Sermon Illustrations on Conflict
Background
Anxiety in Disagreements
Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the internet; I must correct them!” impulse leaps into action. When anxiety sparks—poof! —it’s like a little anxious dragon is born in our minds, ready to light things on fire. It’s the first sign of a disagreement potentially on its way.
Be Slow to Sue
Former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia argues how Christians ought to resolve conflict based on 1 Corinthians 6:
I think this passage [1 Cor. 6:1–8] has something to say about the proper Christian attitude toward civil litigation. Paul is making two points: first, he says that the mediation of a mutual friend, such as the parish priest, should be sought before parties run off to the law courts. . . . I think we are too ready today to seek vindication or vengeance through adversary proceedings rather than peace through mediation. . . . Good Christians, just as they are slow to anger, should be slow to sue.
Justice Antonin Scalia, “Teaching About the Law,” Quarterly 7, no. 4 (Christian Legal Society, Fall 1987)
Dealing with Conflict Directly
If someone has done something wrong even at a personal level, the right thing to do is not to gossip about it, not to tell everybody else, not to allow resentment to build up and fester, and certainly not to begin plotting revenge. The right thing to do is to go and tell them directly.
Unfortunately, the people who are best at doing this, in my experience, are the people who actually rather enjoy telling other people that they’re out of line. Perhaps the only real qualification for doing it is if you know, deep down, that you would much rather not have to do it, and you have to pray for grace and courage to go and knock on the door in the first place.
Taken from Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright Copyright (c) 2006, p.161, by N.T. Wright. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Emotional Nanocrafts in the Space Between Us
In I’d Like You More If You Were More Like Me, John Ortberg uses an interesting analogy for an aspect of our relationships. In 2015, Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner announced the Starshot Initiative: to see if it would be possible to send one-gram “nanocraft” from earth to Alpha Centauri at 20% of the speed of light. Why? According to Hawking: “Mankind has a deep need to explore, to learn to know…. We also happen to be sociable creatures. It is important to us to know if we are alone in the dark.”
Are we alone in the dark? Ortberg sees a connection between these nanocraft and what John Gottman calls “bids” for emotional connection: “A bid can be a question, a gesture, a look, a touch—any single expression that says, ‘I want to feel connected to you.’” These bids for intimacy are profoundly powerfull, says Gottman:
We learned, for example, that husbands headed for divorce disregard their wives’ bids for connection 82 percent of the time, while husbands in stable relationships disregard their wives’ bids just 19 percent of the time. Wives headed for divorce act preoccupied with other activities when their husbands bid for their attention 50 percent of the time, while happily married wives act preoccupied in response to their husbands’ bids just 14 percent of the time.
When we compared how often couples in the two groups extended bids and responded to them, we found another significant difference. During a typical dinner-hour conversation, the happily married people engaged one another as many as one hundred times in ten minutes. Those headed for divorce engaged only sixty-five times in that same period. On the surface the contrast may seem inconsequential, but taken together over a year, the additional moments of connection among the happy couples would be enough to fill a Russian novel.
Our responses to these little emotional nanocrafts can build or squelch relationships. Responsiveness allows those couples who frequently engage to draw on “a reservoir of good feeling” during arguments and maintain humor, interest, and affection—intimacy—during arguments. Even “innocent” inattention drains or fails to refill this reservoir, leaving their relationship unable to deescalate conflict and soothe hurt feelings.
These emotional nanocraft—bids—are not only influential in our marriages, they matter for just about every relationship we have. Gottman also points out how they can combat isolation in work environments. It also highlights the importance of our emotional and communicative life with God. We will be better able to weather the difficulties of life if we are sending and receiving input to God through prayer, church life and service, and the sacraments.
