IT’S TRADITION
Mark 7:1-13
CIT: It’s dangerous when our traditions keep us instead of our keeping them.
Introduction: No doubt you noticed something different about the way I’m dressed. I couldn’t think, though, of a better way to involve you in our study that to do something that wasn’t tradition. It’s my tradition to dress up on Sunday. I do it because I want to demonstrate to the Lord my very best. I do it, also, because "it’s tradition." It illustrates the point, though: Are my traditions keeping me or am I keeping them?
Now let me ask you, are your traditions keeping you or are you keeping them. Many of you will admit that it makes you a little uneasy to see me without my traditional attire on. That’s a clue as to who is in charge of tradition. It probably isn’t you.
I do not believe we fully appreciate the impact Jesus made on the traditions of the religious. The scripture read earlier was but one example of how Jesus exposed the dangers of placing the traditions of men above the commands of God. Mark’s Gospel contains several significant encounters of Jesus confronting the traditions of the religious. In Mark 2:15-17 after calling Matthew, a tax collector, to follow him Jesus went to his home. Matthew was so glad to have become a disciple that he threw a party. The party included people the religious thought were sinful and therefore unworthy of Jesus time or attention. They were stunned that he would violate tradition to have contact with those kinds of people. That story is followed by three more stories. John the Baptist’s disciples question Jesus as to why he wasn’t following the tradition of fasting (Mark 2:18-22). Jesus disciples were questioned by the Pharisee’s for picking grain to eat on the Sabbath Day (Mark 2:23-27). The Pharisee’s were outraged that Jesus would heal a person on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-5).
You see Mark used these stories to provide direction to Christians in Rome to whom he was writing. They knew their religious heritage came from the womb of Judaism but did they have to keep all the rules that the Jews kept? How were they to live life in their world and still be all that being Christian required? Were they to be kept by the traditions of their past or keep traditions as they saw the need? These Christian’s struggled especially with laws related to food. What they could eat or not eat and how they were to eat it.
There is no more crippling danger to a living faith than to be kept by tradition rather than our keeping traditions. Why is it so dangerous? Mark shows us two dangers when we are kept by tradition and then there is the reality of our becoming a danger to those who feel threatened because we hold our traditions and are not held by tradition.
I. The first danger that I see is that when tradition keeps us we risk becoming blind to God’s living presence. (7:1-5) I realize it is difficult for us to understand the tradition that Jesus faced in the Pharisee and Scribes. Their intent was worthy but their method was insane.
When the law as first given in the books of Genesis-Deuteronomy much of the specific rules and regulations were designed for the priests. Well, sometime after the book of Malachi was written and John the Baptist started preaching a group of men decided that if God wanted the priests to be pure and holy then everybody needed to be pure and holy. So they went to the books of Genesis-Deuteronomy to find out how to do that. They called themselves Pharisees; they were the pure ones.
Not everyone had a copy of those scrolls of what we call the Law or Torah so those who did begin to interpret it for those who did not how to live pure and holy. Not everyone could hear that interpretation so you had interpretations of interpretations. Over the decades all people knew or heard was the interpretation of the interpretation, not what the original intention was. Mark’s example in verses 1-5 is a classic example: Hand washing. Originally the rules that related to hand washing were for the priests. They decided though that if it’s good for them then it’s good for everyone.
The Pharisees and Scribes came from Jerusalem to Galilee to investigate Jesus and his ministry. They see disciples eating without washing their hands. They were stunned. Not because of Ecoli or hepatitis, but because it wasn’t tradition to eat without the ritual washing of the hands. They had to be cupped in a certain way—water ran down, and then ran off. Mark even illustrates by explaining all this in verses 3-4. Whenever they came in contact with others they were always "sprinkling" themselves and they "baptized" their pots…" Mark 7:4, "and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.
So they asked Jesus in verse 5, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?" Here’s the shocking truth: They stood in the presence of the one who had just fed the 5000, walked on water, healed the sick in every location imaginable and they are worried about dirty hands. They were so kept by their tradition that they were blind to the living presence of God. For them, God was a memory, nothing more than a fossil to be examined. For Jesus, God was a living Presence. When John the Baptist’s disciples questioned Jesus about fasting Jesus told them, "… no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine needs new wineskins." (Mark 2:21-22). He is saying that God’s living presence will always break through to those seeking him. That is the difference in being kept by tradition and keeping tradition.
