Following Jesus: "Tradition!"

May 14, 2016

My 2016 Ongoing Journey: Exploring Matthew to discover what following Jesus and becoming more like him would look like.

Matthew 15:1-20  ~ The infamous “Seven Last Words of the Church”. You know them. You may have uttered them: “We never did it that way before!” I can hear Reb Tevye, in “Fiddler on the Roof,” singing, “Tradition!”

The peril behind the words is not simply the clinging to tradition (although that can certainly cause problems). Some traditions are valuable. They give a sense of balance and stability, and unite people around common memories and hopes.

The intermediate peril is in closing the door and allowing no additional traditions to form. Our God identifies himself[1] as one who is “always making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). The greatest danger to excellence is satisfaction.

The ultimate peril comes when we value traditions more than human needs and relationships. We humans have a way of creating traditions so we don’t have to be faithful. We end up trusting in our traditions, rather than in God’s grace, for our justification. That’s called “idolatry,” and it is one of the two sins most frequently and severely condemned in both the Old and New Testaments, including the sayings of Jesus. [The other sin is the neglect of the poor.]

That’s what the Pharisees were doing in this text. Specifically, Jesus said, “You justify not helping the poor—even your parents—by saying, ‘I gave at the church’.” Perhaps that same indictment was behind Jesus’ statement, “The poor will always be with you” (John 12:8).

I love traditions, and my favorites are probably those that embrace the Christmas season. I tend to resist any new Christmas songs, preferring the old traditional ones. Had I been rigid in that tendency, I probably would never have discovered “Mary, Did you Know?”, “Breath of Heaven,” and who knows what other songs that once were “new,” but now are part of the traditions I love.

If I am to follow Jesus, I will do a thorough inventory of the traditions around which I have organized my life and my faith. Are any of them standing between me and God? Am I depending more on the way I “do” Christianity than upon the One who calls me to “do?”

That's the way it looks through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] I wish there were a personal pronoun that was neither gender specific nor neuter—one that would incorporate the quality of God that transcends gender and that identifies with and participates in all manifestations of humanity.