CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST

March 5, 2006

 

CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR:

Our congregation                                                                 James and Leon in the Army

 

Our nation, leaders and military                                         Various friends, relatives and co-workers

 

Our students

 

MARCH BIRTHDAYS:

Virgil Oller (4th)      Anita White and Jimmy King (5th)     Melissa Whitley (7th)          

Leo Bricker (10th)    Muriel Mearns (15th)   Bobby Cruthirds (18th)  Mary King (19th)

Pat Henderson (20th)

 

TRADITION AGAIN

 

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  They don’t wash their hands before they eat” (Matthew 15:2)!

 

Several things have happened recently that I want to revisit the idea of tradition.  As I have said in the past, tradition is neither good nor bad, it is neutral.  It is what we do with it that can cause problems or be encouraging.  We all have traditions.  As a nation, we have traditions that are found in holidays such as the 4th of July and Thanksgiving.  Families have traditions around holidays and birthdays or that involve family reunions.  There are traditions in business and sports.  Even churches have traditions.  It could be a church picnic, a Valentine’s or New Year’s Eve party.  For a congregation that is only five years old, we have some traditions.  Where we sit is one of them.  Last year I sat in a different place to see what would happen.  As we all know we are back in our normal places -- nothing wrong with that, but it is a tradition.  Traditions are good in the sense that they can build community, encourage stability, and be a comforting idea in a hectic world. 

 

When traditions become legalistic, then that is where problems come in.  In Matthew’s text, the Pharisees complained about the disciples of Jesus not washing their hands before they ate.  It is one thing to wash one’s hands out of necessity and another because a whole ritual has been set up.  The Pharisees could not see the distinction between the two.  Their traditions had become written in stone, like that of the Medes and Persians, and could not be changed (see Daniel).  One problem with this tradition is that they expected everyone to follow the rules.  Jesus, however, showed them that traditions can be a dangerous thing.  Honor father and mother was one of the Ten Commandments.  What had they done?  Instead of honoring their parents, they decided that that help was a gift devoted to God, and therefore they could ignore mom and dad.  Jesus called them hypocrites for that (see Matthew 15:3-9).  At times they saw the gift as more important than the altar it was offered on, thus degrading the altar and the offering. 

 

Churches of Christ have traditions in how we do things and in interpreting scripture.  What we need to realize is that we are affected by our traditions which include our experiences, culture, education, and various influences.  Traditions become so normal that we do not think of them as traditions.  Sometimes we need to step back and ask, is it Bible or is it tradition?  Here are just a few of many that that question could be asked:

 

                Sunday evening assembly                                 church buildings

                Women ushers                                                     passing the collection plate              

                Taped accapella music in the assembly           praise teams

                Contemporary songs                                           praying with hands up or kneeling

                Lifting hands                                                        sign language led by a woman

                Gospel meetings                                                   vacation Bible school

                Worship service                                                   song leader

                Hand clapping                                                      video presentations

                Women reading scripture                                   eating the bread and wine together at the same time

                Singing during the Lord’s Supper                     reading scripture during the Lord’s Supper

We have a slogan that says that we do Bible things in Bible ways with Bible words.  Which translation should we use to do that?  How consistent are we in this?  It sounds good but in reality it just doesn’t work.  Just consider the phrase, “separate and apart from the Lord’s Supper” when some offer a pray to pass the collection plate because it is “convenient” at that time. 

 

Then there are our traditional interpretations.  We talk about the “five acts” that we must do in a “worship service.”  Some even suggest that we cannot do more than one at a time -- we cannot sing during the Lord’s Supper.  While I have not heard of this, could we read a text of scripture during the Lord’s Supper?  Can we sing prayers, since a number of our songs are prayers?  Can a preacher sing a solo during his sermon (don’t worry, I’m not singing any solos)?  And what about the definition of the word “kingdom?”  Many define the word kingdom as church so that wherever we read kingdom, we should read church.  Then they would say that the church was established or began on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.  Reading through Luke’s gospel however would raise questions?  If the church was established in Acts 2, how could Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be in the kingdom (see 13:28)?  How could the church be in us or among us before Pentecost (see  17:21)?  We might need to look at our traditional interpretation again. 

 

That brings me to the things that caused me to think again about tradition.  The first is an email I received from a brother, Bobby Valentine.  He asked this question: “When we are faced with some difficult biblical question, do we often fall back on what has always been accepted, or do we make a fresh study of God’s word?”  Bobby then quotes the following:

 

                “Like many others who hold to wholesale theological questions without having time to

                investigate their points, I thought it safer to stand on the more conservative side -- which

                at the time I thought meant the more ‘traditional’ side -- until I could know for certain.

                I was, of course, mistaken; it would simply have been better for me not to have taken a

                stand at all until I could know for certain” (Craig Keener, Paul, Women, & Wives: Marriage

                and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul, p. 3).