William Rowley, source: John Ortberg, I’d Like You More If You Were More Like Me: Getting Real About Getting Close (Tyndale Refresh, 2017) and John Gottman and Joan DeClaire, The Relationship Cure (Harmony, 2022)
A Failure to Appreciate the Other’s Point of View
Most quarrels are due to a misunderstanding, and the misunderstanding is due to our failure to appreciate the other person’s point of view. It is more natural to us to talk than to listen, to argue than to submit. This is true in industrial disputes as much as in domestic quarrels.
Many conflicts in the world of employment could be resolved if both sides first examined themselves critically and then examined the other side charitably, rather than our normal practice of being charitable to ourselves and critical of others. The same could be said of complex international unrest. The tensions of today are due largely to fear and foolishness. Our outlook is one-sided. We exaggerate the virtues in ourselves and the vices in others.
Taken from Basic Christianity The IVP Signature Collection by John Stott. Copyright (c) 2019 by John Stott, pp.105-106. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Forgive
“What happens here may be expressed by the quite simple and yet unfathomable word, ‘forgive.’ What occurs when I forgive another person? It does not mean . . . that I can ‘forget’ what he did to me. It just can’t do that. No, when I forgive another, I myself step into the breach and say to myself, ‘The same thing that made the other person mean, hateful, and guilty toward me is in my heart as well. Ultimately we are two of a kind.’
If I tell my neighbor, ‘I forgive you,’ and I say it from the bottom of my heart, then, in a manner of speaking, I take over the burden of his guilt and place it on my own heart just as though it were mine. . . . I say, ‘Yes, what you did to me was very wrong; it was even shocking. But I know from looking at myself how fickle and wicked the human heart is. Therefore I could do exactly what you did. It’s coiled up in me too. So I’ll suffer through it with you. I’ll put myself in your place. I’ll share your burden.’ When I forgive another person, I share the burden of his guilt. I become his brother and his sister, a burden-bearer at his side.”
The Fruit of a Productive Disagreement
A productive disagreement yields fruit: the fruit of security, by removing a threat, reducing a risk, resulting in a deal, or concluding with a decision; the fruit of growth, by revealing new information about the world or each other that makes us see and understand reality more deeply; the fruit of connection, by bringing us together and giving us opportunities to forge trust with one another; and the fruit of enjoyment, by teaching us to operate with a collaborative mind-set that emphasizes playfulness, adventure, fun, and sometimes even awe.
The Golden Result
The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we blame others for a problem, they will usually blame in return. But if we say, “I was wrong,” it is amazing how often the response will be, “It was my fault too.” I have seen this result in hundreds of cases over the past twenty-one years. Whether the dispute involves a personal quarrel, divorce, lawsuit, or church division, people generally treat one another as they are being treated.
When one person attacks and accuses, so does the other. And when God moves one person to start getting the log out of his or her own eye, it is rare that the other side fails to do the same. The Golden Result occurs most often with people who understand and cherish the gospel. When we admit that our own sins are so serious that Jesus had to die for us, and remember that he has forgiven us for all our wrongs, we can let go of our illusion of self-righteousness and freely admit our failures. When we do this, we experience the wonderful gift of God’s forgiveness. And in many cases, he will be pleased to use our confessions to help others see the logs in their eyes.
How Do Porcupines Cuddle?
The furniture salesman said the couch would seat five friends without a problem. Then I realized, I don’t have five friends without a problem. Old joke—sorry—but still. It reminds me of the old saying that human beings are like porcupines in winter—we need each other for warmth, but our quills get in the way.
So, the question comes, how do porcupettes (the official word for porcupine children) come into the world—considering all those quills (30,000 or so per grownup porcupine). It seems that, for the perpetuation of the species, grownup porcupines have figured out how to lay down their quills, at least for the necessary moment.
This feels like one of those necessary moments, when, for the perpetuation of our society and nation, all of us grownups need to lay down our quills so we can sit together on the grand couch we call America.
One of the Bible’s most important quill-controlling passages…
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. — 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some quills to lay down.