I read a story about a very devout Christian man who had a cat. He used to spend several minutes each day in his bedroom reading a portion of Scripture and a devotional book, followed by a period of silent mediation and prayer. As time went on his prayers became longer and more intense. He came to cherish this quiet time in his bedroom, but his cat came to like it too. She would cozy up to him, purr loudly, and rub her furry body against him. This interrupted the man's prayer time, so he put a collar around the cat's neck and tied her to the bedpost. This didn't seem to upset the cat, and it meant that the man could meditate without interruption. Over the years, the daughter of this pious Christian had noted how much his devotional time had meant to him. When she began to establish some routines and patterns with her own family, she decided she should do as her father had done. Dutifully she, too, tied her cat to the bedpost and then proceeded to her devotions. But on account of her busy lifestyle she couldn't spend as much time in prayer as did her father. The time came when her son grew up and wanted to make sure that he preserved some of the family traditions, which had meant so much to his mother and his grandfather. But his busy lifestyle did not allow for elaborate devotional proceedings. So he eliminated the time for meditation, Bible reading, and prayer. But in order to carry on the religious tradition or symbol, each day while he was dressing he tied the family cat to the bedpost. So you see, the symbol or tradition was preserved but it no longer meant anything. The forms became more important than the faith they were meant to convey.
Tradition can become a deliberately chosen hiding place from a naked encounter with the living God. Hiding behind our own little "cups, pitchers and pots," we avoid contact with God himself. His living presence disturbs us! Being kept by tradition numbs us into thinking we’re alive when in reality we’re dead!
II. There’s another danger and that is that when tradition keeps us we are insulated to God’s priorities. (v. 6-13) Jesus wasted no time in confronting the chains and bondage of being kept by your tradition and he wanted no part of it. He showed them that:
They could not have cared one bit about what was in the heart of Jesus or his disciples. Mark 7:7 say’s, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is a farce, for they replace God's commands with their own man-made teachings." They only cared about the external, the ritual and the superficial. Jesus called them "hypocrites." Their words and actions are a lie! How guilty are we of being so careful that our tradition is carried out we forget the reason we are really here! The machinery of the church!!!
Jesus exposes the usual practice of Corban. The situation was that if you decided to ignore the needs of your parents in their old age, then you could say what I have is "corban"—dedicated to God. The trick was you could still use it but your parents would have no benefit from it. Even if you changed your mind—it was a vow and the vow was more sacred than the need of your parents! Here was a case when God’s clear will was violated because tradition was more important. Any time tradition in our church ignores real needs of people it is a barrier to be removed, not a treasure to be cherished.
Jesus said that as a result of their actions they "… nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." Did you get the meaning of what Jesus said? Think of all we know about the power of God’s word. Isaiah said that God’s word " shall not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11) Jeremiah said that God’s word is like a "Is not My word like fire? … And like a hammer which shatters a rock?" (Jeremiah 23:29) The writer of Hebrews describes the word of God as, " living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." (Heb.4:12)
Yet in spite of that, Jesus says that our tradition has the power to cripple the freedom of God’s word. Messengers and Bibles may be banned and God’s word be unaffected. Tradition, though, may quietly and insidiously silence the word that flames cannot touch. Are we guilty of denying grace because of our tradition? Are there traditions that are insulating us from God’s priorities?
III. When tradition keeps us it results in dangers that cause us to be blind to our traditions. When we keep our traditions though we become a danger to those blinded and bound by tradition. You see when we are alive to Christ’s power and presence we will keep traditions His way! Jesus did not intend as His purpose to destroy tradition for the sake of destruction. Jesus did not come to spitefully go against the grain, rebelling against the establishment. No, simply by being alive to God’s presence and committed to God’s priorities He broke tradition.
Yet He also replaced tradition. He replaced it with a new dynamic at the very center of life—a direct and immediate experience of the Living God. Faith becomes a living resource within us rather than the stale fulfilling of rules and rituals. When that happens He turns us loose on the world—not with a long list of rules or a notebook full of how we’re to act for every situation. He turns us loose with Himself. He sets us free to serve because He trusts us!
Conclusion: There came a time when Jesus had all He could stand, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me. And now look, your house is left to you, empty and desolate. " (Matthew 23:37-38) Now let me ask you over what is Jesus weeping, because we’re so bound by tradition? Does it break His heart that we are dead to His presence when we should be alive? Is He grieving because what is really on His heart we are ignoring? Will you let Jesus so live through you in His power that you risk being free from traditions that blind? Are you, are we, keeping our traditions or are they keeping us?
Sunday, July 8, 2001
Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas