- Sermon - Mickey Anders

"Tradition!"
By Dr. Mickey Anders
South Elkhorn Christian Church
Lexington, Kentucky
August 30, 2009

Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

One of my favorite Dr. Seuss books is entitled The Butter Battle Book. Published in 1984, it is really a satire about the arms race. But the book begins with these words:

"On the last day of summer, ten hours before fall... my grandfather took me out to the Wall. For a while he stood silent. Then finally he said, with a very bad shake of his very old head, "As you know, on this side of the Wall we are Yooks. On the far other side of this Wall live the Zooks." Then my grandfather said, "It's high time that you knew of the terribly horrible thing that Zooks do. In every Zook house and in every Zook town every Zook eats his bread with the butter side down!" "But we Yooks, as you know, when we breakfast or sup, spread our bread," Granpa said,, "with the butter side up. That's the right, honest way!" Grandpa gritted his teeth. "So you can't trust a Zook who spreads bread underneath!"

I love the beginning of this book because it is a wonderful satire of the way people fight and hate one another over the smallest of traditions. The Yooks were sure that bread with the butter side down was the only way. The Zooks were equally sure that bread with the butter side up was the only way. It was all a matter of which tradition they grew up with.

When we talk of tradition, most of us who have seen the movie “Fiddler On The Roof” cannot help but remember the wonderful scene in which Tevya sings the theme song, “Tradition.” As he sings that song, he explains to the audience the value of tradition as he sees it. At one point he says, “Our tradition tells us who God is and who we are.” When tradition can do that, it is a good tradition. You see, tradition is meant to speak of the reality behind the tradition.

In our text for today, Jesus speaks about the kind of tradition that fails that test. He points out that there is a kind of tradition that is wrong, that gets in the way of spiritual realities rather than pointing to them.

Verse 2 says, The Phrarisees and scribes "noticed that some of (Jesus') disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them." Here we find that the Pharisees and scribes were upset with some of Jesus’ disciples because they were not properly observing the traditions of the elders at mealtime. The Pharisees had noticed that the disciples were not performing the ceremonial washings of their hands before they ate.

Now this action had nothing to do with hygiene. Obviously, eating with clean hands is a positive value even if they did not understand all the scientific realities of germs and viruses. Jesus isn't rejecting sanitation.

Before the Pharisees would eat, they poured exactly 1 1/2 egg-shells of water over their hands with the fingers pointed upward. Then they poured exactly 1 1/2 egg-shells of water again over their hands from the wrists; this time holding their fingers downward. It was thought that in this fashion, they would purify their hands from any ceremonial uncleanness. To do this was to please God, to fail to do it was to sin.

Remember, this was merely a ceremonial washing, and it had become a very important tradition. It was not a lot different than the Yoots and Zoots who buttered their bread on the top or the bottom. It was just the tradition.

Today, hand-washing is a very important health matter. We know it is the best way to prevent illness and especially this year with the H1N1 flu virus. In fact, we are planning to install a hand sanitizer pump at the entrance to our worship space. All of us must be vigilant in washing our hands to prevent the spread of this terrible disease.

Little boys who know their Bible well love to point out to their mothers that Jesus defended his disciples who did not wash their hands. In fact, Jesus was not defending dirty hands at mealtime. Rather, Jesus was condemning traditions that became more important than the things they represented. In verse 8, he says, “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the traditions of men.”

In Matthew 23:25-26, Jesus says, “Woe to you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”

Jesus saw through their dead tradition. He saw that they were more concerned with outward things than they were with the things that really count. Jesus cut through the superficiality of their outward observances to stress that the inside was more important than the outside. Jesus was more concerned with their heart condition than their hand condition. Someone said that “the heart of Christianity is the heart.”

If you think the Yoots and Zoots are silly in their differences, if you think the Pharisees were silly about their 1 1/2 egg-shells of water, then you need to look around. I guess we are all creatures of habit. We easily become accustomed to doing things the same way.

This is especially so in church. We quickly learn to count on a certain predictability of the activities of Sunday School and worship, and we are very hesitant to see them change. If we are not careful, some of these expectations become full-fledged traditions. They take on a significance far greater than simply being a convenient routine. Some things become almost holy and unchangeable. When that happens they have moved from being a routine to become a sacred cow. Then, when someone tampers with a sacred cow, people become very upset. Every church has such traditions that have become sacred cows.

