Name the Elephant

if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. - Matthew 5:23-24

So many of us try to sweep any conflicts under the rug. Jesus invites us to look at the dirt. So many of us try to ignore the conflicts that are hurting our relationships, pretending they aren’t there. Jesus invites us to name the elephant in the room.

There are plenty of wise parameters for this sort of thing. When power is at play (e.g., your alcoholic mother yells at you when you’re 10 years old) you have to take that into account. And there are minor annoyances that we can put up with (“Bear with one another in love” - Ephesians 4:2). And there is virtue in ignoring the insult of a passerby (“Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult” - Proverbs 12:16).

But for so many of us, these are not the reasons we ignore conflicts. Instead, it’s because of the very real possibility that we (or the other person) will handle the conflict poorly, that having conflict will harm the relationship further, or because our pride pushes us not to admit our faults. Sometimes it’s because we simply don’t know how to have the conflict. These are all reasonable, and each can be an invitation to seek a mentor or a therapist or to enter a time of self-reflection and prayer.

Ultimately, Jesus invites us into conflict not to shame us, but to free us. Jesus knows that the ill-health in us around the conflict is the same ill-health we bring into our relationship with God - and Jesus wants to see that healed.

Invite the Spirit to surface any conflict that you are hiding from and the reasons you are doing so. Talk with Jesus about the reasons you hesitate to name conflicts today, and ask him for the grace to move forward in a way that his healthy and leads to truth and wholeness.