This issue is explained on the Runtime dependencies page of the Commons Configuration website.

Quoting from that page:

A lot of dependencies are declared in the Maven POM. These are all needed during compile time. On runtime however you only need to add the dependencies to your classpath that are required by the parts of the Commons Configuration package you are using. The following table helps you to determine which dependencies you have to include based on the components you intend to use.

The other answers explain why this works from a Maven perspective. This answer is intended to provide a defence, of sorts, to the Commons Configuration folks. They did at least warn you!

In cases where the dependencies are on other Apache Commons components, they've taken the time to test with a variety of versions and have posted information on compatibility at the bottom of that page.

Current workaround solution:

1. Download Apache Commons Configuration 2.0 and got the commons-configuration2-2.0-beta2.jar
2. Add the commons-configuration2-2.0-beta2.jar to external library

3. Add the needed dependency in maven.

   <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
       <version>3.3.2</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
       <version>1.1.3</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>commons-beanutils</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-beanutils</artifactId>
       <version>1.9.2</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
       <version>1.9</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>commons-jxpath</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-jxpath</artifactId>
       <version>1.3</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-jexl</artifactId>
       <version>2.1.1</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
       <artifactId>commons-vfs2</artifactId>
       <version>2.0</version>
   </dependency>
   
   <dependency>
       <groupId>xml-resolver</groupId>
       <artifactId>xml-resolver</artifactId>
       <version>1.2</version>
   </dependency>