Dave Peterson
The Key Word in a Disagreement
The key word in our definition of a disagreement (an unacceptable difference between two perspectives), isn’t “difference.” It’s “unacceptable.” Once the clash between perspectives becomes unacceptable, our motivation shifts from understanding minds to changing them, and from that shift springs a world of trouble. We can change our own beliefs and our own behaviors, but when it comes to changing other people, our options are more limited and the results can vary wildly.
…Sometimes our attempts to change minds can actually have the opposite effect, making people dig in their heels even deeper in their current belief. It’s called the backfire effect. Trying to persuade people too much can backfire. For example: You have two good friends who start dating. When they break up, one of the friends asks you to stop being friends with the other. The backfire effect might lead you to actually reach out to the other friend or even to sympathize with them more.
Buster Benson, Why Are We Yelling? Penguin Publishing Group, 2019, p. 41-42.
Revenge Doesn’t Say
In Exclusion and Embrace, Yale professor Miroslav Volf reflects on the themes of revenge, mercy, forgiveness and grace. Volf, who grew up in war-ravaged Croatia, speaks from a place of deep concern for the sectarian divisions that often lead to conflict and violence. His insight here is significant for anyone who desires peace but fights against the fleshly desire for revenge.
Revenge doesn’t say, `An eye for an eye.” It says, “You take my eye, and I’ll blow out your brains.” It doesn’t say, “An insult for an insult.” It says, “You cross me once, you cross me twice, and I’ll destroy your character and your career.” It doesn’t say, “You organize an act of terror, and we’ll punish you.”
It says, “You organize an act of terror, and we’ll use the overwhelming military force of a superpower to recast the political landscape of the entire region from which you came.” Revenge abandons the principle of “measure for measure” and, acting out of injured pride and untamed fear, gives itself to punitive excess. That’s why revenge is morally wrong. In its zeal to punish, it overindulgently takes from the offender more than due.
Stories
This Constant Bickering
The monks at a remote monastery deep in the woods followed a rigid vow of silence. Their vow could only be broken once a year—on Christmas—by one monk. That monk could speak only one sentence. One Christmas, Brother Thomas had his turn to speak and said, “I love the delightful mashed potatoes we have every year with the Christmas roast!” Then he sat down. Silence ensued for 365 days.
The next Christmas, Brother Michael got his turn and said, “I think the mashed potatoes are lumpy, and I truly despise them!” Once again, silence ensued for 365 days.
The following Christmas, Brother Paul rose and said, “I am fed up with this constant bickering!”
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Four Thousand Deaths Over a Bucket
From the late Middle Ages until the Renaissance, northern Italy divided into factions who supported rival political powers, which further intensified their border disputes. According to legend, in 1325, a huge conflict erupted when soldiers form the town of Modena stole an oak bucket from the nearby rival town of Bologna. The thieves mockingly displayed the bucket for all to see.
Outraged, the Bolognese army marched to Modena to recover their bucket and pride. When the Modenese refused their demand, the Bolognese declared war. This event became known as the War for the Oaken Bucket. Bologna summoned a mighty army from the Guelph cities. Thirty thousand men-at-arms, two thousand knights, and Pope John XXII himself joined the chase of reclaiming the bucket.
The Modenese by contrast, only gathered five thousand men-at-arms and two thousand knights. The two armies clashed on the afternoon of November 15 at Zappolino. Despite being outnumbered nearly five to one, the Modenese managed to rout the Bolognese in just two hours of battle. The Modenese pursued the Bolognese all the way to the walls of Bologna, where they flaunted their victory before their humiliated enemy. A total of four thousand men died that day. All because of a bucket.
Fearing to Want
In her thought-provoking book, Teach us to Want, Jen Pollock Michel describes the tension in listening to our deepest desires: some of them these desires are integral to our identity, but they also can easily be marred by sin:
Brennan Manning was a man ordained into the Franciscan priesthood who struggled with a lifelong addiction to alcohol. He writes in The Ragamuffin Gospel, “Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.” Like Manning, every human is drunk on the wine of paradox and riddled with fear. We each have great capacity for evil and terrific incapacity for good.
