Dealing With Difficult People
Mark 10: 35-45
October 22, 2000
The other day I ran across a theory by some physicists. It’s called “the butterfly effect.” When I ran across it, I said to myself, “That will preach.”
Basically, this theory contends that everything in the universe is related, and what matters is the relationship between things. It’s called the butterfly effect because it postulates that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo today, the event will affect the weather in New York two weeks
Now we can blame the Japanese, or at least their butterflies, for our weather.
Seriously, the theory is valid if we don’t push it too far. It’s true we are all related and what affects one person has its effect on all of us; or as John Donne so well put it, “Do not send for whom the bell tolls, know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Therefore, I want us to focus on relationships. And to be even more specific, I want to start off by asking you, “What do you do with bad relationships?”
I’ve often been accused of stopping preaching and starting to meddle.
In other words, I tend to get too personal. So, if the shoe fits, I might as well go all the way by getting very personal, and ask you to bring to mind a relationship that you have had recently that’s been difficult. Think about that relationship for a moment and try to recall what you have done about it
The relationship doesn’t have to be an absolute disaster, just a relationship that may be strained or temporarily broken. It might be at work, or at home, or with a neighbor. Whatever, or whomever, I want you to have someone specific in mind. And then I want to attempt to pull some learnings from the Gospel lesson to your situation.
One of the things I’m constantly reminded of, as I read Scripture, is that human nature hasn’t changed much in the last 2000 years. The disciples who had been living together, listening closely to the teachings of Jesus, sharing his life and vision for several years, still had relationship problems.
We tend to romanticize the early disciples. We think that because they were intimate with Jesus, they couldn’t have been petty, jealous, back-biting, and temperamental. We imagine that they weren’t like us. It’s always a surprise to find that they, too, were involved in difficult relationships.
In the Gospel we just read, James and John are angling for positions. No matter how much you may want to gloss over the incident, it’s still a naked power play. James and John wanted to be number one. They wanted the corner office with the window and their names on the masthead. And so they sidled up to Jesus and asked for a favor. “When you get into your kingdom, remember the two of us. Promote us to sit one at your right hand and the other on your left.”
Well, guess what the other disciples’ reactions were to this power play? The Gospel writer tries to encapsulate the incident. He simply notes that they, the other disciples, were “indignant.” I believe this is a polite way of saying they were enraged, mad, disgusted, infuriated, you name it. They had a major relationship problem.
I don’t know about you, but when someone does something sneaky, underhanded, when someone violates my sense of right and wrong, I too become indignant. I then don’t want to have anything to do with them.
On most office desks, there is a pair of baskets labeled “In” and “Out”. , things I want to avoid and one for things I want to embrace. Well, what a true of the way we handle the chaos in desks, might also be the way we handle relationships. There are those people we put in a basket named, Avoid. And there are those we put in the Embrace basket. Sometimes in my life, the avoiding basket gets filled to the brim and the embracing seems pretty slim, and then I know I’m ready for a vacation.
But back to the disciples. I think it’s fair to speculate that when they heard the request, they quickly relegated James and John to the avoiding basket. My guess is that the disciples were not only indignant, but they were ready to write these two off as part of the community.
But not so Jesus. It’s interesting to note that Jesus continues the dialogue. Instead of labeling them as troublemakers he share the consequences of their request. He then helps James and John to find a new vision, and in a sense, re-invent themselves.
There is often a world of difference between our response to someone who offends us, and what Jesus does. We usually label a person, in the avoidance basket and maybe figure a way to strike back. We cut off dialogue and say, “He’s a jerk,” or some other less complimentary name. After all, who wants to deal with a power operator? The very label begins the process of separation.
But Jesus does the opposite. He attempts to enable James and John to re-envision themselves. “See yourselves as servants, not masters, as healers, not conquerors.
One of the most basic lessons found in the gospels is: For Jesus, religion is about putting things back together, restoring relationships. Religion, coming from the Latin, religio, is about bringing back together things that are separated.
Eugene O’Neill, in The Great God Brown, has one of his characters put it this way, “Life is imperfect. We all have our faults. But with a few drops of glue, much may be done. Even broken relationships may be repaired. (He puts his angels to his lips.) Ssh! This is daddy’s bedtime secret for today. We are born broken. We live by mending. The grace of God is glue, which brings about restoration.”
The key stories of our faith are stories about restoring the broken, reuniting the lost, and reestablishing the fallen. The key words of our faith always seem to begin with “re” – redemption, repentance, and reconciliation. The goal of the followers of Jesus is to mend relationships. The way to do that (the glue that makes that possible), is by maintaining a dialogue.
For those of you who know me well, you know I have preached against the grain. My temptation when people offend me is to be indignant, to cut them off at the knees, to avoid the nabobs and nincompoops of the world. Yet, if the butterfly effect is true, and life is about relationships, I know deep down I must maintain the dialogue, and pray that God’s glue will keep us together.
In the Christian religion, reconciliation is the goal. It’s hard to remember this, but so important to do.
Amen