Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9

Although it is only mid-October, we have already had hints of the onslaught of the winter that is to come.  With the winter comes the chilling, cutting winds that only winter can bring.  Did you know that birds like the cardinal, blue jay, chickadee and others are able to survive the cold of winter only because they know to turn their faces into the wind?  If they turned their backs to the freezing winter winds, snow and freezing rain would penetrate their feathers, get next to their bodies, and soon freeze them.  (William Tuck, The Way for All Seasons p. 53)

Like the inevitability of winter winds, conflict in our lives also is inevitable.  By facing and dealing with conflict rather than turning our backs toward it to avoid it can we deal with conflict in a healthy and helpful way. The way through is the way out of conflict.

It is no accident that so much of the biblical material deals with conflict.  Both of our texts today address conflictual situations.  The Exodus passage describes the conflict that arose while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Commandments.  With their appointed leader absent, the people demanded that Aaron make gods for them, gods they could see and touch, thus breaking the core of the Commandments.

And in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul appeals for unity within a bitterly divided early congregation at Philippi. Paul had founded the church at Philippi; had risked his life to preach the gospel at Philippi. He had a right to say certain things to them, to discuss delicate matters. 

There Paul is, pacing the floor, dictating this letter, speaking of this and that, quoting scripture, a few lines of a hymn, until he finally gets the nerve to say what he wanted to say all along: “Euodia! Syntyche! Agree in the Lord!”  We know how people beat around the bush, talk about the weather, football, the price of tires, until finally they get to the point, to what they were working up the courage to say. Here Paul is near the end of his letter getting to the point of conflict in the congregation at Philippi.  
These women are, undoubtedly, leaders of the church. The church at Philippi had always been led by women. In Acts we learn that a prominent businesswoman named Lydia had gotten the Philippian congregation started in her home. The church owes a lot to these people. Euodia, pillar of the church, chair of the finance committee: she means well. Sure, she can be abrupt, sometimes domineering, but she gets things done. Syntyche, leader in the congregation could show a little kindness. A gentle attitude would be helpful to everyone.   Paul says to them, “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companions, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. . . . And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:2-4, 7).

Paul bases his invitation and instruction on what he learned about God’s good news through the life and ministry of Jesus.  Paul knows that conflict happens, happens in relationships that are of any importance.  Conflict is the result of two or more people looking at a situation or circumstance and seeing it differently.  Conflict is the tension that results from two people having a different understanding of the meaning and/or importance of the same event or situation.  The healthy question is not how can we not have conflict but rather how can we let conflict work for us so that the conflict is transformed into a strength and so we are transformed by the conflict.

Paul also knew that the gospel is not the absence of conflict.  Actually, it is the use of conflict to further God’s domination-free order.  Conflict is inevitable in life and in the life of the church.  Conflict is morally neutral.  It is neither right nor wrong.  However, how we use conflict may be right or wrong.  Occasionally, people long for their church to be like the church of the New Testament.  I wonder which of the New Testaments churches they long to be like.  All of the ones to which Paul wrote had conflict and each letter he wrote dealt with conflict in the congregation to which his letter was addressed. 

During his life Jesus unambiguously declared conflict to be the unavoidable consequence of his assault on domination in all its forms: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).
     
We have proclaimed Jesus as the “Prince of Peace,” but our interpretation of peace has been defined as an absence of conflict.  We thought he was the one who would end all strife, even the nonviolent kind.  Too often we identify the gospel as freedom from controversy, so that all our longing went out toward being left alone, untroubled and undisturbed.  Consequently, we don’t deal very well with church fights, to say nothing of controversies, civil disruptions and riots.
     
Jesus promised us the very thing we most wish to avoid, conflict. Why?
     
Because the gospel is not reactive and passive, it attempts to overcome domination in all its forms.  It is not averse to using coercion; it simply uses nonviolent coercion rather than violent coercion.  It places before the oppressor a series of forced choices, none of which are to his or her advantage.  The civil rights marchers in Selma served up such a dilemma to Sheriff Jim Clark: either he sanctioned their march, which would have acknowledged the legitimacy of their protest against segregation; or he attempted to block it, turning on the marchers with clubs and police dogs.  He chose the latter and exposed the violence of segregation for a nation to see and condemn.
     
