Coping with conflict Jesus' way

In yesterday's women's Bible study at our church, we discussed the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, taken from Matthew 18:15-20:

Jesus said to his disciples:
"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.
Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

As you might imagine, the discussion was rather lively. Several of us were able to describe times when the words or actions of another were hurtful, and our response - at least initially - was first hurt, then anger, then simmering resentment. A few described ways they dealt with this, and one person had painful feelings so close to the surface and so raw that she was unable to finish the meeting or participate in the discussion.

We've all been deeply wounded by others at some point in our lives. And I'm willing to bet that each of us has caused similar damage in the lives of others at some point as well.

I know I have.

The discussion went on from there to a discussion of the approach Jesus calls us to use in such a situation. First we are to go to the person one-on-one and discuss the problem; most of us had done so at least once. Then we are to take one or two others with us to the person involved  with the goal of establishing the facts of the matter. Some of us had talked with others, but we were able to acknowledge that at times, we don't seek the truth; rather, we seek validation for our own point of view. None of us told of a time that we'd actually taken one or two others to talk to the person who we believed to be in the wrong. And none of us had gone before the entire church, although some of us certainly shunned the person who'd hurt us.

And as we looked deeper into what we thought Jesus was truly asking us to do, we felt that he was really making a call to approach such conflict in a way that brings about reconciliation and unity within the Body of Christ, the Church. Our goal shouldn't be to prove ourselves right, but to seek the truth of the matter. If I look honestly at these painful times in my life, I have to acknowledge that there is NO instance of conflict in my life where I was totally innocent and blameless, either in contributing to the unfolding of the situation or in the way I responded to it. In other words, I'm every bit as human, as fallible, and as sinful as the other guy.

When it comes right down to it, part of what Jesus is calling for is that we need to seek ways to find reconciliation rather than validation for our own point of view. That doesn't mean that we ignore another's brokenness. Rather, we confront it honestly, without exaggeration, and with the goal of restoring all members of Christ's church - ourselves included - to living lives that demonstrate more and more that we were created in the image of God.