Standing in Two Boats

One of our church's leaders has been out and will be out over the next several weeks due to the quintuple bypass surgery that followed the mild heart attack he had three weeks ago. Richard is also one of the teachers of our largest Sunday school class, so in his absence I offered to share teaching duties with the other two teachers.

This may surprise some of you, but yesterday was the first time I have EVER taught Sunday school. It was fun and an excellent opportunity to talk about some tuff topics (for those who don't know, "tuff" is actually more difficult than "tough" with a little bit of fun mixed in).

I didn't pick the Sunday and thus, I didn't pick the topic, but it was very fortuitous. We studied James 4:1-12, which is James' scolding of Jewish Christians for their fighting and quarrelling. Now, for those of you who know me, you know that I'm rarely one who backs down from a good skirmish - I've been in my fair share of conflicts and I've worked hard to resolve many of them.

Have you ever seen a good church fight? If you've ever played church league softball, you probably have, either between the Methodists and the Baptists or you may have seen your own team implode. When we think about church fights, we immediately think about the time that old man Jones started a screaming match with Council Chair Sally. We don't so much think about the other conflicts that take place behind the scenes. What about when we don't get along, start gossip, and create alliances. Survivor doesn't just take place on TV, Christians have mastered this technique of getting our way and voting others off the island. Then there's my favorite, the passive-agressive technique: the way we can praise someone publicly and to their face and then find secretive ways of unraveling that person's hard work or misquoting their gracious words. It's a great credibility killer and the hardest of conflicts to flush out into the light. As a pastor, this is by far my favorite kind of conflict - as a United Methodist, I know that these are the attacks that cause the most negative pastoral moves in the church.

All in all, we're just plain good at fighting. James scolds his readers for this attitude and asks, "Do you really think this is the attitude that God intended for you? Some conflict is healthy, but these approaches to "dealing" with conflict are not of God, they're of the world.

This is dangerous for those of us who profess to be Christian. Have you ever seen what happens when a person tries to stand in two boats? If you're lucky, you can make it last for a few seconds, but eventually we all know what will happen. The boats will drift and the daredevil will eventually get really wet.

Imagine faith as a boat. Christ has invited all of us to get into his boat, but sometimes we forget (or refuse) to take our other foot out of the world's boat. When it comes to conflict, we love God, but we don't love others. We stand with a foot in God's boat and a foot in the world's. James even wrote about how this affects our prayer life. God doesn't answer our prayers because we don't have the heart of God and we pray selfishly. See also 1 John 3:21-22. Pay close attention to the phrase, "if our hearts do not condemn us..."

So what's the answer? It's not just knowing the heart of God, but HAVING the heart of God. We have to repent, or turn away from our selfishness and the way we don't love each other. We have to decide to change our attitudes and our actions. And we have to humble ourselves to God. If we humble ourselves, God will take care of our needs, our wants, our reputation, our influence, and our future.

Here's a prime example for you: We all, in our churches, jobs, and homes, carry a certain level of authority and a certain level of influence. Think about the people in your church that possess a certain level of authority. Some will always cling to their authority like a life raft and that position and power has to be pried out of their cold dead hands (often literally). Others recognize that they won't always be there and they were never intended to be the permanent solution to the problem and they disciple others, they share their authority with others, and they plan for the future.

Now what happens to the influence of the person who unflinchingly clings to their power? It takes a big hit. People lose respect for these leaders and don't want to follow them. These leaders wind up in endless conflict with others.

What about those who share their authority with others and are responsible in their leadership, what happens to their influence? It grows. These men and women gain the respect of others and even when their term in leadership comes to an end, they still serve as admired leaders in their community.

Here's the point: we've got to stop trying to stand in both boats. If we are going to follow Christ, we have to make the decision to get in his boat completely - in attitude and action. When we learn to love first, we will still disagree with each other over some things and not everything will always be rosy, but at least we will come more often to resolution, especially resolution that doesn't hurt or take from somebody.