Old Ivan and St Benedict

Trapped on a train

In an episode of the tv series Snowpiercer (a dystopic future thriller where there earth is a global frozen wasteland and humanity's survivors live on a perpetually moving, but slowly disintegrating, train) two characters with unresolvable differences opt to sort it out via Old Ivan's Way. Held inviolable by the community, the custom is for the two parties to be locked in together until they sort it out, however long that takes. The only other option is that both parties call for knives.

There's something deeply appealing to me about Old Ivan's Way. I, by disposition, am a conflict avoider. I don't enjoy or like conflict, I will run a long way to avoid perceived conflict. And yet conflict is part of human relationships precisely because we do not always get along, we do not see eye to eye. Sometimes those conflicts are substantive - we differ on matters of principle, ethical positions, the course of our institutions. Other times they are ephemeral, driven by our whims, our preferences, the slight inflection of our individual moods at one instant of time. We take offense at great things and at miniscule things, I don't like your view of capital punishment or I don't like the slight nasalisation in your voice.

What Old Ivan's Way gets at is that some differences must be settled, and running from them won't do. This is all too obvious when you're trapped on a train and there's no life outside the train. It's the same insight that underscores one aspect of monastic life, which Benedict put into place as the vow of stability. The presumption that a monastic commits to living in one community, in one place, with one set of people, binds them into a relationship with that community in which conflict cannot be run away from. The brothers, or sisters, with whom one is bound to live out one's life, aren't going away either.

Old Ivan's Way offers us an out - if our conflict is so serious that it must be solved, then it will be solved or someone will die. Benedict offers us no such out, though it rests on a similar principle. Our conflict must be resolved. Either we will break our conflict, or our conflict will break us.

Photo by Olivier Chatel on Unsplash

It is the teachings of Christ that offer us that way out which Old Ivan cannot provide. And it's the stability of our communities that make that possible. In Christ we find that we have a way of dealing with conflict. Christ's forgiveness of us makes the forgiveness of others possible. I am sure that, in the context of other belief systems, it is possible to forgive, but within the framework of Christianity, it is precisely and only because I am forgiven in Christ by his death and my death in his, that as a forgiven sinner I may extend that grace to others.

Secondly, and more confrontingly, Christ's forgiveness of us makes the forgiveness of others necessary. The Scriptures push us to this second difficult truth repeatedly. Our Lord taught us to pray, "Forgive us our sins as we [have] forgiven those who sinned against us." (Mt 6:12) after which Jesus confrontingly follows up with “For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 6:15 But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins" (NET). How are we to understand this confronting relationship between God's forgiveness of us, and ours of others? Certainly it is not that God's forgiveness is dependent upon ours, in fact it precedes even our repentance. Rather, if we live a life of unforgiveness, we demonstrate in our own actions our failure to receive properly the forgiveness shown to us. This is the point of Jesus' parable in Matthew 18:32, when the slave, forgiven by his lord, refuses to extend forgiveness to another.

And yet we do not live on a train, and most of us do not live in monastic communities. Which means running from our disagreements is all the more possible. In fact, I would say, there are times when it is in fact right and necessary to leave. There are differences that cannot be overcome in this life, whether they are mutual or one-sided. There are situations where wrong-doers hold power and cannot be brought to repentance, where ongoing harm and damage is in view, where leaving is the best possible outcome in a fallen world.

Our presumption, our default position, should not be to leave though. Our default ought to be to stay, to stay as long as possible, and to resolve our difficulties and conflicts as graciously as we can, enabled by the grace of the gracious one.