Have you ever questioned why you do certain things in certain ways? Let me explain. For example, every day we get dressed, eat, have a drink, etc. but we rarely think about how we got dressed, or how we ate our food, or how we ate our favorite beverage? Maybe I’m not making myself clear – Let me illustrate by asking a few more questions;

• Do we put our socks on before our t-shirt when we get dressed?
• Do we eat your protein before our carbs on our dinner plate?
• Do we put the milk in our tea/coffee before we pour in hot water?

We probably know these answers because the likelihood is we have developed a certain order to these things that we repeat over and over again every day, but because it’s so automatic we hardly even notice. We may even have developed unspoken, complex, hidden rules on top of all of these rules too. For example, if I am making a cup of tea, my favorite drink, the milk goes in last… unless I have made a pot of tea, in which case the milk goes in first. Why? I dunno, it’s just the way I’ve always done it. It’s what I learned somewhere down the line from a parent or friend I guess. In fact, most of these little quirks are patterns, behaviors, and traditions that we have picked up somewhere earlier in our lives and have carried them into the rest of our lives. I’ve got you thinking now haven’t I? Most of the time, these things are completely harmless and pretty trivial. I mean, who really cares that we put our t-shirt on before our jeans or eat all our chips before we attack our burger? However, there are some traditions or patterns that can inhibit us, maybe even prevent us, from experiencing something better. Some of these patterns or habits can even hurt us. When it comes to our faith, to our lives of following Jesus, we can see this happen often. Go to any church from any denomination and we will see traditions and behaviors everywhere. How we dress, how we sing, where we sit, how we respond to messages, etc. are often dictated by tradition. From the loud, handkerchief-waving, amen-shouting services all the way through to the don’t cough, sneeze, or say a word service, we see time and time again traditions and patterns that we picked up somewhere.

You might come back at me and say that these things are more than traditions; they are theologies, ways of interpreting scripture. Of course, that can be the case, but often whilst I believe many behaviors originated from a theological stance, what we tend to see over the years is them morphing into human ideas that all too often have missed the theological understanding they originally stood upon. For example, the idea of wearing a suit/dress and sitting ‘more quietly’ in church most likely comes from scriptures that speak of the reverence that we should bring to God. To some, it’s perhaps an indication of modesty. But whilst reverence and respect to God, and modesty, is a certainty in the Scriptures, nowhere in the Bible does it specifically tell us to wear suits and dresses to a church service every Sunday. It’s just how generations have expressed a theological position. Nothing wrong with that, but it is a human tradition. If you do turn up to a church steeped in this tradition whilst wearing ripped jeans and a casual t-shirt, you will find out that this tradition is guarded like a theological stance!

Just to prove I’m not against a certain expression, let me illustrate how this can work on the other side of the theological world. Let’s consider a church service where flag waving, conga lines, dancing, shouting amen, and standing to clap during the teaching is normal. This expression most likely comes from the Psalms, where we are encouraged to praise God with trumpets, cymbals, and shouts of joy, or even thinking back to David worshiping God ‘with all his might.’ Once again, bringing the fullness of our worship to God is a certainty in scripture, but again the Bible is not prescriptive in exactly how this is done. The conga line, shouting, and clapping are ways that generations have expressed this theological position. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is a human tradition. If you turn up to a service steeped in this tradition but stand rigidly, quietly, and without expression, you will find that your devotion to the Lord will be questioned because this tradition is also guarded like a theological stance.

Have I made my point yet?

All of this is pointing towards a passage in the book of Mark where Jesus is questioned by the religious leaders. Some of Jesus’ disciples were seen eating food with hands that were thought to be unclean, unwashed, or defiled. This bothered them as it was not something done by God followers at that time. So, they asked Jesus why they did this. In fact, more specifically, they asked Him;

….Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” Mark 7:5b

As their question suggests, it was not specifically mentioned in the scriptures that one should ceremonially wash their hands before eating. During the time of Moses, priests were instructed to do so before making offerings in the temple, and there were cleanliness instructions around certain illnesses and afflictions, but no blanket rule about washing their hands to be undefiled around eating. Over the years, however, the leaders took the cleanliness rules and applied them to eating. The idea was that if they touched their food with dirty hands, the food would be defiled, and if they put that in their body, then they themselves would be defiled. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn’t a biblical definite—just a human tradition that had become as strong as a theological stance. I guess at least the religious leaders were honest with their question in specifying that it was a tradition of the elders rather than a scripture. Jesus’ response is brilliant. After quoting Isaiah, which would have been hard to hear for his questioners, He goes on to say this;

“You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” Mark 7:8

As always, Jesus cuts through the nonsense and gets straight to the point. The Pharisees have elevated human traditions above God’s commands. He then goes on to straighten out their theology on the eating topic;

Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. Mark 7:18-20

We’ll not get drawn into the food debate here, but let’s take a minute to consider some of our own human traditions that we might have elevated before God. I understand that each culture, denomination, or person can create certain human traditions that help them to worship God, and of course, there is no problem with that. I love sitting at the back of my house with a coffee, worship music on the speaker, while doing my readings. It helps me to meet with God; the tradition itself prepares me to meet with God. However, if I start telling others that they need to do it that way in order to meet with God, or I refuse to meet with God in another way, then the tradition or routine would have taken over. We must be aware. These traditions can inhibit us, be harmful to us, and perhaps most importantly, they can blind us to what God truly wants for us. It’s so important that we never lose track of the things that are truly important in a life led for Jesus. We keep Him central, we listen to His voice, and everything else we can hold fairly loosely!