These fears can obstruct our will to want. How can we allow ourselves to want, especially when we’re so infinitely adept at sin? How do we ever decide that our desires are anything other than sin-sick expression of our inner corruption? Can we trust our desires if we ourselves can be so untrustworthy?
Taken from Teach us to Want: Longing, Ambition, and the Life of Faith by Jen Pollock Michel Copyright (c) 2014 by Jen Pollock Michel. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Mutual Accusations
In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations were flying back and forth between the two superpowers. Each time we held a meeting, the first session began with a long laundry list of attacks and defensive arguments. It poisoned the atmosphere and took up a lot of valuable time. By the third or fourth such conference, my colleagues and I tried a different tack. On the printed agenda, we labeled the subject of the first meeting “Mutual Accusations” and scheduled it before breakfast for anyone who wanted to show up. Everyone got the point. The blame game is the core pattern of almost every destructive conflict I have ever witnessed. The husband blames the wife and vice versa. Management blames the union and vice versa. One political enemy blames the other and vice versa. Blaming usually triggers feelings of anger or shame in the other, which provokes counterblame. And on it goes.
William Ury, Getting to Yes with Yourself: How to Get What You Truly Want (HarperOne, 2016)
Solving the World’s Problems
Warren Robinson Austin was an American politician and diplomat serving both in the U.S. Senate and the United Nations as a U.S. ambassador. During a debate, Austin was asked how he would approach the conflict in the Middle East, specifically between Jew and Arabs. Austin’s advice was simple: sit them down and have them settle their differences “like good Christians.”
Stuart Strachan, Source Material from Clifton Fadiman, Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes.
The Two Hermits Attempt to Quarrel
Two hermits lived together for many years without a quarrel. One said to the other, “Let’s have a quarrel with each other, as other men do.” The other answered, “I don’t know how a quarrel happens.” The first said, “Look here, I put a brick between us, and I say, ‘That’s mine.’ Then you say, ‘No, it’s mine.’ That is how you begin a quarrel.” So they put a brick between them and one of them said, “That’s mine.” The other said, “No, it’s mine.” He answered, “Yes, it’s yours. Take it away.” They were unable to argue with each other.”
Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another. New Seeds Publishing.
Studies
The Backfire Effect
We have all had the experience where you present someone with reasons in a disagreement and, instead of taking it seriously, the other person brushes it off—and may even seem to be more resistant to your point of view. What happened? One possibility is that you have witnessed the “Backfire Effect” in action.
In an ideal world, giving someone strong new evidence that one of their beliefs is false should either change their mind or decrease their confidence about that belief. However, this doesn’t always happen. People often “stick to their guns” in light of new evidence that they are mistaken. In fact, some psychological research suggests that sometimes people not only don’t change their mind in light of new evidence, they actually strengthen their confidence in their original belief!
Why does this happen? There are a lot of reasons why this might happen. When we are emotionally invested in a belief or it forms part of our identity, we can see changing our mind as “losing” to an opponent or undermining who we are. We therefore see maintaining our position as a kind of self-defense. It’s harder still when we are in an argument with someone else—we feel really good when we “win” and feel bad if we “lose.” These provide non-rational incentives to ignore the evidence and insist on our point of view. In fact, pride may play a big role in distorting our thinking.
The Backfire Effect is particularly powerful in politics. Remember that political parties have a vested interest in stoking emotional attachment and personal identification with their political positions. Truth is not what wins elections. Dedication to political dogmas does. And, frankly, this is pretty dangerous. But Christians are supposed to be aligned with truth.
Critical thinking is undervalued in our culture and often by our churches. Some even see it as a threat to faith. It is not. We are given our cognitive abilities by God to understand the world in which we live. To love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we must fight the forces which distort our ability to see the truth—even if it turns out that we were the ones who were wrong.
