Tradition

Posted on Jun 13, 2020 in Uncategorized |

The “The Tradition of the Elders” title of these verses caught my eye.
 
Tradition.
 

Several years ago, we were in New York for vacation, visiting the camp (Koinonia) Lisa and I worked at before we headed to seminary. One night while we were there in the foothills of the Catskills, we went to a local summer stock theater to see the wonderful musical, Fiddler on the Roof.

The musical begins with Tevya, the local milkman, who welcomes us to his town. Tevya says “A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy. But here in our little village, you might say that every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it is so dangerous. We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word. TRADITION!”
 

Tradition. We have them. We follow them. You don’t think so?

Ever been to an Ohio State football game? When to stand, when to sit, when to say “I-O” is all a part of tradition. A baseball game and the seventh inning stretch – it’s a part of tradition.

We have traditions around holidays. Christmas wouldn’t be the same in the Woodward household without sausage souffle for breakfast.
 

In Jesus’ day, there were traditions. Those mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, deal with traditions based on the law. From the Ten Commandments, the leaders of the law expanded that to 613! 613 laws!

Jesus turned things upside down. Yet, Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Jesus comes to us to bring us back into a right relationship with God, to remind us and re-center us on God. A right relationship with God is not simply about keeping the law.

That is where we run into trouble. We focus on self and what we need to do to be right with God, as if we are in charge.

Our relationship with God is not an IF-THEN relationship – IF you follow the law, THEN God will love you.

Instead, our relationship with God is a BECAUSE-THEREFORE relationship. BECAUSE God loves you, THEREFORE we respond by loving and worshiping God and loving and serving others.

That is what we are called to do. There is no tradition that can save us.

And if we DO fall off that roof, then our gracious and merciful God will pick us up, dust us off, and let us try again.

 

Let us pray: 

Help us, Lord, to trust in you alone. May all that we do be in response to what you have first done for us in Jesus Christ. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Mark 7:1-13 

 

The Tradition of the Elders

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

 

‘This people honors me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me;

7 in vain do they worship me,

    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

 

8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

9 Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God)— 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
 

Rdikeman at the English language Wikipedia

 

Leave a Reply

^