Confronting the Real Issues

Straws and conflict have a long history together.  Mostly, it always seems like it's the straws fault that something bad happens.  As an example, it's always the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The straw catches a lot of flack, because it's a phrase that we have heard a lot and we intuitively understand.  Sometimes we need to take a step back and remember what it actually says, and what's really going on.  When you stop to think about it, you can begin to see an important point.  The point is not the straw, rather that something as small as a straw could cause such a problem.  By the time the straw gets involved, something is going to happen, unless the tension can be brought down in some other way.  If it isn't, then the whole thing is going to tip over.

The challenge is to look beyond the straws, or the presenting problems to see the larger conflict.  When we look at the larger conflict, then we begin to see what's going on, what's at stake, and the importance of dealing with the conflict and confronting it, rather than letting it fester on.

If we need to, we can take a look at a different issue. This is one that has carried with it a great deal of emotion, moral, and physical turmoil over our nation's history.  That issue is slavery. 

This was an issue where there were churches on both sides, who would argue that what they believed was right and good, and most importantly faithful.  This was a conflict that we look back on today and say that it was wrong, and a national sin.  At the time it wasn't that clear (even if it should have been).

There were many events that acted as straws.  It was what made the Civil War inevitable.  The load was so big, that unless something happened to reduce it, it was going to tip over.  No one was doing enough to keep that from happening.

An example of this is the First Battle of Bull Run.  It's sometimes called the Picnic Battle as there were a number of folks that showed up to observe.  The thought at the time was that this was going to a relatively bloodless, and quick war.  This was one of the first battles where it became clear that it wasn't, and was one of the straws that tipped everything over into a longer and harder engagement.

It's that kind of engagement that we want to avoid.  At that point the conflict has escalated uncontrollably, and becomes much harder to work through.

Paul, in his letter to the Galatians was dealing with a conflict that was threatening to tip over.  The scripture passage we used was Galatians 2:11-14 when we first looked at this on Sunday morning.  Through this conflict, we see Paul working through the process that Jesus laid out in the previous post.

The straw that Paul is dealing with are the food laws.  These are the Jewish laws that tell practicing Jews what food is clean and unclean.  The issue is that Paul, and other Jews who interact with Gentiles, non-Jews, would often eat unclean food, but would then go back to eating only clean food if other Jews were around.

For Paul, this was the very definition of hypocrisy.  So he starts confronting this issue, first to Peter. I love how Paul says this too:

I opposed him to his face, because he was wrong. --Galatians 2:11b

 One of the things that we have to understand about Paul at this point in his ministry is that this is him at his most raw.  This is not Paul the refined theologian that we'll read in his letter to the Romans.  This is Paul at his most unabashedly passionate, and it shows.

You can imagine that this doesn't work when he confronts Peter.  So the conflict escalates.  Remember, this is still controlled escalation, and that's okay.  That is part of dealing with the conflict.  At the next level, others get involved, but the conflict isn't solved.  Finally, it goes to the larger community of believers.  This is still a fairly young movement, and they are not referred to really as Christians yet.  They are followers of Jesus, or followers of The Way.

Now the community is dealing with this.  There is the possibility that this conflict will end with a separation between Paul and the others.  Ostensibly this is about the food laws, but remember that is the straw.  The reality goes much deeper.

Paul has been very successful in preaching to the Gentiles, and many have become believers.  Added to that are the basic numbers.  There was always going to be more potential for the Gentiles because there were more of them.  The question became, what to do with them?  How do they become something other than Gentiles?  The Jewish leadership would argue that they need to convert to Judaism because Jesus was Jewish.  That meant that they needed to follow the food laws.

How do they resolve this conflict?  There was a lot going on at that time.  In Galatians, Paul doesn't give us an answer, because it hasn't been worked out yet.  What we do know is that they don't split.  They do work it out, but it isn't easy.  We begin to see Peter dealing with this in Acts 10. And we can see that some sort of resolution has been worked out between Paul and the others.

The goal of the resolution is two-fold. The first part is that the Gentile believers demonstrate that they have a true faith.  In a visible and measurable way this will come in the form of a offering that Paul will collect to take back to Jerusalem.  The second part is that the movement will change.  Gentiles will not be required to become Jewish.  They get it worked out, but it still takes a long time for everyone to be comfortable with it.

This worked because the people involved remembered the most important thing that is a part of any conflict.

The church didn't split back then because the folks involved remembered this.  Jesus was with them, and they are a part of his story.  Things begin to fail when we try to put our story ahead of his.  This is also our hope as we go forward.  Conflict can be worked through, resolution can be found, so long as we do it in Jesus name.