Wednesday, February 9, 2022

So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.” Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.” (Mark 7: 5 -8, New Living Translation)

                “Tradition is a wonderful guide but a terrible taskmaster.”

                I came across this adage a few days ago. It has stuck in my mind ever since. I was sure that some great teacher or philosopher or religious saint had said it or penned it. But my research found no exact rendition. The closest I came was W. Somerset Maugham’s “Tradition is a guide, not a jailor.”  Although I did also find some pithy sayings that allude to much the same thing. E.g. “Tradition is peer pressure from the dead.” A tad harsh, I think.

                Tradition is not necessarily or always a bad thing. As the first saying states, tradition can be a wonderful guide. It maintains and keeps the things that are worth treasuring. It shapes our current wisdom, customs, behaviours, thinking. “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” (G. Mahler) Tradition can be the tried and true. Traditions can keep chaos and disorder at bay. It tells the narrative of the past and how previous generations succeeded and prevailed. We need those stories to inspire us today.

                But when tradition becomes buried and mired in the past and becomes remote from relevance and usefulness, then it deserves criticism and reform. If tradition becomes rote or thoughtless practice, an excuse to ignore the world and its injustices around us, then tradition is of no heavenly value and no earthly good. When we forget the why behind what we are doing and simply engage in friendly routines, ruts and habits simply out of duty, convenience, or stubbornness, perhaps it has become time to re-evaluate our behaviour, practices and observations and stretch our imaginations a little.

                “The human soul can always use a new tradition. Sometimes we require them.” (Pat Conroy)

                I could not help but think of the encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees as I pondered about tradition being a wonderful guide but a terrible taskmaster.

We should remind ourselves that Jesus had affirmed the traditions of the scriptures: “Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures—either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working.”  (Matthew 5: 17 -28, The Message Bible)

                But this is not to say that Jesus was stuck in the old molds of faith. He brought a fresh interpretation, refreshed the relevance of these ancient words and brought new insights and had a lively engagement with the texts that brought the best out of the tradition.

                The Pharisees appear stuck in the rules and rigid interpretation of the rules. They judged, ostracized and condemned others if they did not follow these unyielding, traditional rules and rituals based on the rules (i.e. tradition), although, as Jesus points out, these traditions were mostly human-made and very little to do with God’s world of grace and mercy. Tradition had become a barrier to intimacy with God and his Kingdom.

                We may not think we are tradition-bound but I challenge us to reflect on how we judge others based on skin colour, sexuality, race, religion and see that old stereotypes still have a grip. Think about how automatically we jump to conclusions about situations and judge others based on our upbringing and cultural influences. Consider how comfortable we have become with the status quo rather than rethink our positions and assumptions. Have we become so rigid, so stuck, so unchangeable, so entrenched in the past that we fail to allow the Holy Spirit to knock us off our anchored moorings and point us in the direction of all that Jesus is and can be and wants us to be.

                “But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.” (Romans 7:6, NLT)

                Perhaps, it’s time to start a new tradition.

 

Dale