Created To Lead: Relationships of Impact - 2

THE IMAGO DEI AND HUMAN FULFILLMENT - Part Three

Jun 09, 2024

Resolving Institutional Conflict

This story is about the conflict that exists in the church in Corinth. We know of this conflict through the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthian church. Paul writes,

“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

We all know that when there is conflict in a group, whether it is in a family or an organization, it is very difficult to resolve the problem. The conflict tends to be personal. Whatever is in the best interest of the whole group is swept away in the conflict. The Corinthian church had a mimetic conflict, pitting follower groups against one another. Paul describes this conflict.

“For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul, “ or “I belong to Apollos, “ or “I belong to Cephas, “ or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided?

This letter goes into a long description of the problems that plague the church. At one point, Paul writes,

“I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. … For this reason I sent you Timothy … to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus … But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant …”

The situation that Paul describes is the sort that gets hidden in the power games of organizations, where groups become sequestered in their own circle of influence. The paradigmatic idea is that living in unity is representative of the imago Christi or living according to how Jesus lived. How we live together represents what we believe our common life together means. Paul uses the body metaphor to communicate how to transcend differences to breed conflict so that the body of the church can be unified.

Listen as I read portions from 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul uses a body metaphor to communicate what a healthy church is like.

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This passage echos the past of the individualistic mindset that we see today. What Paul is telling the people of Corinth is revolutionary. He is not like a father complaining to his children to get along. He is saying something much more significant. Continue to hear the story from 1 Corinthians 12.

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The real contrast in the Corinthian church is between those who seek power and influence and those who, as Paul describes, are weaker, less honorable, and less respectable. He writes,

“… the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect …”

This is far more counter-cultural that any movement for justice or innovation could ever be. In many situations, righteous anger drives the appeal to address the situation of people who are weaker, less honorable, or less respectful. As we see in our current political climate, those programs are just as divisive as the circumstances that created the need for movements of justice. Paul is not suggesting that we patronize those who are weaker, less honorable, or less respectful. He is saying something radically different.

The Pauline perspective is that leadership within the body, whether in a church or any other kind of organization, must find ways for those who are viewed as nonessential or peripheral to the group to be provided a way to serve. Paul is clearly saying that these people are central to the mission of the group. Not as objectives of service, but as the servants who advance the mission of the group. This is the image that we now have of the women of Samaria.

This reorientation of social relationships is at the center of what it means to live imago Christi or according to the life of Christ. Just as Jesus treated the Samaritan woman with dignity, believing in her capacity to change the life of her community, so it is true for each of us. Her village’s response to the story of the woman who encountered Jesus is testimony to this change in her life.

I am certain that many of you are wondering where do we find churches like Paul describes. Living for the past four decades between the world of the church and the secular world of organizational leadership, I have asked the question myself. I also ask “Where are the businesses like this?” Modern culture tells us that our motivation should be set on achieving personal fulfillment and wealth. Are people just stepping stones to my own advancement? Also, are each of us viewed as weaker, less honorable, or less respectful by someone so that they might exploit us for their personal fulfillment? Is this the source of the conflict that exists in the social and organizational structures of our world?

While churches should be different, we see in the Corinthian church that they are no different from any other institution. What was true 2000 years ago remains true today. People and institutions exploit those who are weaker, less honorable, and less respectable. The difference between those eras is that we are far more sophisticated in our exploitation.

For Paul, we must recognize that our relationships as the metaphor of a body are about how people treat one another within the church or within the workplace speaks to the character of the people and its leadership. How, then, do we change this scenario?

In 1 Corinthians, Paul follows chapter 12 with what has come to be known as the Love Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. This widely-known passage appears most often in wedding ceremonies. It is treated sentimentally instead of how Paul intended as a specific way of being a body of faithful believers. As I read, this chapter, consider the people that you view as weaker, less honorable, and less respectable. This is how we are to treat them.

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The paradigm of humanity that I am describing is not a religious ritual performance—I’m sure it could be turned into that. Instead, these principles are ways to understand who we are as persons in community. The practicality here has a transcendent character to it. We understand imago Christi through the Gospels’ stories as how Jesus’ interacted with people and the representatives of the institutions of his day.