June 13 - Lesson: Matthew 15.1-9

Sermon Title: Obligations and Traditions

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INTRODUCTION

The Answer (1)

A pastor was giving the children's message during church. For this part of the service, he would gather all the children around him and give a brief lesson before dismissing them for children's church.

On this particular Sunday, he was using squirrels for an object lesson on industry and preparation. He started out by saying, "I'm going to describe something, and I want you to raise your hand when you know what it is." The children nodded eagerly.

"This thing lives in trees (pause) and eats nuts (pause)..." No hands went up. "And it is gray (pause) and has a long bushy tail (pause)..." The children were looking at each other, but still no hands raised. "And it jumps from branch to branch (pause) and chatters and flips its tail when it's excited (pause)..."

Finally one little boy tentatively raised his hand. The pastor breathed a sigh of relief and called on him. "Well," said the boy, "I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus ... but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me!"

  1. There is a small problem here.

    1. It is not only one of communication.

    2. It is one of understanding.

    3. It is also one of misunderstanding.

  2. It appears that the pastor used the same method over and over again until the children anticipated the conclusion to the story and gave the same answer each time.

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MAIN BODY

  1. In today's story we have a similar set of circumstances.

    1. The Pharisees are anticipating their ending to the story.

      1. They are expecting a confession of infidelity to the traditions of the elders.

      2. These are traditions that govern the minutia in the practice of their activities.

    2. Jesus provides a surprise.

      1. He concludes that they are following the wrong information.

      2. This understanding of tradition is not only misinformed, it is also lethal.

    3. If we learn anything from this experience it ought to be not to take too much for granted.

      1. We have traditions and obligations.

      2. Some of them may be of great value.

      3. Others may be misinformed and lethal to one's spiritual welfare and one's future.

    4. Let me put it to you in this way.

      1. It is important that we do not confuse practice with presence.

      2. It is important that we do not confuse rhetoric with reality.

      3. It is important that we do not confuse tradition with truth.

  2. It is important that we do not confuse practice with presence.

    1. Practice

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat." Matthew 15.1-2

      1. They had come to believe that the presence of God was to be found in their practice of tradition.

      2. Jesus exposes their misunderstanding and the deficiency of this conclusion.

      3. This tradition deadened rather than making alive.

      4. It led to abuses rather than creating a loving atmosphere and relationships.

Thomas Merton once characterized the moral theology of the devil in this fashion: (2)

Another characteristic of the devil's moral theology is the exaggeration of all distinctions between this and that, good and evil, right and wrong. These distinctions become irreducible division. No longer is there any sense that we might perhaps all be more or less at fault, and that we all might be expected to take upon our own shoulders the wrongs of others by forgiveness, acceptance, patient understanding and love, and thus help one another to find the truth. On the contrary, in the devil's theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong. This does not exactly make for peace and unity...because it means that everyone wants to be absolutely right...And in order to prove their rightness they have to punish and eliminate those who are wrong.

    1. Presence may be understood from the following illustration. (3)

Timothy Brown remembers a trip to the hospital just a few years ago. I was there to visit a beautiful young man from Spring Lake, Michigan, whose life was being robbed one blood cell at a time by a vicious and unrelenting leukemia. Because he was so weakened, I knelt next to his bed to look at him eyeball to eyeball. I said quietly, "Hi, Tim," and he responded faintly, "Hi, Tim." There followed an awkward pause because I didn't exactly know what to say. The long, dark shadow of death has a way of muffling through much of our otherwise meaningless "chitchat." Finally, Tim broke the deafening silence by saying gently, "I have learned something."

Now I knew at least this much -- you never trifle with the last words of a dying person, so I said, "Tell me, what have you learned?"

He said, again very faintly, "I have learned that life isn't like a VCR."

Perplexed, I said, "I don't get it. What do you mean?"

He said, drawing his next breath in pain, "Life isn't like a VCR -- you can't fast-forward the bad parts."

As I knelt there, fighting back the tears and trying to take it all in, he interrupted my awkward silence again by asking, "You know what else I learned?"

I said, "No, I really don't. Please tell me."

"I have learned," he whispered, "that Jesus Christ is in every frame, and right now it's just enough."

    1. Presence is so much more valuable than practice.

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  1. It is important that we do not confuse rhetoric with reality.