William Rowley
Changing Someone’s Mind (Isn’t Easy)
A mind is more like a pile of millions of little rocks than a single big boulder. To change a mind, we need to carry thousands of little rocks from one pile to another, one at a time. This is because our brains don’t know how to rewire a full belief in one big haul. New neuron paths aren’t created that quickly. You might be able to get a tiny percent of someone’s mind to rewire to a new belief in a given conversation, but minds change slowly and in unpredictable ways. You might be changing it in the wrong direction.
Buster Benson, Why Are We Yelling? Penguin Publishing Group, 2019, p.19.
Analogies
Anxiety in Disagreements
Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the internet; I must correct them!” impulse leaps into action. When anxiety sparks—poof! —it’s like a little anxious dragon is born in our minds, ready to light things on fire. It’s the first sign of a disagreement potentially on its way.
Changing Someone’s Mind (Isn’t Easy)
A mind is more like a pile of millions of little rocks than a single big boulder. To change a mind, we need to carry thousands of little rocks from one pile to another, one at a time. This is because our brains don’t know how to rewire a full belief in one big haul. New neuron paths aren’t created that quickly. You might be able to get a tiny percent of someone’s mind to rewire to a new belief in a given conversation, but minds change slowly and in unpredictable ways. You might be changing it in the wrong direction.
Buster Benson, Why Are We Yelling? Penguin Publishing Group, 2019, p.19.
Forgive
“What happens here may be expressed by the quite simple and yet unfathomable word, ‘forgive.’ What occurs when I forgive another person? It does not mean . . . that I can ‘forget’ what he did to me. It just can’t do that. No, when I forgive another, I myself step into the breach and say to myself, ‘The same thing that made the other person mean, hateful, and guilty toward me is in my heart as well. Ultimately we are two of a kind.’
If I tell my neighbor, ‘I forgive you,’ and I say it from the bottom of my heart, then, in a manner of speaking, I take over the burden of his guilt and place it on my own heart just as though it were mine. . . . I say, ‘Yes, what you did to me was very wrong; it was even shocking. But I know from looking at myself how fickle and wicked the human heart is. Therefore I could do exactly what you did. It’s coiled up in me too. So I’ll suffer through it with you. I’ll put myself in your place. I’ll share your burden.’ When I forgive another person, I share the burden of his guilt. I become his brother and his sister, a burden-bearer at his side.”
The Fruit of a Productive Disagreement
A productive disagreement yields fruit: the fruit of security, by removing a threat, reducing a risk, resulting in a deal, or concluding with a decision; the fruit of growth, by revealing new information about the world or each other that makes us see and understand reality more deeply; the fruit of connection, by bringing us together and giving us opportunities to forge trust with one another; and the fruit of enjoyment, by teaching us to operate with a collaborative mind-set that emphasizes playfulness, adventure, fun, and sometimes even awe.
The Golden Result
The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we blame others for a problem, they will usually blame in return. But if we say, “I was wrong,” it is amazing how often the response will be, “It was my fault too.” I have seen this result in hundreds of cases over the past twenty-one years. Whether the dispute involves a personal quarrel, divorce, lawsuit, or church division, people generally treat one another as they are being treated.
When one person attacks and accuses, so does the other. And when God moves one person to start getting the log out of his or her own eye, it is rare that the other side fails to do the same. The Golden Result occurs most often with people who understand and cherish the gospel. When we admit that our own sins are so serious that Jesus had to die for us, and remember that he has forgiven us for all our wrongs, we can let go of our illusion of self-righteousness and freely admit our failures. When we do this, we experience the wonderful gift of God’s forgiveness. And in many cases, he will be pleased to use our confessions to help others see the logs in their eyes.
