Musings on the Daily Lectionary

Coming from North Carolina and growing up a Presbyterian there, I am very familiar with a beautiful place in the mountains known as Montreat. There is a Presbyterian college there, but I and many others know it primarily as a mountain retreat center - hence the name. This time of year there are youth conferences going on there, and I saw on facebook that this week's conference had 1089 youth in attendance. Youth groups come from all over the country to the six weeks of conferences, and it is an incredible experience.

Considering that it is a youth conference, open only to high school ages, any participant 's tenure is fairly brief. Certainly people who came as youth come back as counselors and such, but there is a steady stream of new youth attending for the first time each year. And so you might think that there would be no way for any traditions to become entrenched the way that sometimes happens in local congregations, but you would be wrong.

I was at the conference some years ago when there was a great deal of upset over the expulsion of the song "Star Trekking" from the morning "energizers." It seems the powers that be had decided that one of the verses, "We come in peace; shoot to kill," was inappropriate. Many youth were outraged, and in a compromise, conference leaders allowed the song to be done at an outdoor event later in the week.

Traditions are sometimes thought of as the purview of old fogies, but traditions and rituals are effective ways of binding people together. There is a reason that fraternities, sports teams, sororities, and clubs have joining rituals.

I think it is important to remember how powerful rituals are we we hear Jesus speaking to the Pharisees in today's gospel. Many of the rituals used by these Pharisees helped them maintain their Jewish identity in a world that was not always very accommodating to them. And if you've ever attended a Friday night Shabbat meal in a Jewish home, you may have encountered some of the ritual washing Jesus speaks against. But it may have seemed a wonderful ritual to you.

We all need rituals. The early Christian Church, as it became more and more Gentile and abandoned its old, Jewish rituals, had to replace them with new rituals. Rituals of Baptism and the Lord's Supper were first. The bringing of bread and wine for the Supper eventually evolved into a ritual of offerings in worship. And even the most avant-guard, contemporary mega-church has a slew of rituals in place.

The issue - and I think this is Jesus' real concern - is whether or not our rituals help or hinder our life with God. Rituals that bind us together as community are helpful, except when they also work to exclude people who aren't like us. Rituals that help us maintain a distinct identity can be extremely helpful, as long that identity is Christ-like.

There can be a temptation when trying to renew or revitalize a congregation simply to throw out rituals without considering their purpose. I suppose this is a natural reaction to an opposite tendency to hang on to rituals long after they've outlived their usefulness. But rather than thinking of rituals and traditions as good or bad per se, we might do well to consider how ours contribute to or detract from "building up the body" and helping people to grow in their walk with Jesus.

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