In one church I served, the color of the carpet had become the sacred cow. We had always had red carpet, but now the property committee was going to change it to blue. Some people just weren’t sure they could worship God on a BLUE CARPET, God forbid.

At another church, we had the Great Hymnbook Controversy of 1975. For twenty years, the 1956 version of the hymnal had been used and cherished in that church, but now the music committee wanted to purchase the newly updated 1975 version. This decision sparked a major debate on the quality of music in each hymnal. The final decision was made at a two-hour church-wide business meeting where we finally hammered out a compromise that barely averted dividing the church. The 1956 hymnal would be kept in the sanctuary, and the 1975 hymnal would be used in the chapel.

In another church I served, the great debate erupted over whether the Communion would be served before the sermon or after the sermon. When the Worship Team recommended a change to the tradition, a few people exploded with anger. Finally, a congregational meeting was held and a secret ballot vote taken. The Worship Team's decision to change the order was upheld.

You would think the matter was settled with the vote, but you would be wrong. A few women were still so upset about the order of worship that they threatened to leave the church. And some did. That's when the Worship Team caved in. They said, "We don't want anyone to leave the church over such a silly little thing. We'll change it back." And in so doing they created a monster. Forever after, a handful of women knew they could control every decision of the church by simply threatening to leave if they did not get their way!

It seems that every church manages to elevate certain practices from the routine to sacred traditions. Church growth specialist Bill Easum once wrote about book about this phenomenon. He called it “Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers.” He says that churches that grow have to find a way to eat those sacred cows.

Jesus tells us that God is more concerned with who we are on the inside than the outward ceremonies we observe. You can wash your hands a thousand times and still have sin in your heart. You can sing every song in the 1956 hymnal and still not know God. You can worship on red carpet all your life and never really experience holy ground. You can take crust and the cup before the sermon every time and still never commune with God. It's not the outward form of the tradition that matters; it's what lies in our hearts that counts.

Jesus once said that it was impossible to put new wine into old wineskins. You see, the old wineskins are already stretched and brittle, and the new wine expands and causes them to break. The wineskins are lost, and the wine is lost as well. The old wineskins represent the structures we get into, the outward traditions that have forgotten the heart. The new wine is that which God is doing in us, the new work. If we would have new wine, we must also have new wineskins.

Do you remember the plot to that movie, Fiddler on the Roof, and how it ends? The story revolves around the idea that the Tevye's daughters don't marry in the traditional way. They find themselves falling in love and choosing their own husband rather than using the matchmaker and allowing their parents to arrange the marriage.

The first two girls the wrong Jewish man, and Teyve gives in on each of them. But the third daughter falls in love with a Bolshevik soldier, a Gentile. It was the worst thing that could ever happen to a Jewish family. It was an unforgivable sin.

When this young couple came to Tevye and announced their intentions, Tevye could bend no further. He refused to give his daughter in marriage; he refused to bless her; he kicked her out of the house; he declared her as dead; her name was never to be mentioned again in his home; and so his deeply loved daughter was lost. His daughter was now dead to Tevye.

Much later, at the very end of the story, the revolution was starting in Russia, and the Jews, including Tevye and Golda, were fleeing to America. This historic Jewish family was being fractured, never to see each other again.

And then comes the last scene, the most touching scene of the whole movie. The whole family said good-bye to each other, and suddenly the youngest daughter and her Bolshevik husband walk forward, coming from nowhere, and standing outside the family gate, to say the last goodbye to her father. And perhaps, just perhaps, to be blessed by him. Perhaps, just perhaps, to be at peace with the man she so deeply loved.

Tevye was caught. What should he do? He had vowed that his daughter was dead, that he would never speak with her again, now he was caught. And he needed to say goodbye to that daughter. And finally, in despair, Tevye turned his back on his daughter. He turned away from her, and he bent over the fence in brokenness and in grief. No blessing, No peace. And the story ends tragically.

“Fiddler on the Roof” is a story about a good man, Tevye, whose traditions are more important to him that the commandment to love and forgive as God loves and forgives. It was a story of a good man whose traditional interpretation of what he thought the Bible said, “Jews are not to marry Gentiles” was ultimately more important to him than the commandment of God for love, mercy and forgiveness. And that was the tragedy of Tevye: to love his traditions more than the commandment of love and mercy for his daughter.

Jesus says, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."