Revenge Doesn’t Say
In Exclusion and Embrace, Yale professor Miroslav Volf reflects on the themes of revenge, mercy, forgiveness and grace. Volf, who grew up in war-ravaged Croatia, speaks from a place of deep concern for the sectarian divisions that often lead to conflict and violence. His insight here is significant for anyone who desires peace but fights against the fleshly desire for revenge.
Revenge doesn’t say, `An eye for an eye.” It says, “You take my eye, and I’ll blow out your brains.” It doesn’t say, “An insult for an insult.” It says, “You cross me once, you cross me twice, and I’ll destroy your character and your career.” It doesn’t say, “You organize an act of terror, and we’ll punish you.”
It says, “You organize an act of terror, and we’ll use the overwhelming military force of a superpower to recast the political landscape of the entire region from which you came.” Revenge abandons the principle of “measure for measure” and, acting out of injured pride and untamed fear, gives itself to punitive excess. That’s why revenge is morally wrong. In its zeal to punish, it overindulgently takes from the offender more than due.
Humor
Choosing a Hymn (Is Not as Easy as You Might Think)
From the Hayes Parish Church on 18 March 1749:
The Clerk gave out the 100th Psalm, and the Singers immediately opposed him, and sang the 15th and bred a disturbance.
Hayes Parish Register.
The Church Split Over… What, Precisely?
Presbyterian minister Michael Lindvall begins his fictional story about a pastor in the Midwest in The Good News from North Haven like this:
I am the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church. There is no first Presbyterian Church in town and there hasn’t been for years. More than a century ago, the newly founded First – and then only – Presbyterian Church enjoyed a fine church fight. Folks still tell the story of the Sunday in June when half the congregation walked out during the sermon and founded Second Presbyterian.
All memories agree as to what the fight was about: whether young women ought to lead discussions at Christian Endeavor meetings or keep a low profile and ask questions when they got home, as St. Paul seems to have counseled. What memories do not agree on is who was on what side. Some people now say that the Second Presbyterian group that left was in favor of women speaking at meetings, some say they were against it. Whatever the truth, everyone agrees that Second Presbyterian Church was squarely established on the firm foundation of an important principle, even if no one is quite sure what that principle was.
First Church’s building burned to the ground a few years after the split, and most folks assumed that this was a sign…Most First Church folks switched over to Second Church after the fire. But a handful of stalwarts refused to yield on a matter of Presbyterian principle and became Methodists.
Michael L. Lindvall, The Good News from North Haven, pp. 2-3. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
This Constant Bickering
The monks at a remote monastery deep in the woods followed a rigid vow of silence. Their vow could only be broken once a year—on Christmas—by one monk. That monk could speak only one sentence. One Christmas, Brother Thomas had his turn to speak and said, “I love the delightful mashed potatoes we have every year with the Christmas roast!” Then he sat down. Silence ensued for 365 days.
The next Christmas, Brother Michael got his turn and said, “I think the mashed potatoes are lumpy, and I truly despise them!” Once again, silence ensued for 365 days.
The following Christmas, Brother Paul rose and said, “I am fed up with this constant bickering!”
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“Divorce? Never, But Murder, Often”
The British actress Sybil Thorndike was married to Sir Lewis Casson another prolific actor. Their marriage was rather tumultuous at times, and after his death, she was once asked, “Did you ever think of divorce?” “Divorce? Never. But murder often!”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
The Two Hermits Attempt to Quarrel
Two hermits lived together for many years without a quarrel. One said to the other, “Let’s have a quarrel with each other, as other men do.” The other answered, “I don’t know how a quarrel happens.” The first said, “Look here, I put a brick between us, and I say, ‘That’s mine.’ Then you say, ‘No, it’s mine.’ That is how you begin a quarrel.” So they put a brick between them and one of them said, “That’s mine.” The other said, “No, it’s mine.” He answered, “Yes, it’s yours. Take it away.” They were unable to argue with each other.”
Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another. New Seeds Publishing.
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