreting those experiences. And even if you surround yourself with people who only think and believe as you do, there will still be times of inner conflict.
Sometimes in life you are faced with a decision between two equally good things – and you have to decide what you will do, what you will not do. Who will you chance hurting? Who will you disappoint? Which value will you prioritise?
If you try to avoid conflict at all costs, you end up having a pretend niceness where things look smooth on the surface but underneath there is a hidden resentment and some form of passive aggressive resistance. If you try to avoid conflict at all costs, it actually ends up costing a lot.
When we make unwilling compromises, when we try to speak and are dismissed or when we don’t say what we want or need… all the frustration and misunderstanding that generates doesn’t just go away. It leaks out in things like gossip, fault-finding, telling stories where someone is a totally innocent victim and someone else is a total bully or an idiot, and that all too often leads to feelings of depression and apathy. What is the point?
This is true for churches, for families, for friendships and marriages. I doubt there is a single person here who isn’t in a relationship where one of you is actively avoiding conflict and thereby causing another problem on top of whatever the original issue is. So if we can accept that some level of conflict is an inevitable part of being in human relationship, then we can approach it with a much more positive outlook.
I’m not suggesting we roll up our sleeves with an “I love conflict” attitude which I heard once from a fellow minister, but perhaps more of an “I’m willing to engage in a meaningful – if difficult – conversation because I believe this relationship is worth it”.
Meaningful conversations only happen, though, when we are willing to show up – when it feels safe to show up because we know we’ll be listened to when we speak. We need to know we’ll be respected when we share our story, because we trust that the other is trying to get it. That isn’t a one way street – we all have to be on board. Safe spaces for talking and telling stories are created by a shared commitment to listen with the intention to understand. Solid relationships are built on mutual understanding, and when there is both grace to listen to each other and there is grace in the telling of our truth.
Grace without truth is just pretending to be nice. And truth without grace is just mean. So sometimes, truth telling has to wait for the grace of timing. Sometimes, choosing to sidestep conflict is wisdom.
It’s easy to read Paul’s letter and hear the harshness in it. It has a lot of ups and downs, and we can only imagine how the blend of truth and grace and timing landed for those who first received it. But in the end, Paul draws them back to the truth of their relationship – in faith, they are joined together by the God of peace and love. In those last few sentences, he appeals to them to get things straight, to listen, and to be of one mind. He asks them to get beneath the surface of things and to reconnect to the foundation of faith.
When we return to the foundation of faith and find our deepest truths, there we will also find our common ground because these deepest truths spring from the common ground of grace. And grace is the foundation of unity, because grace does not need everyone to be the same or to go at the same pace or to want the same things at the same time.
It’s probably helpful to have an illustration here of what it looks like when we choose grace and truth over our usual ways of interacting.
So, how about this…let’s say I’ve been friends with Pat for a while and she invites me to go to Waiheke for the weekend…in the morning I get up first and make a cup of tea which I am sitting quietly drinking when she gets up and straightaway puts the TV on.
Options arise. I can say nothing and endure until after enough instances, I gradually find that I’m not making time for that friendship.
I can say, I usually start the day quietly, or something a bit vague about I don’t put the tv on til later, and hope that she’ll take the hint. She might. She might not notice that it’s a hint. Then I’ll feel ignored. And later, when our mutual friend Angela asks me about the trip, I’ll tell her that Pat is very selfish, or that she isn’t thoughtful or she’s insensitive.
I can say, could you turn that noise down? And then she might feel judged, resentful, selfish or she might be angry and judge me.
I can say, No tv before 10am. And then she might turn it off, or she might argue back. Who gets to make the rules? Why?
In none of those instances have I said what I need.
When I speak my truth…I start the day quietly and I don’t enjoy morning TV shows – that’s all true. Here’s the grace – that’s different from how you like to start your day AND here’s the foundation of common ground: I care about you, I appreciate our friendship. How can we manage what we both need so we stay friends?
So perhaps this is a good place to pause and consider if you feel this church, this network of relationships is a worthy and safe place for you to tell your truth. Is it a place to share your stories and talk about what you think and feel and what you need?
Is this a place where you have received both grace and truth?
Is this a place – are these relationships worth your commitment to offering grace with your words and your listening and your timing?vIf not, can we learn to make it so?
Because if we want the church, this Christian community, to be known as a place of love, forgiveness and kindness –
a place where we don’t fight and feud and hold grudges, a place where there isn’t gossip and complaining and grandstanding then we have to learn to gracefully speak our truth.
We have to learn to stay with the tension in our conflicting needs so that we can grow out of our conflicts.
What is the Spirit saying to the church? Let’s take some time to pray…
