TRADITION!
Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-8; James 1: 17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“A fiddler on the roof ... Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof. Trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word! Tradition! Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything. How to sleep. How to eat. How to work. How to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered, and always wear a little prayer shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition get started? I'll tell you. I don't know. But it's a tradition. And because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do.”
So begins the 1964 Tony Award winning musical, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. Set at the turn of the Twentieth Century in an impoverished Jewish Russian village called Anatevka at the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution, the story focuses on Tevye the dairyman and his family and neighbors who live their lives governed strictly by their age-old traditions.
Throughout the musical, three of Tevye’s daughters marry in turn, but each match poses a challenge to Tevye’s sense of tradition and how things are meant to be done. His oldest daughter, Tzeitel, asks her father to be let out of the arranged match for her, so that she can marry the man she truly loves, Motel, the tailor. Tevye groans and complains, but finally agrees that they can marry for love. Then his second daughter, Hodel, wants to marry revolutionary Perchik. When they approach Tevye, they tell him they are not asking for permission, only for his blessing. Again, Tevye refuses at first, but finally gives in. And then finally his youngest daughter Chava falls in love with a Christian man, Fyedka. She, too, seeks to change her father’s heart about her match, but Tevye says “enough” – he has bent enough and let go of too much tradition. Near the end of the story, he does, at least, pray God’s blessing on Chava and Fyedka, even if he cannot fully come to terms with the marriage.
As enjoyable as Fiddler is as a musical, as lighthearted as it is at times, the questions asked are serious ones, important ones. How far should you change traditions to meet the demands of an ever-changing world? How far is too far to bend? When do the traditions hold us to what is good and important, and when do they keep us from moving forward, from growing and changing in healthy ways? What traditions are based on simple habits that have extended over generations, and when to they represent the unchanging truth?
Like Tevye, the Pharisees in ancient Israel were concerned with tradition. Like Tevye, the Pharisees knew that without Israel’s traditions life would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof. Like Tevye, they knew the importance of knowing who they were and what God expected of them. And so in today’s our gospel, we hear a confrontation between Jesus and a group of scribes and Pharisees. The Pharisees, as you know, were the religious leaders of Israel, devout Jews, who tried very hard to follow the law of Moses carefully and interpret it for daily living. They emphasized upholding the rituals, the traditions. They insisted on using oral tradition as well as written tradition, and in that way were viewed as quite liberal by other Jewish sects. For example, they added qualifications to laws like "an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" so that executions were less frequent. On the other hand, however, their additions to the law through oral code sometimes added many new requirements for people to follow, like around issues of observing the Sabbath, for instance. And their learning and education began to set them apart from the rest of the people, making them a kind of aristocracy. These kinds of practices, all these additional rules and looking down on those who didn’t follow them all, these were the practices of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus most often criticized.
So, from their perspective then, you understand why the scribes and the Pharisees were wondering why Jesus' disciples didn't wash in the prescribed manner. But Jesus in one sentence, in one breath does away with all these oral laws, for he saw in them that they were not worshiping God but the law itself. He says: "You disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition.” Jesus saw that the law was being used to turn people away from God by being so exact, instead of it being used to bring people to God to see his love and mercy. Jesus goes on to say that it’s not what is outside of a person that makes that person unclean, but itis what is in his/her heart that matters. Jesus saw that religious tradition was being used to escape the true religion, the worship of God. The religious leaders were using the law of men to gain respect, position and wealth over the people instead of showing the people how the law can help them to find God in their lives. Jesus was freeing the people from the tyranny of the externals and giving them a freedom to live with the law of love in their hearts.
You know that there are only two laws in the entire New Testament that Jesus tells us commands us to follow? They go together: "You should love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Notice Jesus doesn't go beyond the broad principle of the laws, he doesn't define in exact detail how one should love God and how one should love a neighbor. But in the rest of his teachings, in the way he lives, in how he acted, he showed us how one is to love God and one's neighbor.
But he gives us the freedom to express our love for God and our love for our neighbor in our own way, in our own unique God given way. The religious leaders of Jesus day had lost the concept of the uniqueness of the human race. God has created each of us different, and in that difference, in that uniqueness we all have different talents, different ways, different abilities to worship God and to love our neighbor. We have been given the freedom to express our uniqueness as we live our Christian life. But notice the broad principle still stands: The command is to love God with our whole being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is a command. There is no freedom not to follow or live by that command.
That is God's command to those of us who want to be his followers. It is God's command for those of us who have been called by him in love and mercy. That command is not something we might say: "Well God, today I will worship you because I don't have anything better to do, or today God l will be good to my neighbor because I feel good." NO, that command transcends all of life. That command is not something we can turn on and off, but it is a reality that the people of God must live with. But how I worship God, how I love my neighbor, is up to my own uniqueness.
Now you see how radical Jesus' words are in our gospel lesson.
He puts each person in an unique position to be of special importance to God. For God enjoys, I think, the way each of us use the resources he has given us to worship him and to serve him through our neighbor. In some ways, this freedom to live in the principle of the law is more difficult that living by the letter of the law. Living by the letter of the law is easier because it is all spelled out in black and white. I don't have to take any responsibility for my own actions, if I follow the law I can say it is good law, if I cannot follow the law I can say it is a bad law.
But when I am given the freedom to express the principle of the law in my own way, then I have to take the full responsibility for my actions. I stand alone before God. I cannot blame anyone or anything for my failure to act, or for my failure for acting wrong. I have a greater responsibility, but I think it is in that very freedom to act and to fail that I am more confident of the grace of God in my life. For when I fail, I know his forgiveness is there for me, and when I succeed, I know it is by the grace of God, the love that God has for me that has seen me through. I stand alone and naked by myself in the freedom of the law to worship God in my uniqueness and the serve him by serving my neighbor. It is literary God and I in the world together.
