Can you recall a time you recently faced a table with dread—because of the expected contentious conversations to be had around it? Perhaps it was at a family dinner, a meeting at church, or a public panel in a community setting? What tools did you bring with you to diffuse the tension over all that divides us? Maybe the greatest tool is to begin with seeking to understand, and demonstrating empathy.
“What’s been keeping you up at night lately?” is one of the better questions to take conversation deeper, after small talk about the weather or local sports has run its course. It’s a question that will often open stories about people’s experience of division.
So what’s been keeping you up?
- Is it your family? “How will things ever get better between us? How can we get beyond our political differences so that we can share our lives, listen, and learn from one another again?”
- Is it your community of faith? Do you sometimes walk away from church meetings wondering, “What could I have done differently once the disagreement began to get toxic?” Now what?
There are plenty of things in life that can keep you up. Divisions between people are some of the most stressful, difficult, and harmful.
Lamentation over divisions
Christ followers care about their family, work teams, congregation, and communities. Our attention often focuses on tension and difference. Sometimes the problems are short term and acute. Other times the issues are chronic. In life, there are plenty of unstable divisions and conflicts. Plenty of polarization lurks around ready to blow up. Often these divides happen when we are avoiding work related to deep losses, longings, or potential futures. Then we get caught up in blaming, focusing on divisions with local or national history, and people’s experience of harm or of harming others.
One of the gifts of reading the Psalms is that the psalms of lament keep reminding us that God’s people have had many struggles in the past. The lament psalms give us permission to name our sadness and name the struggles before God (for example, Psalm 69). They also often model a return to praising God for the gift of life, the beauties of creation, and the wonders of our lives.
Eventually we hear God’s voice calling us as we experience division in our parishes or congregations, our families, our friendships, and our lives. In our congregations and in our life of faith, God calls us to focus again on following Jesus and joining in the deep mission of Jesus of loving God. God calls us and sends us to love all our neighbors.
Faithful wisdom
We live in a time when people would prefer to hear only Good News, but our lives and world are full of the reality of broken relationships that reveal the bad news of humans. It is easiest to see and name in the behavior of someone else, or in our political systems. The consequences of human alienation and brokenness are also loaded into households, congregations, and in communities that simmer with tension and conflict.
There are many words for sin in the Bible and in our Christian tradition. Even if we have grown cautious about sin as a concept that might be used against people, that does not change the fact that we can easily fall into rebellion against God’s Law. We can treat people unjustly. We can fall short of God’s intent and longing for our lives. The old word “transgression” names how we cross the line going outside God’s longings and intent for our creation. Our “center of the universe” disease can turn us in on ourselves and cause harm in the lives of people and communities around us.
Our tradition, in a variety of ways, through Bible stories from ancient times or from the life of the early Church, warns us to not think too highly of ourselves and be aware of our capacity to harm others and even ourselves in the process. The “seven deadly sins” (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth), or the even older Ten Commandments point out how we fail to honor God. Jesus calls us in the Great Commandment: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22)
We know that the idea that the early church did not struggle like we do is a myth. Historians point out there has not been a time when human beings have escaped our brokenness in our relationship with God or other humans.
That is why the Good News we know through and in Jesus is so important and something we have to remember as we engage in the tensions and divisions of our time. The Good News that we know in Jesus is that God is for us, with us, forgiving us, healing us, teaching us God’s deep longings, resurrecting us from death to life. Jesus enfleshed God’s will … God’s passion … God’s saving undeserved love. We are reminded when we judge our neighbors personally or communally that we are only holy because God has chosen to draw near to us. God’s grace makes all things new, including us. God can make our neighbors new as well.
I frequently used Philippians 1:27 as a Dwelling in the Word text at difficult meetings where there was a lot of brokenness: “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.” It has the word “strive” which has in its Greek root the word for wrestling. Then, we would move on to the beautiful kenosis hymn (Philippians 2:5-11 ) which reminds us that Jesus emptied himself for us. As the meeting unfolded, every twenty or thirty minutes we would read the text again through the birth pangs of trying to find God’s guidance to a better future. We would listen to God, and to one another. Then we would read a prayer from an old hymnbook so people did not feel we were praying against or for them. We often used this one.
