Sermon: Overcoming the fear of conflict (June 22, 2014, Pentecost 2A)

Pentecost 2A

June 22, 2014

Matthew 10:24-39

            Did anyone watch the US beat Ghana this week in the World Cup? Watching soccer at this level always amazes me – to see the players throw caution to the wind as they do anything and

US Player Clint Dempsey gets kicked in the
face, resulting in a broken nose.

everything to get to that ball. This is the first soccer match I have watched in a while, but as you may know, I have played soccer most of my life. When I was playing as a teenager, I was, like all teenagers, invincible, and would use similar recklessness in my efforts to get the ball, which was of course the only thing that mattered. Now, twice as old, I get nervous just thinking about it! I still like to play, but now I’m much more likely to duck when the ball comes flying at my head than I am to throw myself in its path. Where my teenage self thrived on the excitement of the game, my 30-year-old self is more prone to feel the flip side of that emotion: fear.

            Did you know that excitement and fear are physiologically identical? Breathing, heart rate, chemical response – that’s all the same whether you are excited or scared. The difference is the mental response to it. Excitement makes us bolder and more confident, and fear makes us nervous, tending toward flight instead of fight.

            I’m talking about fear and excitement today because there is a lot of that in our Gospel reading this morning (and our other readings, for that matter!). Jesus is about to send his disciples out on a mission to heal, cast out demons, and proclaim the good news. I can imagine the disciples are excited about that! To be given such power, and to use it to proclaim good news to the world – wow! But their excitement quickly turns to fear as Jesus tells them what it’s going to be like out there: they will be like sheep in the midst of wolves. Not everyone will receive what they say. People, even their own families, will get nasty, and violent. They will tear them down mentally, emotionally, even physically.

            To embark on such a journey as this requires immense trust and deep courage. Or said another way, it requires faith. I think we are often inclined to think that the opposite of faith is doubt. Not so, in Matthew’s Gospel. For Matthew, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Now don’t get me wrong, doubt can be a difficult thing, too. It tends to creep in when you really could use some conviction, and makes you feel ungrounded and uncertain. But in my experience, it is not so much the doubt that causes pain, as it is that doubt often leads to fear. If you doubt your spouse’s fidelity, you begin to fear you will be left alone. If you doubt your ability to do something well, you fear you will fail, and you fear judgment. If you doubt you deserve something, you fear you will lose it. And then those fears can begin to take over, and that is when faith begins to suffer.

            One of our greatest and most pervasive fears is a fear of conflict. We often try to avoid it, because past conflict has hurt us too many times in too many ways. So we either avoid it entirely, letting it fester until it finally explodes one day, either all over someone we love, or on some undeserving stranger… or we project it, directing all of our aggression about the issue toward something completely unrelated… or we confront it, but in unhealthy ways, insisting on our own rightness to the point of being unable to truly hear anyone else’s perspective. By and large, people aren’t very good at dealing with conflict, whether in the family, in the work place, or even in the church. It’s no wonder we fear it.

            Unfortunately, this is a fear that really keeps us from living, growing, witnessing, and hoping as much as we could. We keep our hopes and dreams in check because pursuing them may upset someone, and that might lead to conflict, which might lead to more upset, so it’s easier not to even try. Hence our witness becomes muted, and our dreams put aside, lest they cause too many problems. And we are unable to fully be the people that God created us to be.

            It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus decides to address and confront this fear head on. He does this first of all by naming it: he tells the disciples that in the mission he is sending them on, they will face persecution, rejection, even violence. Even though it is God’s work, and the good news of the gospel, they will face conflict. Sometimes naming our fears is the first step in moving past them, because naming them takes away some of their power, and knowing to expect them allows us to prepare ourselves for them. Jesus does this for the disciples in our reading today, preparing them for the various conflicts they might encounter – with strangers, friends, and family members alike.

            Naming is important, but even more important is the word of hope and comfort that Jesus offers them in the midst of it: “Have no fear,” he says. Jesus has lived through what he is asking them to face – the persecution, the rejection, even the violence eventually – and so he speaks from experience. “Have no fear,” he assures them. “Instead, have faith, because God is going to win in the end. Even the hairs on your head are counted. If God knows you and cares for you enough to know that, then you have no reason to fear!”

            Instead, he is saying, have courage and trust. And root that courage in the promise of God – the promise that God knows our most intimate selves, and things about us that even we don’t know, and also the promise that while others may try to hurt you physically, no one can take away from the power of God’s promise to know you deeply and love you truly, no matter what.

            If we could remember this promise, how might we view the conflict or the possibility of conflict differently? One way, I think, is we might move away from viewing all conflict as something inherently

bad, to viewing it as something that could change us for the better. I posted a quote on our Facebook page this week (maybe you saw it) from Christian writer Max Lucado: “The circumstances we ask God to change are often the circumstances God is using to change us.” We are so eager for things to be just so, just as we would like them to be, and for God to take away all conflict, that we often fail to see how God might be using a conflict to turn us into stronger, more faithful people, more equipped to witness to God’s love and serve those in need. This can be hard to hear, because it sounds a lot like, “God makes conflict happen for our own good.” That is not what I’m saying. What I am saying is this: that if God can use something as terrible as the cross to bring about our redemption, then maybe, just maybe, God can work through all hardships to bring about life.

            So have no fear. Know that conflict happens, and it can be scary, and it can be painful inside and out, but that conflict is not the end. The end – and the beginning and all the way through – is God’s promise that no amount of human conflict can ever be stronger than the love and power of our Lord Jesus Christ to overcome fear and death. May we approach all our conflicts and fears assured of that promise.

            Let us pray… Gracious and loving God, we face so much conflict in life, and it is often so painful. Help us to face it with confidence instead of fear, trusting ever in your promises. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.