September 2, 2007
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What makes people like traditions so much?
That was the question that popped into my head today during worship service, as I sat in front of the old wooden baptismal ‘pool’ which was underneath a rough, ‘rugged’ cross. Traditions to me are not things you follow, but things you create (and after created, can be changed over and over again depending on the changing climate and circumstances). But aren’t there old and established traditions that I like?
When I first became a Christian, I loved the traditions. I suppose it was because it was something I could hang my hat on. The cross means this. Communion means this and you do it in this and this order. Worship service has a time of singing when you engage in a verbal and corporate act of honoring God and giving Him your life and a time of preaching that will grab ahold of your heart and lift you upward and outward. There is comfort in traditions – something that you can always depend on occurring the same as always before. It made it easy and formulaic too. “So this is how you be a Christian.”
But I started disliking traditions when, in the midst of my sincere desire to follow where God was moving, I was stopped in my tracks. “You can’t do that. You can’t change that! That’s never been done before.” “If you want to do that, then you have to follow the following steps, jump through the following hoops…” While I could usually understand why certain rules and traditions were set into place, I could also see the unfortunate tendency to stick to those old rules to the death without truly consulting the Holy Spirit for a possible change in trajectory.
Like today, for example, when we were taking communion (a tradition that I do love). The deacon almost passed us up, just as Sam reached his hand out to accept the bread basket. As a result, the deacon leaned in, before allowing Sam to take one, and asked as if doubtful, “Have you been baptized?” I thought it was a little bit strange. The pastor had already stated very clearly that if you have not accepted Christ and have not yet been baptized, then you shouldn’t observe communion. Fortunately, Sam qualified; he loves Jesus and has been dunked before. But what if he hadn’t been submersed? The fact that Sam sincerely wanted to participate in remembering Christ’s atoning sacrifice should’ve been reason enough. This felt, to me, like what Jesus meant when He rebuked the pharisess and teachers of the law for holding onto the tradition and law so much that they ended up shutting the Kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. Why do we slam the door on those who actually want to enter?
What’s the line between upholding beautiful, appropriate traditions and being misguided pharisees and teachers of the law? You don’t have to have all the traditions to have true spirituality. Perhaps, maybe, you don’t have to have any… ?
What Christian traditions do you like? Why do you like them?
Comments (15)
Who is the deacon that said that?
well you have to have SOME traditions in order to have true spirituality. I mean, the canon of the bible itself was formed through tradition. You don’t have the bible if you get rid of all tradition. Like you said, communion is a tradition, yes instituted by Christ, but a tradition nonetheless.
There are a ton of traditions I don’t like. Like no wearing sandals in church… like having to be baptised to take communion.
Christian theology in general came out as a result of Christian tradition. Today, we understand concepts such as trinity and hermeneutics methods are all products of traditions. It is together with all the saints that we can comprehend how deep and how wide the love of God is (Eph 3:18) and that includes saints from the present and the past.
If you consider traditions as only law came up by men, the sure, traditions are bad. But many ‘traditions’ are expressions that help us to understand God more.
oh yeah, my dad preached about “Crossing the high hurdles of religious tradition” two sundays ago… basically talked a lot about what you just wrote about.
ohhhhh… maybe THAT’s why he asked me if i was baptized… b/c yours truly was wearing shorts and sandals today… but hey, at least i tucked in my polo shirt.
So in church, does wearing flip-flops show irreverence? Or that that person is not a Christian b/c they don’t know the “rules”? And what do we do with traditions and rules that we believe not to be Biblically sound?
I like the traditions that Jesus established — b/c he only ‘established’ what was essential. The ones established by men, however, are not always essential to our faith, and I think those are the ones we can do without. I’m not saying we should chuck out *all* the traditions, but I do believe that we need to always be examining where the Spirit is leading and follow and not get set in the old ways. There are so many things that make us feel ‘secure’ because we’re so used to them, but they are not essential to the gospel of the Kingdom.
I was there for your dad’s message on traditions. I liked it very much.
And…it was the deacon wearing the tie.
haha, dude I went to flood today and Pastor Matt was wearing flip flips. Of course he doesn’t do that to defy traditions on purprose. But he’s just being who he is and by wearing what he’s wearing, he’s also making a statement that there’s freedom in Christ.
Thanks for sharing! I think your post is interesting.
Recently my youth ministry leaders were discussing about dressing appropriately for services cos the youths were all coming to service in their short shorts, mini skirts and flip flops.
It is not that they cant wear it, but i think its how our dressing honors God. And since we’re here to worship God, then let’s give God our ‘sunday best’. and at the same time, we also honor our brothers in Christ through our dressing.
i love the new look. :] and i wore flip flops to church yesterday. hehehe
get rid of the traditions that are meaningless… wearing flip flops to church is fine… there’s no such thing as “Sunday Best” in the bible…
That said, there are certain traditions that were not directly established by Jesus, but were indirectly established by the Spirit through men… again the canon is an example. Those we should follow.
even if there is a “Sunday’s best”, who’s to say what you can and can’t wear? in other words, there’s no basis for how to set the rules. to some, it may mean wearing a shirt and tie (which i used to do in Louisiana); to others, it may mean business casual; to others, it may mean wearing a clean, not-so-wrinkled t-shirt. i don’t typically mind wearing my Sunday best of business casual. i haven’t worn shorts to a church service in a very long time, but was struck by how i was received.
daniel & cindy, can you guys go more in-depth into what y’all said?
to clarify, i’d hope to hear what daniel and cindy mean about how the canon was formed through tradition, as well as theology, trinity, hermeneutics, and other ones that help us know God more.
Your blog looks very summery. Some people think they have to “protect” communion. From what, I’m not sure. I think Paul was referring to believers taking it inappropriately, not unbelievers taking it. By the way, we had communion this past Sunday and learned that only men could serve it.
The canon of the bible was formed through tradition. How do we know what text were inspired and which were not? Because of the consensus of the church leaders for 300 years. People passed down the knowledge through tradition about who the author’s were. It was passed down through tradition, that these are the accepted books of the canon. Then 300 years later, in the Coucil of Carthage I think… the NT canon was officially recognized. But don’t think it hadn’t been recognized before then. They were merely rubber stamping what had been passed down through tradition for years already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_Biblical_canon
The way I look at it, there’s nothing wrong with traditions at all. The problem is when people treat traditions as something more than traditions; they treat traditions as commandments. We are all prone to giving things more value than they deserve and this is dangerous. Traditions are tricky because most people follow them not thinking that they’re traditions but thinking that it’s the way God wants things. I’ve realized that a commitment to knowing the Word is essential for being able to spot out the traditions of our church.
As for the communion situation, I can understand where the deacon’s coming from. I see no problem with an unbaptized believer taking communion. The church has really separated baptism and conversion to an unbiblical point where nowadays, people don’t get baptized until years after their conversion which isn’t the way it was intended in the NT. That’s why there’s this dilemma in churches when it comes to communion. The solution, emphasize baptism more(and this is not tradition). I can’t blame the deacon, in his eyes, it makes sense.