If you’ve seen the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, you are likely familiar with the protagonist in the story, Tevye. Tevye is a Jewish man living with his family in a village of Jewish people inside imperial Russia and he is keen on tradition and keeping tradition. In fact, Tradition is one of many wonderful songs in Fiddler on the Roof. It is Tevye’s signature song.
Tevye is a devout man, formed by his great religious tradition rooted in the commandments of God. He is a faithful practitioner of the tradition and he struggles with how to practice the traditions within the tradition, especially when it comes to interfacing with an ever changing world.
Defying the prescribed customs of courtship, his three eldest daughters follow their hearts to be with the men they truly love. This break with tradition gnaws at Tevye’s heart and mind.
For Tevye, tradition brings balance to life and the life of his family and the village. He delightfully proclaims how the tradition teaches him how to eat, how to sleep, what to wear, and how to pray. Religion is woven into every aspect of village life. It brings hope and stability and a sense of identity, especially helpful in trying times.
If you saw the Fiddler on the Roof, perhaps you tapped your toes or sang along with the Tradition song. It is, after all, a catchy tune, or maybe you hummed along because you identified with Tevye and his passion. There is much to be said for tradition.
Tradition gets a bum rap. We often eschew tradition because it is too rigid or too constraining. If we go down that road too far we forget that tradition actually keeps us free.
The traditions and faith practices handed down to us give us identity, helping us to remember who we are and keeping tradition gives lie to the notion that we are somehow self-made people.
When we dip our hands in the waters of baptism and make the sign of the cross, we remember who we are. When we hear God’s Word and share communion our identity is strengthened by God. Traditions around these signs and symbols are life-giving.
I often wonder about the resistance to tradition within churches or the impulse to jettison it all together. The rich traditions of the church shape our lives and our faith, and it is a gift.
Yet … yet, at the very same time, tradition may also be a stumbling block or a barrier to live faithfully. Our use of tradition can become a vehicle that may close our ears to the living voice of God and close our eyes to the vision of God’s kingdom.
So we must ponder our relationship with tradition or certain traditions.
Do we take a firm stand and use our traditions against any kind of change, or is it the opposite? Traditions evolve and even change in order to meet changing times. These are great questions and I find that most of us live somewhere between these two poles. Living in that in-between space calls us to discernment.
Discernment is about making decisions that are aligned to the values of God’s kingdom. We must always ask ourselves if they serve that purpose and are filled with the love of God. Sorting these things out isn’t always easy.
I know a couple who, shortly after getting married had a bit of a crisis. Each of them came from families that were all together for Thanksgiving dinner. It was more than a custom. It became a rule.
It was true for the husband’s family and for the wife’s family. His family expected the couple to be at their Thanksgiving celebration and her family expected the couple to be at their Thanksgiving celebration.
What to do? They could not do both, so they settled on a compromise – one year on her side of the family and one year of his side of the family. Neither side was thrilled about the compromise but it was certainly an instance where tradition had to interface with a big change for both families.
I suspect you have similar stories from your own experience of family, your friendships, your workplace, and the communities to which you belong, including life in the church.
When Pope John 23 imitated Vatican II in the 1960’s, he declared that it was time for the church to “open the doors to the modern world.” Vatican II brought about many changes. Many in the Roman Catholic community welcomed these changes and just as many felt threatened by them and interpreted it as a move to do away with tradition altogether. But that was not the point.
The Vatican council was called not to jettison tradition but to keep the essence of traditions while interfacing with a changing world. For example, changes in the Mass were meant to underscore the participation of all the faithful, not only the priest. And that sort of change is true to the practices of our Christian ancestors.
If you’ve been part of the church for many years, you’ve likely seen many changes. Such change must be preceded by conversation and prayer, deep discernment. The church must always have this conversation. So, one of the questions we ask ourselves is when do our traditions serve the Gospel and the ways of God and when can they become roadblocks continuing revelation?
