Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, “Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Whoever speaks evil of father and mother must surely die.’ But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God.’ Then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (Matthew 15:1-9)
Ever so often someone comes along and monkeys with our traditions. Conflict results. As the late Dr. Christie of Hendrix College was fond of saying, “Nobody likes to be tickled in the area of their Absolutes.”
So the “worship wars” of the current age seem to be perpetuated. One group thinks that the folks meeting in the gym with the guitars and drums are committing sacrilege.
The praise folks look at the folks in the sanctuary as stuffy, sanctimonious, and without the real Spirit.
Then someone like Jesus comes along and monkeys with the whole mess. He explodes our human paradigms.
In his day the fuss was with hand washing. Then, hand washing was not just for hygiene as in our day when folks worry about swine flu. It was ceremonial hand washing. It was a ritual.
Jesus did not require ritual hand washing of his followers and they were taken to task for it. “Why do your disciples break tradition?”
Jesus turns it back on them: “Why do you bread the commandment of God for the sake of tradition?” he asks. He cites the case of the commandment of honoring father and mother. One of the Ten Commandments, it carries weight. Yet, the commandment could be circumvented and support for elderly parents could be avoided by dedicating part of one’s estate “to the temple” and to “God.”
Sometimes it is silly what we do for the sake of appearing to uphold principles. We go through contortions to avoid the very responsibility that we want to uphold!
Jesus names it: not only silly, but hypocritical!
So, when it comes to the “worship wars” or any other “tradition” perhaps we ought to hear what Jesus thinks is the heart of the matter: It is about the heart.
It is not style that really matters. What matters is where we stand in relationship to God and to one another. What would it be like if we were more concerned to love God and one another and freely give ourselves to worship – in both gym and sanctuary?
Let’s focus on keeping the “main thing” the “main thing.”
‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (Matthew 15:1-9)
Ever so often someone comes along and monkeys with our traditions. Conflict results. As the late Dr. Christie of Hendrix College was fond of saying, “Nobody likes to be tickled in the area of their Absolutes.”
So the “worship wars” of the current age seem to be perpetuated. One group thinks that the folks meeting in the gym with the guitars and drums are committing sacrilege.
The praise folks look at the folks in the sanctuary as stuffy, sanctimonious, and without the real Spirit.
Then someone like Jesus comes along and monkeys with the whole mess. He explodes our human paradigms.
In his day the fuss was with hand washing. Then, hand washing was not just for hygiene as in our day when folks worry about swine flu. It was ceremonial hand washing. It was a ritual.
Jesus did not require ritual hand washing of his followers and they were taken to task for it. “Why do your disciples break tradition?”
Jesus turns it back on them: “Why do you bread the commandment of God for the sake of tradition?” he asks. He cites the case of the commandment of honoring father and mother. One of the Ten Commandments, it carries weight. Yet, the commandment could be circumvented and support for elderly parents could be avoided by dedicating part of one’s estate “to the temple” and to “God.”
Sometimes it is silly what we do for the sake of appearing to uphold principles. We go through contortions to avoid the very responsibility that we want to uphold!
Jesus names it: not only silly, but hypocritical!
So, when it comes to the “worship wars” or any other “tradition” perhaps we ought to hear what Jesus thinks is the heart of the matter: It is about the heart.
It is not style that really matters. What matters is where we stand in relationship to God and to one another. What would it be like if we were more concerned to love God and one another and freely give ourselves to worship – in both gym and sanctuary?
Let’s focus on keeping the “main thing” the “main thing.”
Jesus didn’t call it the Great Commandment for nothing!
--- Rev. Richard Lancaster
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