June 22, 5pm – meet at the Wesley Cottage
Bring your favorite baked potato toppings and we will supply the baked
potatoes. This Sunday, Portugal plays the United States and we will have the opportunity
to watch the match and have some sport and discussion of our own.
We will be discussing conflict that grows out of fear and how
we are to form a proper response to such conflict.
How often do we feel scared? Perhaps more than we would like
to admit. It’s an uneasy feeling that makes one uncomfortable and has many
negative consequences. It can be the underlying source of many ‘bad attitudes’.
For instance, is it not a foundational biblical teaching to trust in God and
not worry about things beyond one’s control? Yet, the incredible amount of mass
marketing in our society seems to be driven by a not so thinly veiled appeal to
fear and anxiety about such things as personal security, finances, and happiness.
Perhaps this is so, but what does this have to do with conflict? In terms of
international relations, I just heard news suggesting that the recent conflicts
in Iraq may motivate US intervention in part, at least, because fear that these
events could lead to a safety threat to the US. It is not so hard to see the
connection between fear and conflict in the sense of international actors.
However, how do we understand conflict in our own lives?
In Mark 9:30-37, the disciples are confused about what Jesus
means when he says that “the Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men,
and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise”
(9:31). They seem to have a conflict after this, as they tried to decide “who
was the greatest” (9:34). Are the disciples concerned about who will become a
leader after Jesus, their teacher, dies? Are they afraid that they don’t have
the authority to teach and no one feels like the greatest? Whatever, their
anxieties are that lead to this conflict, Jesus supplies the leadership formula
that he lives by: “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and
servant of all” (9:35).
Philippians further defines this self-emptying leadership
ethic. In chapter two, Paul describes Christ’s self-emptying to both comfort
and call to account those he writes to. For the greatest to become the least
and the least the greatest, involves a specific type of attitude. It is a
self-sacrificial attitude.
Conflict that arises out of fear can lead to an attempt to
become the greatest because of a feeling of insecurity about one's individual
identity. However, a self-sacrificial response to conflict is not based in fear
but strong conviction and courage. It takes courage for those who are greatest
to become the least. By practicing this
leadership ethic, we can share in the same attitude of Christ and experience an
identity far greater than our individual fears would allow. Our gifts, whatever they may be, can overflow as gifts for others.
