Tradition versus tradition
a sermon based on Matthew 15:1-20
by Rev. Thomas Hall

 So what do you think about the quarrel recorded in the gospel lesson? This is a strange story that has precious little to do with us. What has washing our hands before we eat have to do with worship? Even the committee that selects our lectionary texts choked on this passage and skirted right around it. “Can’t apply this hand-washing thing to post-modern lives,” they probably agreed. So instead, our fearless lectionary team went right to that juicy story about the woman with the demonized daughter with the happily ever after ending. So here we are this morning, caught in the crossfire of a nasty argument between Jesus and the religious leaders over what seems more suited for a health and hygiene class discussion than in the church.

Where did this strange custom of washing hands before meals come from? I bet you know the answer! How many heard words like this growing up: “Wash your hands before supper?” And who occasionally did a spot check to see if any precipitation at all fell when we stuck our hands under the faucet? I know for a fact that if more moms were on the lectionary committee, this passage would certainly have made it in our lessons! But did you ever wonder where moms of the world ever picked up this strange tradition?

Here’s my theory. About fifteen generations ago some mom living in Cincinnati happened across Leviticus 22 which states that priests are required to wash their hands - probably as a sign of their purity. Well, that’s exactly where the Pharisees and scribes got their tradition. Only they adapted it somewhat. God’s Law required that only priests should have to wash their hands. But the Pharisees who interpreted the laws for everyone else, came up with an addendum-everyone must wash their hands before eating. So now, to be considered godly and pious were required to wash their hands. So while moms of the world may have exulted in this hygienic practice, something has gone awry. When pressed and pushed about it, Jesus pointed out a glaring danger about this fine little upgrade on the Law: there is a difference between Tradition spelled with a “T” and tradition spelled with a small “t.” God’s capital T tradition can easily be nixed by our small t traditions, Jesus says.

Remember the story about the little country church that some student preacher served? Each Sunday the student preacher observed a very odd behavior. At a certain point in the service the entire congregation would stand up, turn 180 degrees, and recite the Apostle’s Creed. This was a strange custom indeed. Curiosity got the best of him so one Sunday after church, he gussied up to one of the members and asked her, “Why does everyone just stand up and start reciting the Apostle’s Creed?”

“Well, it’s because, ahhh, well, you see . . . you know, come to think about it, I haven’t the foggiest. But I know who can help you. Our oldest member lives not far from here; go ask her.” So the preacher went to visit the oldest member and popped the question. The 103 year old said, “Oh, you see, before we built the church, it used to be located in Droger’s Field, and before that, it was down near the creek by Sawyer’s Lane. Down there we had the Apostle’s Creed painted on the back wall of the church, so we could remember it.”

Now tradition is a good thing, generally. The Greek word, paradosis, means, “to pass something on to the next generation.” So for untold generations the Pharisees had passed on this strange tradition of washing the hands. Over the years it became the unquestioned thing to do. “This is what we do here and it’s never been done any other way.” So people kept washing their hands, yet somehow the purpose of this custom escaped them.

“So what did you do during summer vacation, Billy?”

“Oh I washed my hands a lot.”

“How interesting, Billy! Didn’t Billy have a wonderful summer. class!”

You know what I’m getting at. Washing the hands had become a hard and unyielding rule that was performed regardless of whether people understood why they were even doing it.