The “sword” Jesus brings is not a sword of violence, but the sword of God’s abiding presence, the word of God.  That sword cuts through the tissues of deceit and exposes the corruption in the body politic, and that inevitably invokes violence from those in power.  Exposure does not depose those in power; it simply makes them more vicious.  They will bend all their might to destroy those who threaten their existence. 
     
Therefore, the “peace that is beyond understanding” that Paul talks about in our text from Philippians (4:7) is not the peace that comes from being at rest, but is an ineffable divine reassurance within the heart of conflict.  The nonviolence Jesus lived and taught is not a means to secure tranquility, but rather a way of forcing evil out of its hideouts, stripping away its disguises, and eventually transforming it into something good. The gospel is not idealistic or sentimental about evil; it does not coddle or cajole aggressors, but moves against perceived injustice proactively, with the same enthusiasm as the most hawkish militarist. 
     
Unfortunately, a long history of misinterpretation has misled people into believing that Jesus taught non-resistance to evil.  Jesus did not counsel non-resistance to evil.  The Greek term translated “resist not” is a technical term for warfare.  It refers to the act of marching two armies up against each other until they collide.  The concussion thus created, as steel met steel, was called “taking a stand.”  Jesus is not, then, saying, :Do not resist evil,” but rather “Do not return evil in kind; do not fight evil with its own weapons; do not let your opponent set the terms of your opposition.”  An excellent translation is do not resist evil with evil or do not react violently against the one who is doing evil. 
     
Jesus clarifies this point with his statement, “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”  This does not mean that we should let another knock us around with no concern for our own safety or rights.  The blow envisioned in this example is a back hand, not a blow with a fist (right cheek), and to strike with the back of the hand is intended to humiliate, not injure.  Jesus is urging his audience to defy a master by turning the cheek, thus rendering him incapable of striking again.  (The nose is now in the way of the backhand, and he cannot use a fist, since that would establish their equality—the last thing the master wants to do to a slave is make the slave his equal.)  The slave or subordinate by turning the other cheek is saying, in effect, “I refuse to be cowed any longer by you.  I am a human being, just like you.”  In Jesus’ culture the master may have such a slave or subordinate flogged within an inch of his life, but the point has been made and cannot be unmade: the domination system has been breached, and its captives are being delivered.  God’s domination-free order is happening, here and now.
     
Conflict is the inevitable consequence of human freedom.  Conflict is not an expression of sin but of the inevitable rub between varieties of interpretations of the good.  Conflict is the means by which differing insights about the nature of reality are adjudicated. Conflict need not be violent; indeed, the genius of democracy, and its constant burden, is to maintain conflict at a more or less maximum level short of violence.
     
Conflict is the unavoidable price of freedom.  The domination system deals with conflict by suppressing it.  Democracy—which is nothing more than nonviolence institutionalized—thrives on conflict.  So do churches; indeed, the lack of external opposition may be fatal to Christian integrity.  Churches that no longer risk everything in a life and death struggle against the domination system may simply turn inward and unleash their energies in violence against one another. 
     
Unfortunately, the leadership of too many congregations avoids conflict at all costs, even to the abandonment of cherished programs and principles.  It is not enough, then, to believe that conflict is valuable in the life of the spirit.  We also must stretch to overcome a natural tendency to prize reconciliation above conflict, peace above justice, tranquility above truth.  Jesus did not come to soothe our ragged senses into a state of hypnotic suspension from the tensions of the world.  He came rather to equip us to enter those conflicts armed with the gospel of nonviolence and its corollary, the love of enemies.  Like it or not, conflict is the way the rule and reign of God comes.  (Previous eleven paragraphs by Walter Wink, “The Gospel and Conflict,” The Living Pulpit, July-September 1994, pp. 14-15)
     
Conflict is inevitable when we have freedom; because we each have a will; because we will “seek our own”; because even in pursuit of ideals and in expressing the love of God, our wills will clash.  But conflict is also usually destructive because the expressers of freedom lose sight of goals. Conflict distorts each person’s vision of the other.  The conflictual person or party loses empathy.  For the sake of efficiency in effecting one’s will, one may end up being concerned only for the self, and losing dependency upon the God as the Psalmist says who “sits in the heavens and laughs” (Ps. 2:4) at human pretensions and power.  Worst of all, the person or party in conflict likes to call God down to support her or their side.
     
