A father left his three sons seventeen camels: half to the eldest, a third to the middle one, a ninth to the youngest. Seventeen divides in none of those ways, so the brothers quarrelled until they went to a wise man for advice, and he threw in a camel of his own. Eighteen divided neatly into nine, six and two, and the eighteenth went back to its owner. That riddle opens a sermon about conflicts where there is no extra camel (Matthew 18). Jesus offers a way that is almost painfully ordinary: go and talk to the person face to face, instead of telling everyone else about it. Listen if a conversation has been waiting for you for a long time and you still cannot begin it.
Camel Problems
How to Live Together
Conflicts are an unwanted but often unavoidable part of life. Whether we like it or not, they simply erupt and turn our world upside down. That’s when we ask ourselves, “How can we live together without killing each other?” However, conflicts aren’t just about not killing each other; above all, they’re about navigating them wisely and learning something from them.
View the whole series
9 sermons
