Balancing Faith and Tradition

Mk. 2:13-3:6

How does Christianity stay relevant?

These are notes from my personal agenda. I have no agenda. Just a desire to ask questions and understand what Jesus would say if he were in our content.

Who is this Jesus anyway?

• "Blessed Jesus, Meek and Mild" - turns the other cheek,
• Jesus the reformer, deliberately antagonizing the status quo,

Section of the book of Mark in which Jesus almost deliberately challenges the traditions of existing religious leadership. I can't get away from the idea that Jesus was a trouble maker.

Underlying themes:

• human need is more important than religious observance
• Religious interpretation and practice must continually be renewed so that it is relevant to the day in which it speaks
• It is not easy to break with tradition. It often carries a high cost.

Tradition

Definition of Tradition

• Literally: to give up, or transmit. Something delivered from one generation to another
• An interpretation of a situation/event in such a way that allows us to easily apply it again in another situation.

Value of Tradition

• We cannot live without tradition. Tradition is necessary.
• Keeps us from having to determine the right thing to do every time.
• Keeps life more efficient, Allows us to react without thinking through every situation.

Problem of tradition

• Locks in our interpretation of events and situations to a time and place in the past.

Scriptural Truth and Tradition

• Biblical truth is eternal.
• Application must be contemporary.
• Failure to adapt our interpretation and practice of Biblical principles condemns us to irrelevancy.

Example

• We've always done it this way? "The ham in the pan"

Calling of Levi

• The Players
  • Levi - Tax collector.

§  Salary was based on commission. Levied a "what the market could bear" tax on all imports and exports. Capernaum was one of 3 cities in the area where the tax was collected

§  Served the Herod Antipas - This routine contact with non-Jewish people would have made him ceremonially unclean

§  Not a part of the synagogue. Anyone who became friend with him would also be excommunicated from the synagogue

o   Sinners - Those who had not learned the law and did not follow the rigid standards imposed by the Pharisees - (Majority??) Barclay - people of the land (v. 15)

• Jesus is acting:
  • Unpatriotic - associating with one who served a conquering government
  • Unreligious - acting in a manner which "dissed" (did not show respect) to the established religious authorizes
  • Uncultural - not accepting the cultural standards of ceremonial cleanliness
• "Sinners" also have an "ache for God" - seen from Levi's immediate response to Jesus' call
• Who is appropriate for Kingdom service - Who can God use. Do people have to get cleaned up and look like us before we will acknowledge that perhaps God can use them?
• Association of Believers/Kingdom people with unbelievers - Does contact with the world sully us or does our contact with the world change them? Is our Christianity strong enough to face the marketplace? In a minority Christian era?
• "Appearance of Evil" activities: fellowshipping in the wrong places and in the wrong ways

Fasting

• Fasting in 30 AD
  • Monday & Thursday
  • Whitened faced, disheveled garments
  • Self-displaying ritual that was an attempt to draw God's attention to them
  • The True purpose of fasting is just the opposite: draw my attention to God!
• Jesus Challenges us to be open to new ways of looking at things.
  • New tradition / New interpretation - Is there a new way to look at the scriptures? Are we locked into our tradition so tightly that anyone who speaks otherwise is immediately marginalized?
  • New religious practice - not fasting for fasting sake, but fasting to focus attention on God
  • New object of worship - Presence of Jesus is more important than religious practice
• Not being willing to adapt to new ways means tearing apart the vessel.

Sabbath

• Observation of the Sabbath
  • OT Scripture forbade work on the Sabbath (Ex. 20:8-11; 34:21; Deut 5:12-15)
  • Rabbis listed 39 types of work and grouped. Plucking grain was "reaping," right?
• Jesus responds to the Sabbath issue in three distinct ways.
  • He (and his disciples) personally "violated" the Sabbath. Interesting side note: what would have offended our modern thinking is taking grain that belongs to someone else. What offended the scribes is doing it on the Sabbath!
  • He appeals to the highest historical authority, the great king David to show that rules were meant to be broken.
  • He gives the rationale: the Sabbath was made for man. Jesus has divine authority to rip apart our traditional way of thinking.

The Real Question: What trumps what? How do you know?

• Where are we (AG / Central) as it relates to tradition? Are we ahead of the curve or lagging behind?
• Is there ever a time when we can say that we have arrived?
• It's often far easier to "go with the flow" of tradition and practice.
• It is hard to change tradition. "Them's fighting words." Jesus discovered that bringing about new understanding requires sacrifice (crucifixion?)
• How is age/life situation related tradition? Does becoming established/situated/arrived mitigate against our being able to see what is limiting the relevance of Christianity?
• How do we know when a tradition/religious practice/interpretation is no longer effective/valid
• How do we shift paradigms? In the corporate world, it usually takes either a new person or a fringe person

Next Week: Mk 4:1-20 - Hearing the Word

Last update: 01-25-2009 20:08