    1. Rhetoric

      1. Modern Rhetoric may be damaging to one's health and thoughtfulness.

Peter Wehner, director of policy at the conservative think tank Empower America, writes in The Washington Post:

"Assume that you had never read the New Testament and were given a quiz with this question: 'During his ministry, Christ spoke out most often about (a) the evils of homosexuality, (b) the merits of democracy, (3) family-friendly tax cuts or (d) the danger of riches.' It turns out that Christ said nothing about the first three and a lot about the last one. But you would never know it based on the rhetoric of many modern-day Christians -- particularly politically active ones. What obsesses us, church? What obsessed Jesus?" (4)

      1. Brennan Manning encourages readers to let go of the imposter lifestyle and freely accept our belovedness as a child of the heavenly Father. In Him there is life, our passion is rekindled, and our union with Him is His greatest pleasure.

"Is this miracle enough for anybody? Or has the thunder of God loved the world so much been so muffled by the roar of religious rhetoric that we are deaf to the word that God could have tender feelings for us?" (5)

    1. Reality

      1. There are realities and there is reality.

      2. Much of life is not real it is an illusion.

        1. We have illusions of power; we need the reality of our weakness.

        2. We have illusions of wealth; we need the reality of our poverty.

        3. We have illusions of strength; we need the reality of our puniness.

        4. We have the illusions of control; we need the reality of chaos.

      3. Jesus provides the way to the only true reality.

    2. Reality is so much more important than rhetoric.

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  1. It is important that we do not confuse tradition with truth.

    1. Tradition

      1. Jesus characterized his detractors with a quotation from Isaiah.

7You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: 8'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 9in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'" (Matthew 15.7-9, NRSVA).

      1. This is in response to the tradition of Corban.

        1. God taught the people in the fifth of the ten commandments to honor father and mother.

        2. They broke the commandment for the sake of their tradition.

        3. They said 'Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,' then that person need not honor the father.

        4. So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God.

        5. The irony of the situation is that the tradition allowed the donor to use the gifts for himself.

      2. Tradition can lead to confusion and conflict.

      1. Or tradition can lead to a dumbing down of the Gospel.

In the early part of this century, a novelist researching a book about life in a certain New England town visited the local cemetery as part of his investigations. The writer noted with interest that nearly every tombstone from that era bore a final epitaph. Unfailingly, these were words of praise for the departed with references such as "kind," "generous," "upstanding," loving" and "faithful" appearing again and again.

This prompted the researcher to ask, "I wonder where they buried the sinners?"

    1. Truth

      1. Jesus had a lot to say about truth.

      2. He spoke the truth in love.

      3. He is desperately attempting to reach into the minds of the hearer so that they may understand what is happening to them and those whom they are teaching.

      4. Jesus is "...the way, and the truth, and the life," (John 14:6a, NRSVA)

      5. Paul writes that we may not only know the truth, but "...speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ," (Ephesians 4:15, NRSVA).

This story comes from the Amish country of Pennsylvania. (7)

Amish carvers and carpenters are renowned for their craftsmanship and skill at woodworking. A customer visited the Amish Country Traditions store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and wanted to purchase an Amish-carved Noah's Ark. When she got it home, she discovered that there was no Noah in the set. Angrily, she called the store and wanted her Noah.

The proprietors of the store, while trying to deflect her anger with humor (Maybe he was washed overboard; Could he be lost at sea?, etc.) finally explained to her that the Amish strictly subscribe to the biblical injunction against the making of graven images (Exodus 20:4). The Amish carver didn't make a Noah because in Amish theology it would have been making a graven image. It's the same reason why Amish make faceless dolls and have problems with photographs.

The customer, insisting on a Noah, agreed to an exchange: She would get a Noah's Ark made by Mennonites rather than Amish, so she could have her Noah. But she didn't have an Amish-carved Noah's Ark.

      1. The Amish woodcarver finally told the truth in love and the woman acquired her Noah.

    1. Truth is so much more important than tradition.

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CONCLUSION

  1. So there you have it.

    1. We understand the contrasts between:

      1. Confusing practice with presence.

      2. Confusing rhetoric with reality.

      3. Confusing tradition with truth.

    2. In that case we can be like Cathy who says to Heathcliff in Charlotte Bronte's Wuthering Heights: (8)

"Because of you, and your love and presence in my life, I feel 'more myself than I am'"?

    1. We say this to our God and Jesus Christ. Amen.

1. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

2. (New Seeds of Contemplation [New York: New Directions, 1962], 96)

3. Timothy Brown, "God Is in Every Frame," Perspectives, May 1997, 24. In Christ, we are never lost.

4. Peter Wehner, In Pursuit of Wealth, Christians Have Forgotten Biblical Teaching, as excerpted in Prism, 4 (July/August 1997), 7.

5. --Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Navpress, 1994), 53-54.

6. CHRISTIAN CENTURY January 6-13, 1999, page 15

7. The Case of the Missing Noah, Penn Dutch Traveler, January/February 1996, 2.

8. As quoted in Ralph Harper's On Presence (Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1991), 4.

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