Matthew 15, Mark 7
Devotion by J.J. Fletcher (Minnesota)
I’ve been following baseball for around 30 years. My dad was (and still is) a Baltimore Orioles fan, but when the time came for me to pick my team, I pledged my allegiance to the Atlanta Braves. In the late 90s, one of my most despised teams was the Montreal Expos. In 2005, the aforementioned villains moved to Washington, DC and became the Nationals. My dad was also a Senators fan when he was a kid, growing up just outside of DC, so he also began rooting for them after the move brought the nostalgia of baseball back to the nation’s capital. My dad has always given a couple of my brothers guff for being Yankees fans, but I felt similar betrayal.
Baseball is known for its “unwritten rules”. Though these rules are waning as younger players enter the league and the stalwarts retire, they still exist to some degree. Your best player gets hit by a pitch? The next guy up in the opposing lineup is taking one in the ear or back. You don’t celebrate home runs, or you get hit the next time up. You don’t walk over the pitcher’s mound or bring up the fact that a perfect game is going on. The list goes on and on, but you won’t find them written down anywhere official. They have not been codified in the official MLB rule book. But the players expect each other to abide by these traditions that have become known as the Unwritten Rules.
We see some Pharisees confronting Jesus about his disciples not conforming to the “Traditions of the Elders”. Specifically, the disciples are not washing their hands before they eat. Now, there are some regulations in the Torah about washing hands, but they are very specific. They have nothing to do with washing hands before eating. Over time, new “rules” or traditions morphed from the written law into behaviors that were expected, perhaps even viewed as equally important to the codified text of the Torah.
Think of your time attending church. Growing up, there were probably some things you were told not to do (running in the sanctuary) that don’t appear anywhere in scripture, but people were passionate about it (you’d better dress up for church). Some churches have certain ways of doing things: Do you take the Lord’s Supper weekly, monthly, or quarterly? Do you use grape juice or wine? Who can pass out or pray over the emblems? Is it sacrilegious to have a guitar on stage? Maybe you’ve moved from your childhood church, or maybe you’re like me and have moved many times. Things are different at your current church, right? So, who is right and who is wrong? Or are different ways of doing church equally proper?
Sometimes the way we do things is perfectly fine, but it’s not necessarily “the right way”. We sometimes run into obstacles when someone tries to serve in their church, and the status quo gets in the way. There are times and seasons for various ministries. Often, the reason that something is done a certain way is because the first person who served in a role or started a ministry did things that way. It was a fine way to do it, but was it the right way? Was it the only way? Maybe there’s a better way? Or maybe it just comes down to being a different way, because a different person is leading a ministry or function of the church. It’s ok to have preferences, and it’s ok to do things WAY differently from other churches. The main thing is to make sure that what we are doing is furthering the Kingdom of God and benefiting the body of Christ. Sometimes it will be necessary to restrict things or do things in a particular way because scripture instructs it. The Bible and our faith should never be weaponized to keep us comfortable, but rather our sword and shield should be wielded to fight spiritual battles. We are to fight against darkness, not dwell in or create a new kind of darkness, but I’m afraid that can sometimes happen when we cling to traditions the same way that we cling to the hope of the Risen Savior.
Back to the Pharisees. They were calling out the disciples for violating the unwritten rules, which had no true basis in the Law, and treating them like lawbreakers. Jesus points out the irony of them making these accusations. By following the tradition of the elders that allows one to declare something as “corban”, to be set apart for use in the temple, they are violating the Law of Moses. By setting aside money that might be used to support their elderly parents to instead go to the temple (where they may then benefit from it due to their roles) they are not honoring their parents, which by the Law is punishable by death.
Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
Traditions can be valuable. They can be invaluable. They cannot equal or trample the law or instruction that comes from God.
Reflection Questions
- What traditions do you hold dear? How would you approach someone who wanted to do something differently?
- How might you deal with a person in a loving way who is clinging to tradition to the detriment of another, to the body at large, or even to themselves?
- Is there an evaluation process in place to think about how and why your church does certain things and considers how things may need to change over time?
Seek Grow Love 