Living Free from Tradition

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

LIVING FREE FROM TRADITION

Mark 7:9-13

9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'   11 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." 

NIV

Jesus really hits them right smack in the heart with an example of their disobedience to God in order to adhere to a past down tradition of men. It could not any clearer of a message to them and to us. Tradition has a way of greeting in the way of behavior in a manner which pleases God. So often we think our ways are the right way, because we have been doing them for years, in fact, our forefathers did them the same way. We might have change things a little, but not actually, because we believe this is the way we are supposed to do thing and this is especially true of spiritual activity. Now there have been some changes in the past years to our traditional view of doing church, such as given up on suit and ties, even some of the pastors look like they just rolled out of bed. We also may have changed some of the music, replaced or removed the old pulpit for a table and chair or even completed overhauled the sanctuary all in hopes of making an unbeliever feel more comfortable. That certainly is a break from traditional church, at least in those churches where those changes have happened. But we still believe we have to sing a certain number of songs, sometimes a special number by a group, or the choir, have a time of greeting each other, passing the peace, or whatever, take up an offering, even if we are also making electronic or digital giving possible, and then a message for the believers. We still  adhere to communion once a whatever, and of course we use grape juice because it would not be right to use what Jesus used, our traditional view of alcohol holds us back. We make lists of do’s and don’ts because our forefathers said that is the way to control the way we behave, but it has never worked and it will never work, but it is our tradition so we keep at it. How often do we change our view about what the scripture says? We hold to our traditional interpretation, to the point of printed out our statement of faith, what we believe, and we will never change that, because it has been the tradition of our denomination for many years and it has to be the right way. Is it possible we could have stopped following the Spirit as he leads us into all truth? Is it possible we believe that those before us have found all the truth we will ever need and written it down for us to follow? That may be the purest form of tradition. We must be careful to not do many things like that. We must live in the Spirit, listening and learning each and every day of our lives. God has so much for us, if we would only free ourselves from the traditions of men.