Sermon for 31 August/15th after Pentecost
Lessons
Key Verses
Deuteronomy 4:1 “… give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe …”Deuteronomy 4:2 “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.”
James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”
James 1:25 “But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.”
Mark 7:8 “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
Mark 7:21 “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come:”
Mark 7:23 “All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Isaiah 29:13 “The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote;”
Message
“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”[1]
Let us pray. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and redeemer.”[2] Amen.
As I begin, I wish to take you to a far off place, perhaps not scriptural, but indeed something that I am sure you may remember well (at least if you are an aficionado of modern theater and movies):
https://youtu.be/6nwj8nAYEM4?si=4fBuH4X6MGQfxE7z&t=4 [end at time-stop 1:50]
So, after hearing the first lesson, the psalm, the second lesson, and the gospel from scripture, you now have heard the gospel according to Tevya. [chuckle] To be clear, I am not a subscriber to Tevya’s gospel, but he gets at something very much at the core of the lessons we have today in this very famous monologue and opening song from the Fiddler on the Roof. Tradition!
What are traditions? Are they good? Are they bad? And, what is Christ saying about them? We often refer to things like “the Lutheran tradition” in speaking about how we see scripture or understand our faith. But, what do we mean by all that?
Whenever I encounter the need to define things clearly in our common language, I typically pick up a dictionary. For convenience, I borrowed from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, this is how they render the definition:
“Tradition (noun)
1) .
a. : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (such as a religious practice or a social custom)
b. : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
“… the bulk of traditions attributed to the Prophet …
—J. L. Esposito”
2) : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3) : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4) : characteristic manner, method, or style
“in the best liberal tradition”[3]
You can clearly get the sense that tradition is, first and foremost, something that is of the past we hold on to today. And let me tell you, despite much of society continuing to secularize and supposedly “throwing off” tradition, traditions abound in our lives. One such example is the ritual of “trick or treating” on Halloween. We have long abandoned its original religious significance in American society, but we have firmly embraced its long-standing rhythms and requirements. We buy candy, man our doors, bring our kids out in the often freezing cold with pillowcases all dressed up in costumes. For certain, do not be the one that forgets, leaving your outer light on at your house, and have no treats for young visitors. And don’t get me going on bobbing for apples, caramel apples, and all of the candy corn from here until eternity; well almost that far. And this is merely one holiday. Think on it, we have traditions for everyday life too, just like Tevya. Who here doesn’t have their appointed morning beverage and routines? How much of those are inherited from childhood or common cultural norms? More than we like to admit, I’d say.
My point here is that traditions are alive and well, and we cannot avoid them. We are hard wired to live by traditions, lots of traditions. Some of these are encoded into laws and governing structures, but so many others are not. We just take them for granted. Akin to Tevya, we can’t tell you where half of them came from, but we hold to them like no tomorrow. Why? Tradition!
Our lessons today are all about this too. In the Old Testament lesson, God makes clear he has a list of traditions that he expects us to “give heed to” and has “ordinances” that he is teaching us to “observe”.[4] In other words God, in this lesson, is establishing his tradition for all humankind. But this tradition is not one that we fall into. No, it is one we must be taught. The tradition is comprised of “commandments”[5] that we much “diligently observe”[6] from generation to generation[7] not for their own sake, but as a sign for all of humankind to follow in “wisdom and discernment.”[8] In other words, it is through who they embody, how the faithful act, that matters in this tradition, a tradition of faith lived out for all to see.
This is picked up in the lesson from James where he makes clear that we are to “… be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”[9] James goes on to stipulate that “… those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.”[10] James is very much echoing what the Deuteronomist was speaking to. That, we as people of God have not only a history and a culture, but more importantly a living tradition that helps us live in the best way possible, in accordance with God’s wishes for us and all of creation.
But here is the thing that always gets us in trouble, even for poor Tevya, tradition for tradition’s sake. Or worse yet, tradition as an excuse to not tend to the Word of God. This is precisely where Jesus steps in to speak to us, both in his time and always. In the gospel lesson, Jesus is confronting this problem head on. He is making clear that the religious authorities of his day, the ones that were often the ones so close to understanding the ultimate realities, were still missing the point. He states to them that they have abandoned “… the commandment of God” and, instead, have held “… to human tradition.”[11] What they fell into, and we constantly fall into, is the trap of making our priorities, our traditions, our habits, our routines, into what is sacrosanct, instead of the things that God commands. What is too often forgotten is that in addition to God establishing his tradition through the Deuteronomist, he also stipulated that we “… must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.”[12] What Christ was encountering was the baggage, not unique to his time, but pervasive throughout all time and all cultures of added, or modified, or scrambled, or even omitted parts of His truth made into human traditions. And the core problem is that the origin of human traditions comes out of our brokenness, even as we do our best to the images of God in the world.
Jesus knows this, and that is why he is pushing back against the self-righteousness of human tradition. He reiterates that he has seen this before, by quoting Isaiah, understanding that we as believers, are those people who “draw near with their mouths and honor [God] with their lips, while their hearts are far from [the Lord], and their worship of [God] is a human commandment learned by rote …”[13] God doesn’t want us to be mindless drones, he doesn’t need us to say nice things to him and then not embody his commandments in our very being. No, he wants us to love him with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our souls[14] evidencing this through loving one another as much as we love ourselves.[15] And, we need him to help us with this, because, as Christ states, “[f]or it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.”[16] We succumb over and over again to this problem of being convinced that if we follow the ways of the world, of human traditions, that we will be saved and sanctified.
But, the truth is that is far from how it works. We have seen throughout history how the path of good intentions, from a human understanding, is actually being paved as a road to hell. This was precisely what Martin Luther was noting about the church in his day. It had made human tradition above the living Word of God, and it had gone so far, so bad, that it required immediate prophetic teaching to ensure that God’s commandments were observed, not just as lip service, but in the very being of the church itself. What the church, then and now, and certainly in the future, falls into, is worrying about what is coming in more than what is going out. Jesus offers a litany of things that are “… evil things” that “come from within.”[17] When we look inward, when we think we have it figured out, God reminds us that it is that focus that “defile a person.”[18] But, when we turn out, when we give, when we show in ourselves and our action and in our doings, when we are focused on God and his commandments, we are made free.[19] God’s traditions, his ordinances, his commandments are Good News, and we can be reflections of it in our lives every day. We just need to be willing students of God’s teachings, learners of his traditions.
For those that have seen the movie or play, you know that Tevya in the Fiddler on the Roof, has many struggles, much pain, and contends with outright evil, brought on through, and often from, human traditions. What redeems him? What helps him come to terms with the fact that what he saw as sacrosanct, was actually fleeting? Answer: Faith. Faith in God and his way in his life and that of everyone around him. What he had to learn was to give up and give in to what God wants us all to have: HIS TRADITION!
Amen.
[1] 2 Corinthians 1:2
[2] Psalm 19:14
[3] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition, accessed on 31 August 2024
[4] Cf. Deuteronomy 4:1
[5] Cf. Deuteronomy 4:2
[6] Cf. Deuteronomy 4:6
[7] Cf. Deuteronomy 4:9
[8] Cf. Deuteronomy 4:6-7
[9] James 1:22
[10] James 1:25
[11] Cf. Mark 7:8
[12] Deuteronomy 4:2
[13] Cf. Isaiah 29:13
[14] Deuteronomy 10:12, Matthew 22:37
[15] Cf. Matthew 22:39
[16] Cf. Mark 7:21
[17] Cf. Mark 7:23
[18] Cf. Mark 7:23
[19] Cf. John 8:32
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