The Pharisees who valued the traditions of the faithful wanted to know why Jesus’ disciples were eating with defiled hands. Why didn’t they wash their hands before eating?
We know that washing hands is an essential part of good health. In fact, during the pandemic, I heard that message from Dr. Fauci more times than I can count. But that was not the issue with the dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees. Bound to this custom of handwashing wasn’t a matter of everyone being concerned about hygiene. It was a matter of ritual purity.
The tradition of ritually washing hands had very little precedence in the traditions of the temple. It was something priests were required to do in their ritual practices. Only, later as the rabbinical tradition developed, did the washing of hands before eating become a requirement for every believer.
The teachers of the law brought a laser focus on this purity requirement and other purity rituals and what Jesus points out to them is that these have become ends in themselves and that they no longer resemble the spirit of love that is at the very center of the commandments.
Jesus got riled up. He called the Pharisees hypocrites. Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus declares that the people honor God with their lips but their hearts are far away from God. Human tradition had replaced the commandments of God.
Jesus said they were missing the point. What goes into a person does not defile. What truly defiles are the evil intentions that come from within, that come from the heart.
Many customs developed within the tradition of keeping God’s law and often obscured the heart of the commandments. Pharisees and others struggle to interpret these laws and discern what was of God. And no one talked straighter to them than Jesus.
One example of Jesus’ truth-telling are around Sabbath laws. Time and again in the Gospels, Jesus found himself helping people in need on the Sabbath and that meant breaking the rules and cherished customs. But by doing this, Jesus was actually a great lover of the Sabbath. Jesus helped us see that Sabbath cannot be constrained by rules and regulations but it is a gift, a day set apart for worship, rest, healing, wholeness and freedom to bask in the love and delight of God’s mercy but some of the customs that developed were anything but merciful. Jesus was always putting people first, even on the Sabbath.
Friends in Christ, you and me and all the rest of the church are called to discernment around being practitioners of God’s mercy and what human traditions get in the way. Do our traditions further the work of God? When have we made them about us?
Jesus opened up these sorts of questions and Jesus is still doing so.
Much has changed over the 38 years I’ve been a pastor. I think back on how I sat easily with change and how at other times I was very resistant. Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and I can see a little better now what was of the Spirit and where I dug in my heels with little regard interchange with a changing world.
I’ll spare you the details but just mention a few …
Yes, Sunday is the Lord’s Day but the reality is that many people work on Sunday morning or for other reasons cannot come to worship. It took me a while to see that and sought to provide worship opportunities at other times in the week.
I now think Simply Giving is a fabulous way to give money to the church. At the time it was introduced I thought it would spell and end to the ritual practice of the offering and I objected. Turns out, I was over-reacting. Simply giving – offering your gifts to the church online – is actually a smart thing to do and increase church offerings.
And wonders of wonders I once took a much needed vacation in Lent! Something I would have never considered before.
For each of us and for the church as a whole, we ask God for a renewal of heart and to create within us a good and right spirit, a spirit open to the movements of the Holy Spirit in our individual lives, for the greater good of the community and nation, and for the church.
Here a few questions to ponder …
- What traditions in your life give you freedom and what is containing you? What brings freedom and what has become a burden?
- What traditions further the love of God and what does not? What opens your heart to the needs of neighbor?
- What in our life together at FLCWS gives glory to God and what serves the values of Jesus?
These are the questions we bring to God in prayer and the questions we talk about with one another.
Thank God we may bring them to God. Left on our own, we get lost in the noise of competing opinions, who is right and who is wrong and what is useful and what is not, but with the help of God we are given gifts to discern what is loving and merciful and God gives us the peace which passes all understanding to open up our ears and listen to one another.
We can count on God’s faithfulness, God’s amazing love toward us and for all the world, and we can count on God to lead us into what we do next. So, we pray: Come, Hold Spirit.
Amen.