“Snitches get stitches.” So goes the worldly wisdom on fraternal correction.
Thankfully, Jesus provides a little more guidance about how we ought to manage conflict as Christians.
In Matthew 18, Jesus gives some strikingly practical advice, saying, “‘If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.’”
In any season, this set of steps for conflict management laid out by Jesus might sound like the kind of advice an RA might give to her first-year resident: ‘if X is bothering you, go ahead and talk to the roommate one on one first. Then, if she doesn’t listen, maybe involve the other roommates and have a meeting. Then, if she still doesn’t listen, let me know.” Even now, I struggle to immediately and gracefully bring up concerns with my peers, often resorting instead to stewing for days and to gossiping with my friends or family. Jesus’ advice is nothing supernatural here, but for most of us, even his practical guidance on how to address grievances is hard.
Believers and non-believers alike can agree not only that Jesus’ advice is challenging, but also that it is the most reliable set of steps to addressing conflict successfully. If you are like myself and choose to just stew over your irritation for days until you snap at the person, then you can probably see why Jesus’ alternative might be worth a try. If you are also like my younger self and tend to air your grievances in the absence of the offender and in the presence of others, and maybe you have experienced the unpleasant occasion where the offender hears from a friend that you were complaining to everyone about his behavior, then you might also understand why Jesus’ advice might provide a better way to address conflict.
Efficacy aside, the path set out by Christ is a path that affords due respect to the dignity of all people involved. The one-on-one conversation is a way of granting the offending person a chance to disclose feelings or any personal details in private; on the side of the offended, it’s a chance to acknowledge the fact that there might be factors involved of which he was not aware and even to reassess or retract his complaint in light of the offender’s personal situation, not in the public eye but in private. To be rendered humble in the public forum is to be humiliated, but the Christian, acknowledging the dignity of every person, seeks not to humiliate but to protect the dignity of even his persecutor by first meeting one-on-one, and becoming open to humility himself in the process of fraternal correction.
Jesus’ practical wisdom comes as part of a lesson about mercy, and is found sandwiched between the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the unforgiving servant, in which he commands his followers to forgive each other “not seven times but seventy-seven times.” If the first part was hard, this second part seems impossible. As Christians, we are called not to stop at “conflict management,” but to go further to forgiveness.
What does this look like in this season of coronavirus rules levied by state and school? Can we imagine Jesus gossiping about anti-maskers or pressuring peers to do the right thing by publicly shaming them on social media? Not so much. It looks more like, well, probably exactly what He advised us to do: talk to the person one-on-one first. I imagine too that Jesus’ example of mercy might also extend, yes, even to anti-maskers, and that he would forgive not seven, but seventy-seven times. Jesus calls us out of shame and anger and fear, into honesty and love and joy.
Is it true that snitches get stitches? Maybe, maybe not. But we’re called to do better than “snitching.” Is public shaming the most effective way to keep people safe? Maybe, maybe not. But we’re called to reverence the dignity in every person, to do better than “calling people out.”
Let’s be courageous and not cowardly. Let’s take Jesus’ advice on conflict management and follow His example of mercy.
The featured image is courtesy of flickr.
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