Should we keep Traditions?

Rahul woke up at 5am like he had always done, took bath, and sat down for his daily round of meditations. Sneha belonged to a group that believed that if she wanted to remarry after an abusive marriage, she had to spend a night with one of the village priests which would “purify” her enough to be worthy of marriage.

Traditions! Some make us feel safe, some make us gawk! But should we follow them at all? Jesus came face to face with one such situation when his disciples didn’t follow the ritualistic cleansing (washing of hands) before having their meals. Yea, they were apparently not very particular about hygiene. But this was barely the concern of those who brought up this grievance of non-conformity. For them, the traditions are what defined whether or not a person was living a clean life or not.

Traditions do that, do they? They can sometimes give us a sense of pride and self-righteousness making us feel like we’ve done the right thing. When we might be doing something that is the quite the contrary.

The traditions in question in the land of Israel were meant to safe guard their relationship with God. But overtime, it became less about God and more about conformity. It became less about heart and more about adherence to a common code. Less grace and more rigidity. Traditions can do that too. They can sometimes completely bypass the real needs of a person to cater to the comfort of the majority. This is where traditions can sometimes be oppressive and even abusive.

Jesus’ reply to the question of observing this particular tradition is something to think about

And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? Matthew 15:2

Jesus points them to a tradition which allows a young person to forfeit his responsibility to care for his parents by telling them that he has vowed all money that he would have otherwise used to fulfill this responsibility, to God. And this was accepted practice. Jesus exposes the fact that “for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God”.

Traditions are great. But obedience to God always trumps tradition. If we are so satisfied with our adherence to tradition with no real emphasis on knowing God and loving those around us, then sorry to say, we are not gaining anything before him through our adherence.

God’s not looking for lip-service followers and those who are far away from him deep down in the heart where it matters. He is looking for those who will quit going through the motions in the pursuit of him and get real. Listen and understand his will and follow through. That’s the kind of disciple God’s looking for.

So, what traditions pull you away from seeing the truth of what God wants? Are we sometimes so caught up with rules that we forego seeing his heart? May God guide us.

#conformity #disciple #gettingreal #traditions