No wonder the apostle Paul, whose every letter had to deal with conflict in the congregation to which he wrote, prayed that “all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you” (1 Cor. 1:10).  With good reason he said that “as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you,” . . .”you are still of the flesh,” and “you” are supposed to be of the spirit (1 Cor. 3:3).
     
Where there is life, there will be conflict.  It can be turned creative; it can be redemptive. Conflict is to be overcome, not by suppressing differences, stomping on freedom, dishonoring will or refusing to listen to voice. Conflict is used to stimulate the imagination, quicken pulses for adventure and force the persons and parties to take on ideas and tasks so great that they become newly reliant on God. Thus they get glimpses of what Paul and, we must presume, God wants: “that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose” (1 Cor. 1:10)  (Previous three paragraphs are Martin Marty’s insights about conflict. The Living Pulpit, July-September 1994, p. 13)
     
Will Campbell told a powerful story about a conversation that he had with a church member that illustrates clearly how often the church is no different in the way it deals with conflict than the culture or its institutions.
     
"You know, Preacher Will, that church of yours and Mr. Jesus is like an Easter chicken my little Karen got one time. Man, it was a pretty thing. Dyed a deep purple. Bought it at the grocery store."
     
Will interrupted that white was the liturgical color for Easter but the man ignored him. "And it served a real useful purpose. Karen loved it. It made her happy. And that made her mamma and me happy. Okay?"
     
Will said, "Okay."
     
"But pretty soon that baby chicken started feathering out. You know, sprouting little pinfeathers. Wings, and tail, and all that. And you know what? Them new feathers weren't purple. No sirree bob; that damn chicken was a Rhode Island Red. And when all them little red feathers started growing out from under that purple it was one hell of a sight. All of a sudden Karen couldn't stand that chicken any more."
     
Will said, "I think I see what you're driving at, P.D.”
    
  "No, hell no, Preacher Will. You don't understand any such thing, for I haven't got to my point yet."
    
  Will said, "Okay. I'm sorry. Rave on."
     
"Well, we took that half-purple and half-red thing out to her grandma's house and threw it in the chicken yard with all the other chickens. It was still different, you understand. That little chicken. And the other chickens knew it was different. And they resisted it like hell. Pecked it, chased it all over the yard. Wouldn't have anything to do with it. Wouldn't even let it get on the roost with them. And that little chicken knew it was different too. It didn't bother any of the others. Wouldn't fight back or anything. Just stayed by itself. Really suffered too. But little by little, day-by-day, that chicken came around. Pretty soon, even before all the purple grew off it, while it was still just a little bit different, that damn thing was behaving just about like the rest of them chickens. Man, it would fight back, peck the hell out of the ones littler than it was, knock them down to catch a bug if it got to it in time. Yes sirree bob, the chicken world turned that Easter chicken around. And now you can't tell one chicken from another. They're all just alike. The Easter chicken is just one more chicken. There ain't a damn thing different about it."
     
Will said, “I knew he wanted to argue and I didn't want to disappoint him.
    
  "Well, P.D., the Easter chicken is still useful. It lays eggs, doesn't it?"
     
It was what he wanted me to say. "Yea, Preacher Will. It lays eggs. But they all lay eggs . . ." (Will D. Campbell, Brother to a Dragonfly, New York: The Seabury Press, 1977, pp. 75-78)
     
Truly, the gospel teaches another way, a better way, than the pecking order of the chicken yard. The gospel teaches a way of resolving conflict that counters the domination system that is so acculturated in our lives. When the gospel way is followed it brings with it a peace, not without conflict but peace that uses conflict redemptively to further God’s domination-free order.  Indeed this is peace that passes comprehension and goes beyond all understanding.