 

Bobby adds “Traditional beliefs may or may not represent the truth, but to fall back persistently on them when confounded with some powerful apprehension of God’s word is dangerous.  Playing-it-safe in these situations can actually be a betrayal of the truth.”  When we are comfortable in our traditions, it is easier to “play-it-safe” than to challenge ourselves to examine again the subjects we are studying.  Of course, there is a fear as well.  One, we might discover that we were mistaken, and it is hard to admit that.  Two, we might be afraid that we will divide the church and rather than do that, we would just stay with the traditional.  Three, we might be afraid of the labels that will be attached to us, or others, because the traditional view is set in stone.  I have often heard some say that if only people would study the Bible for themselves, they would see what I was saying was correct.  However, when we ask our brothers and sisters to do that, they become very defensive.  N.T. Wright, a British scholar, offers similar ideas in his book, The Last Word; so it is not exclusively “us” who are struggling with this.

 

The second thing that has caused me to look at tradition again comes from an article by Michael Light, “Tradition or Truth???,” (Power, 1/06).  He defines tradition as “handing down or passing on,” a very good definition.  He makes a distinction between human tradition, which if bound is wrong, and God’s tradition (2 Thessalonians 2:15; “tradition” in the KJV, “teachings” in the NIV).  His complaint is that those who say that the church of Christ is too traditional are wrong.  He makes this bold statement:

 

                “If the charge that the church of Christ is ‘too traditional’ has reference to the traditions

                of men, the charge is false.  In fact, the church of Christ (as set forth in the New Testament)

                is the only church in the world that does not believe, teach and practice the traditions of men

                in worship.”

 

Ideally, if we were the “perfect” church, without sin, this would be true.  But we are sinners.  Keep in mind that the church is made up of us, you and me, sinners saved by the grace of God.  We are not perfect in actions or in interpretations.  What he, and many, fail to see is that we are influenced by traditions.  One way this can be seen is about evening assemblies.  In a congregation where I preached for a number of years, each year the elders complained about Sunday evening assemblies and the lack of attendance.  They wanted sermons, articles and classes on attending.  What they never did was ask, what did they want to accomplish with a Sunday evening assembly?  Could something else be done?  The answers given were, “we are the elders and we have decided that this is the way it is going to be” and “ most people wanted another sermon in the evenings because they were use to doing it that way.”  I’m sure Brother Light would agree with this, in that the elders made the decision.  That is another area of conflict, how do we see the role of elders?  Are they a board of directors making decisions, sometimes oblivious to the congregation, or are they shepherds out among the flock, who smell like the sheep?  I think that what Brother Light misses is that he has been influenced by traditions in interpretation as well as church culture, and there is nothing wrong with that.  But one must be careful because the Pharisees were likewise influenced and did not see anything wrong with it.

 

Finally, I wrote this because of our study of women and their role in the church.  I don’t know where we will be when we are finished.  I pray that we will stretch our minds but that doesn’t mean we have to change them.  We are all brothers and sisters in Christ and recognize the Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:11).  As such, we want to follow the words of Paul, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4, NRSV; see also TNIV).  Some of us will draw different conclusions in our study, but that should not surprise us because many godly people studying this issue have done the same.  What does that mean for us?  We must make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3; see also Romans 12:18). 

 

Of course, if you assemble with us, you know we do some untraditional things.  We sit rather than stand.  We do not pass the collection plate; it just sits on the table, and while we are thankful for God’s many blessings, we say little about giving.  We do not meet on Sunday evenings, at least at this time.  Everyone is allow to make comments during the “sermon.”  While this is uncomfortable for some, they have been patient about it.  My mother-in-law was a wonderful woman.  One day when visiting with them in Tennessee, there was a baptism at their congregation.  After the person came out of the water, a number of people clapped.  My mother-in-law didn’t.  Later I asked her about it.  She said that she just didn’t clap in those situations; it wasn’t her thing, but that if others chose to, that was no problem for her.  What a great attitude!  That is the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5).  We know and understand that how we do things is not for everyone.  When commenting on the Lord’s Supper, we have tried to look at the Lord’s Supper from a number of different aspects rather than just as a memorial. 

 

As we mature, experiences cause us to look at things again.  I’ve changed my mind on a number of issues over the years.  On other issues I go back and forth agreeing with the author of the last article or book I read until I read another with a different view.  Some issues remain firm.  We do not have to be dogmatic on many things that we seem to be.  There are important, essential, teachings that we must agree with, such as Jesus being our Savior, God being King, and sin being dealt with through the sacrifice of Jesus.  We have lists of sins in scripture, so God has made it clear what is and isn’t sin.  Some things that were consider sin are not longer; eating pig and catfish.  Those were dietary laws.  The moral laws have always remind, laws against murder, lying, gossip, etc.  Just because we do something differently doesn’t make it a sin.  It might be uncomfortable.  We might say that I just can’t do this, but we have to ask “why?”  And that brings us back to our original question: Is it Bible or is it tradition?  We might be surprised by the answers.

 

                                                                                                                George B. Mearns