Episode 1679: Conflict

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,679 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast

Michael Tate Barkley: I'm Tate Barkley. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasure to live out your calling. Having the ability to find a place of rigorous honesty and rigorous service to others is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: To bring people together, to invite the outsider in, to lead with love, to stand against injustice, to stand against anything that sets one group or one person or one [00:01:00] thing above others. That is the Community of Christ.

Michael Tate Barkley: Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person

Scott Maderer: who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling.

In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, I talk about Matthew 18:15-20. I talk about what it means to be in our church clothes, and I also talk about what we are really called to do in conflict with each other. Matthew 18:15-20 says, "If your brother and sister [00:02:00] sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.

If you are listened to, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If that person refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loosen on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

You know, I'm old enough that I can remember having church clothes. I can remember going to church and having a particular set of clothes that my parents set aside [00:03:00] and said, "These are the clothes that are fancy. These are the nice clothes. You wear them to church. You wear them out on an evening when we're going someplace special."

They're clothes that you set aside for something special. And often, whenever I was told to put on my church clothes, I knew that it meant more than just putting on a fancy outfit. It meant more than just keeping my clothes clean. It meant those things, but it also meant to put on a certain attitude, to put on a certain set of behavior, to do certain things that were expected of me when I wore that kind of outfit.

Watch what I did, watch what I said, keep it clean in more ways than one That was kind of the good thing, in a way, about church clothes. But unfortunately, it also set up a situation, and one of the reasons I [00:04:00] struggled with the church early on is, I would see people who would behave a certain way when they were wearing their church clothes, but they would behave completely different the rest of the time.

And I do think there's something nice about having the church attitude that goes with the church clothes, but I don't think that attitude should only be worn when we're in church. It should be about more than that. This isn't one of those, "Oh, let's go back to the way it used to be. Kids should be quiet and seen and not heard in church."

I love hearing kids in church. I love seeing the fact that people can show up in all different outfits and all different manners of dress and still be welcomed in, because that's really the church attitude. I don't think Jesus wanted us to compartmentalize our life into church life and non-church life.

I think [00:05:00] Jesus wanted us to live every day as they, as though every moment of every day we were in the presence of God, because after all, we are. We should live every moment of every day as though we love our neighbors as ourselves. Sometimes we need that reminder. Maybe we need that outward sign like the clothes were, but we also need that reminder all of the time.

That's why people need the church. I'd mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Matthew is the only gospel writer who uses the word church, and it only appears twice, in this passage and back in chapter 16, where he tells Peter that he's going to be the rock on which he builds the church. That means that church is significant, and we ought to pay attention.

Now, in the epistles, church appears over 70 times. So obviously Peter and Paul [00:06:00] and those other letter writers Are very concerned about helping us be the church that we're called to be, much more than the writers of the gospel were, at least. The church's function in this is to be a force for reconciliation.

In fact, gospely, that may be the only function of the church. Putting things back together, healing breaches between people, overcoming those things that keep us apart. It's about making sure no one feels like an outsider. But I've seen this passage being used to actually create outsiderness. After all, right there in the passage, right, it says, "If people don't do it, what do we do?"

That's what verse 17 is saying. "The one who has caused the offense refuses to be reconciled, then treat them as a Gentile and a tax collector." And I don't know about you, but that sounds [00:07:00] like a boo, hiss, toss them out kind of moment. Except think for a moment. In the rest of the gospels, how did Jesus treat tax collectors?

He invited them in as one of his disciples. How did Jesus treat Gentiles? He preached to them, he talked to them, he invited them in, and he was ch- welcoming to them in most cases. Despite centuries of church history, I don't think these words really say cut people off. Instead, it says treat those people, the sinners, the breakers of the covenant, those people that maybe have made a mistake, treat them with love and invitation.

Heal what is broken. We might have to change tactics, yes. We might have to do it a different way, because when you think about it, how did Jesus treat the insiders, the disciples, versus the outsiders? I would actually say that Jesus was harder on his disciples. He had higher [00:08:00] expectations. He would call them out.

He would point out their failings. But outsiders were encouraged and invited. Still challenged, yes. But they were challenged and also treated with love and gentleness. So maybe here when Jesus is saying, "Treat them like the outsider," he's not saying turn your back. He's not saying kick them out. He's saying change your tactics.

And he's saying we ought to be doing this together as the church. It's not an individual activity, it's a community activity This is part of what we're called to do as the church, to reconcile, to bring people together, to invite the outsider in, to lead with love, to stand against injustice, to stand against anything that sets one group or one person or one thing above [00:09:00] others.

That is the Community of Christ. Thanks for listening.

Michael Tate Barkley: Thanks so much for listening to the

Scott Maderer: Inspired Stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspiredstewardship.com/itunesrate, all one word, itunesrate.

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