A prayer for the church
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy catholic church.
Fill it with all truth and peace.
Where it is corrupt, purify it;
Where it is in error, direct it;
where in anything it is amiss, reform it;
where it is right, strengthen it;
where it is in need, provide for it;
where it is divided, reunite it;
for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship p.73)
Reframe division as tension—often fruitful tension
The scripture and the prayer would reframe the conversation. It was not magic, but it was something to see how people would attend to and be shaped by the words, listening to a neighbor, sharing their neighbors thoughts in the group, and praying. Then we would go back to work. It represents one of the pivots we talk about at Faith+Lead: the “Pivot in Posture: From fixing to listening, discerning, and experimenting”
The synod staff I first served with after my election liked to talk about this ministry with conflict and division between people in the congregation or congregations as “Reconciliation Ministry.” It was helpful to make clear what we were working towards: reconciliation.
Because of this passage, I started to think about these conversations as a wrestling match, that God could graciously use, like exercise, to make us all stronger. How we imagine these moments and the language we use to talk about our differences, tensions, or disagreements is important. The intensity of the language we use like “battle, fighting,” or other terms can make the differences and divisions seem bigger than they are.
Wisdom: Become a student of yourself and human beings
There are all kinds of tools and wisdom that can help prevent, reduce, or help you move through times of tension and differences. The theological wisdom I named above is among the most important. One of the most important principles I kept was to seek to meet with people I had differences with face to face. It increased the odds we could hear each other and work towards mending our relationship and finding paths forward to address our differences. Don’t send a written communication to someone you are upset with. Write out thoughts if you need to. Talk it through face to face with the person. Remember your tone of voice and body language will say more than the words on your page. Listen. Letting people hear you and ask questions will help you communicate. Become a student of your biases and reconciliation.
As a Christian consultant and author, Speed Leas had a simple tool to evaluate the depth of differences and division. He used five stages to talk about and evaluate conflict. Different levels have different dynamics, he argues. In general, the further up the conflict scale you move the longer it will take to move back down. This article shares his concepts and some others from business contexts.
Peter Steinke was one of my best teachers about tension, differences, and family systems. If you read the article below you will notice he focuses on what is happening inside of you and inside the systems you are a part of as you engage conflict, division, or tension. The article references five key points at the end of a lengthy list. One is: “Effective leaders bring calm and restore systemic stability through a non-anxious presence. Although anxiety is contagious, calm maturity is contagious too. Effective leaders possess the capacity to regulate their anxiety.” Studying systems thinking will bear fruit.
Prevention
Investing time to prevent conflicts and manage tensions is time better spent than in the ongoing roller coaster ride of conflict, division, and disagreement.
- Having a retreat for leaders helps them to get to know each other, focus on shared goals, and build some alignment.
- Finding and agreeing to shared language in a “Code of Conduct” normally is worth the investment at preventing and containing tensions and division, for example, Behavioral Covenant of Leadership and Conduct
- Apprenticing leaders gives you time to help people learn to navigate differences better.
- Keep your focus on following Jesus and loving like Jesus loved in discipleship, ministry and mission.
- Watch and wonder what God is up to in the meeting and conversations. Look for the presence and work of the Spirit. Be curious.
- Trust God.
Keep Practicing
Remember the power and gift of what Jesus taught us about forgiveness. I have found that praying for people and the differences between us has been important for me. Looking forward and keeping an eye on the mission or goal of the congregation/group increases the odds we can navigate through times of division.
Kennon Calahan used to teach the old aphorism: “Memory is strong … hope is stronger.” It is a helpful truth about human beings. Looking forward often leads to more joy and life than looking back, as the story of Lot and his wife teaches.
Floating in the grace of God
Remember God’s resurrecting grace is at work in our midst and will create ways if we don’t get in the way … and even if we mess things up. Remember you can float in the grace of God. This is God’s Church and God’s world. We are following Jesus who calls us to learn from him and love like him.