Calvin Coolidge used to invite friends from his hometown to have breakfast with him in the White House. On one occasion, just such a couple was invited to attend a private breakfast with the President. They were nervous like we would be. No one wants to make a goof up in front of the President. So they pretty much did what he did to reduce the possibility of making a fool of themselves. It worked! The breakfast was a huge success. So when President Coolidge performed this rather quaint way of drinking coffee they all followed suit. He took his coffee saucer and poured milk into it, as everyone else soon did. But they weren’t prepared for what he did next. He quietly placed it down on the floor beside his chair and called, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevi struggles with this very thing-tradition. That’s his favorite song in the musical. Comes from the “new” way that his daughters approach marriage. The first is promised to the local butcher-a man twenty years to her senior. She rejects Tevi’s choice and selects one of her own choosing-someone she has fallen in love with. Now Tevi faces a choice-what should he do? Should he hold with the tradition of the elders, listen to the village rabbi and be unyielding to change, or should he put aside his tradition in favor of his daughter’s love. He lays tradition aside and allows his daughter to marry this scrawny man. Then comes daughter number two. She too, breaks tradition and chooses a man who is a revolutionary, a man who fights against the government. Tevi again, after an intense struggle, lays tradition aside and allows his daughter to marry this revolutionary and so off they go up to Siberia where the rebellion is quelled and her husband and the daughter is thrown in jail. Now comes the deepest struggle in Tevi’s soul. His beloved youngest daughter wishes to marry a non-Jew. So this father goes through his deepest struggle-should he put aside his own faith’s tradition and let his daughter marry outside the faith? But Tevi has reached his limits; he can no longer be stretched. He forbids his daughter to marry. When she off and marries anyway, he vows never to speak with his daughter again. And in a poignant final scene we see a young woman who desperately craves her father’s love, and we witness a father who desperately wants to love his daughter, but they don’t. For Tevi, there was a bottom line, a final bedrock of Tradition beyond which he dare not transgress in the name of modernity.

We can understand Tevi, for we too, struggle face the same struggle. With each new pressure to change we must reevaluate our own ways, our own traditions to discover whether what we cling to so tightly is tradition with a capital “T” or just something we’ve done the same way for a very long time. If we lose sight of our purpose, all we may have left are a bunch of rules and locked doors; a building maybe, but not life.

Do we give God “lip-service” as Jesus claims the Pharisees and scribes do? Do we say the right words on Sunday morning, but somehow never concern ourselves with their intent and with carrying the action of those words out in our lives? That’s what God asks us this morning. Frederick Buechner once said, “There is no book to look up the answer in. There is only your own heart and whatever by God’s grace it has picked up in the way of insight, honesty, courage, humility, and maybe above everything else, compassion.”

The church where my wife attended as a high schooler was a nice, neat professional type of club. Sang their hymns in an orderly way. Knew when to stand and sit. Laughed politely. Then one Sunday all hell broke loose, some thought. Two or three shirtless, shoeless guys walked into their quiet little church and “got saved!” To make matters worse, they didn’t just sit quietly in the back with the rest. No, they marched right up to the very front pew and sat week after week with their mammoth-sized Thompson Chain Bibles. They scribbled notes in their margins, sang too enthusiastically, and even said Amen at certain points of agreement during the pastor’s sermon. So what happened? Well, they brought their long-haired, loud-music-rock-and-roll friends with them and soon a youth rockin’ youth “choir” was formed!

Began to sing every Sunday night. Then something began to happen-slowly at first. Little by little the congregation in the back pews began to inch forward. Don’t misunderstand me; none of the older adults grew their hair long and wore love beads, but still. Things gradually began to open up and the church began to grow. They grew out of doing things in the same way that they were used to. Grew in number until the congregation had to move to a larger building. But most important, I think was that the congregation rediscovered that the important thing is to love God and to live out the gospel. So that church survived the crisis of that summer, in large part, because they could discern for themselves, between what was Tradition and what was tradition.

I close with a confession from a cyberspace Christian. I don’t know his name, but I understood what he was saying when he said these words, “I’ve been a disciple for fifty years, brought up in a very strict tradition. I have taught all the old arguments for many years. Yet, I have recently discovered God’s love and I can assure you that I have begun to breathe the fresh air of freedom in Christ.” Sounds like he’s discovered that there’s more to faith than washing hands before eating. Henry David Thoreau once said, “Any fool can make a rule,” to which we might add, “but only God can give life.” Amen.