CUSTOM & TRADITION?
Malachi 1: 6-14
Matthew 15: 1-20
Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Within the last few years, there have been several notorious cases of
contaminated food. Strawberries, Raspberries, and Hamburger have been
reported at the very least. This problem goes back to Sinclair Lewis and
his expose of the meat packing industry early in this century. Of course,
the problem is much older than that. Man has been plagued by unsafe food
throughout history. Contaminated oats may have caused the hysteria
surrounding the Salem witch trials. When Maria Antoinette blithely said
The recent meat scandal in an Iowa packing plant should tell us more about
the corporate environment than the cleanliness habits of the workers, since
a lack of rest room breaks and production line economics demanded less than
fastidious processing. I have dressed enough chickens and seen the
processing of cattle and hogs on a small scale to know that doing those
jobs well involves good attention to detail and a concern for doing the job
right. When those processes were once cottage industries, the local
butcher knew his customers and gave them his best product if he wanted to
be in business the following year. Cleanliness is only one facet of the
process of bringing the bacon home to our tables and storing and cooking
that food carefully is just as important. In fact, carefulness at the end
of the process can usually undo a lot of carelessness that may already
exist in the corporate process.
Washing hands and equipment all along the line from animal to table are a
vital part of the process. And while complete cooking can undo a lot of
contamination, hand washing is still of prime importance. Recently,
industry has introduced name badges that help electronic equipment keep
track of employees who do not wash their hands thoroughly. I recently
talked with someone who thinks that electronic miracle will solve the
problem of human laziness. I observed that if I really wanted to avoid the
electronic monitoring, I would simply leave the name tag outside of the
rest room. You should have seen the other person's mouth drop open! How
easily their expensive Big Brother complexity could be defeated. Almost as
easily as the CIA security was defeated in the sixties. During that Cold
War era, every employee had to wear an electronic name tag to alert the
authorities if anyone strayed into a place they were not cleared for. One
day a stray tourist accidentally penetrated the most secret of areas. How
had he done it, he wasn't wearing an electronic name tag! The authorities
were aghast!
And so in our New Testament lesson, Jesus' disciples failed to follow the
traditions of the Jewish elders in the matter of hand washing. The
parallel passage in Mark makes it clear that this is a ritual cleansing
that is demanded. And by ritual we may note several contemporary rituals
of a similar type. When I was in the Army and serving as a Chaplain's
assistant I worked with Chaplains of many faiths. Once when the Catholic
assistant was on vacation our favorite Priest asked for protestant
volunteers to fill the receptacles for holy water before services began.
He gave me a jug of water to go and I asked if it had been blessed. He
muttered some ancient Latin phrase of which I picked up enough to know he
had at least said
There was one exception in Seminary, when our United Presbyterian Seminary
shared facilities with a Catholic Seminary. There was one ancient priest,
who more than went through the motions of humbling himself before the Lord
in this ritual of making the sign of the cross, kneeling and humbling
himself before His Lord. That was the exception to the common practice and
very beautiful to see his earnest witness. Even more than the younger more
modern priests of that era, he had a much firmer grasp of the essential
teachings of grace and in private discussions many of us were able to learn
about a quiet piety before the Lord.
I have recently heard of one of our Southern Presbyter's whose wife,
daughter-in-law and another lady who have revived the ancient custom of
head coverings for the ladies in Church. This practice was once common
even in Presbyterian circles until a competitive rage of expensive Easter
bonnets in the forties and fifties priced the ritual out of the range of
most families.
Early on in my ministry here I was very fastidious in the disposal of
communion elements. I made certain that the bread was broken up and
sprinkled where the birds could find it and I saved the unused juice of the
vine and poured it out into the ground. At this point in time, I am not so
concerned that such a ritual is necessary. While I do not think that the
juice and bread recipes should become common in our usage, neither do I
think that the unused elements need any uncommon means of disposal. For my
first baptism, I walked a half mile in the snow to retrieve
I do hope that my all too human ramblings in this regard may show you the
humorous attempts that we humans have indulged ourselves with to prove our
holiness to the Lord God who has called us into a saving relationship with
His Son Jesus Christ. Sometimes, these human fancies, traditions, rituals
and habits go beyond the merely humorous and become vain antidotes to the
very faith that we believe is ours. Many churches have their holy days and
the world would impose a whole range of special Sunday's upon the Christian
Church if they could. I remember the pressures of Rural Life Sunday,
Mother's Day, Father's Day, Children's Day, Grandparent's Day and even a
Pastor's Appreciation Sunday! Let us not condemn the Catholics and the
ancient Jewish Church in this regard, we are fully capable of establishing
false traditions of our own. As I understand the Scriptures, the only holy
days that we are to remember is the weekly Lord's Day and a day set apart
for Thanksgiving according to the time and custom of the nation we live in.
If you have considered the two Scripture passages that I have chosen this
morning, you will note a much stronger language of condemnation from the
revelation given to both Covenantal Churches. The sincerity of our worship
is what counts, as long as we offer that worship in an appropriately
regulated biblical manner. There is one denomination that has practiced
for many centuries a preparational service the week or evening before
communion. Since that denomination is scattered so widely, the maintenance
of this habit had become a burden by the late seventies and some within the
denomination were asking that the regulation be lifted so that pastors
would not have to travel two and three states from their home church to
ensure that the tradition could continue. I don't know how that came out,
but when I came into the PCA, there were several conservative practices
that I carried over from the old United Presbyterian Church in North
America which were rightly challenged.
Like Peter, Paul and the rest I have put behind some of the ancient baggage
of my Presbyterian heritage so that a more earnest effort might be focused
on worshipping Christ in spirit and in truth. There is nothing more to the
second commandment than this earnest giving of the worship He desires
without any manmade embellishments. Once I was horrified as I watched a
baptism where the baptizer used a rose to sprinkle the water on the baby.
He than gave the rose to the mother to be pressed in a Bible for a memorial
to the blessed event. Quite often I hear you all complain that our issues
of TableTalk are running a week or so late. May I gently remind you all
here that you and I can indeed have our daily devotions without that
helping magazine or any other for that matter! After all, God has given us
His word and if we be earnest, sincere and diligent in our devotions as
well as our worship, He will bless us with more knowledge of the grace that
He has given us.
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Amen.
Resources Used:
Green, James B. A Harmony of the Westminster Presbyterian Standards.
(PCA) The Confession of Faith: The Shorter Catechism.
Places Preached:
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America)
Box 132049 -- Columbus, OH 43213-8049
WSC051c 05 October 97
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