More To The Story

What is your favorite tradition? Is it something with your family? Does it revolve around a holiday? Do you have a custom that makes your week or weekend complete? Whatever it is I bet it is great! And, I imagine that it brings some sort of fulfillment—otherwise why would you do it? 

You may already know this but college football season is imminent. Every year even though I look forward to this fall tradition, it always seems to sneak up on me. The pageantry, pregame tailgating, and prognosticating by the experts adds something to my Saturday experience. And, even though I don’t live in the same town as the rest of my family I know what all of us are doing when our team is playing. So, what could possibly be wrong with all the great traditions surrounding something so fun as college football? Well, nothing necessarily. But, if we are not careful this coming Sunday we might hear Jesus telling us to get rid of traditions altogether.

On this surface this passage from Mark’s Gospel account seems clear cut and straightforward. Using Isaiah as his inspiration Jesus claims that the Pharisees—the religious of the religious—“Abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” If we were simply to read these words out of context we might think we aren’t to have traditions, customs, or any sort of regular practices; however, there is more to the story than flatly attesting ritual is bad!

As important as the word tradition is in what Jesus said there’s another word, or actually set of words, that is paramount. Jesus appears livid with the Pharisees for calling out his disciples who were eating with defiled hands (eww gross… also, this was a big no-no for faithful Jews of Jesus’ day). Jesus’ response to their claim that his followers weren’t paying attention to the elders’ customs was to contrast God’s commandments with human tradition. These two modifiers (God and human) make all the difference and leave me wondering about my own practices? Whose custom or law or tradition am I practicing? For whom am I doing this thing I claim is so very important? Why is this tradition worth holding up? Is it?

These questions implore me to dig even deeper into this story. And, what I discover here (at least initially) is a frustrating tension. Tradition is often good. It helps provide a framework and consistency. But, by itself it is like the wisdom koan, which tells of a man who after crossing a river in a boat decided to stay there on the shore to worship the vessel, instead of continuing his journey onward. The morale implied here is that tradition alone is useless. What matters is how our practices bring us into ever deeper relationship with God, Our Eternal Parent.

If we spend our lives worried about whether or not we are “doing it [a tradition] right” we will completely miss the point. We will be the man worshipping the boat, instead of worshipping and walking with Christ Jesus. This week as I approach this text I see that traditions can be healthy, but they can just as easily be dangerous. What matters more than our human practices is our relationship with the Divine. Do your traditions and practices develop your relationships with God and neighbor or do they distract from them?