Sermon - Traditions: Big "T" or Little "t"

Matthew 15:1-28

Traditions: Big “T” or Little “t”

James Sledge                                                                                       August 16, 2020

Some of you may recall that when I first became pastor here, the Lord’s Prayer concluded the prayers of the people on most Sundays. On communion Sundays, it moved, becoming part of the Great Thanksgiving in the Lord’s Supper liturgy. (We had no informal service then, only the one in the sanctuary.)

We Presbyterians don’t have a fixed, mandated liturgy, but we do have a Book of Common Worship which suggests an order of service rooted in our theological understanding of worship. The latest edition of that book says. “The norm of Christian worship is to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on each Lord’s Day. If the Lord’s Supper is omitted, the service may include a prayer of thanksgiving concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.” (p. 25)

At some point early in my time here, I brought this up in a staff meeting. We all agreed that it made sense for the prayer to be in the same relative place each week and so we began following the order in the Book of Common Worship.

When the change was made, I heard from a member who was upset, furious might be a better description. This person could not believe I moved the Lord’s Prayer from the place where it belonged and said I had ruined the integrity of the service. I did my best to explain the reasons, but to no avail. The conversation caught me a bit off guard. I’d not expected a change that I thought minor would be so offensive to someone.

All church congregations develop traditions around how they do things, and pastors violate those traditions at their own peril. There are big “T” traditions such as celebrating baptisms and the Lord’s Supper or reading Scripture and preaching from it. And there are little “t” traditions such as whether to use organ, piano, or guitars, or where the Lord’s Prayer should go in the service. But whether a tradition is a big “T” or a little one doesn’t always determine how important it is to people.

The issue of tradition runs all through our Scripture this morning, both in Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees and his encounter with a Canaanite woman. And I feel certain that Matthew places these two stories next to one another so that they inform discussions about tradition that were surely taking place in the congregation Matthew writes for.

The first tradition we encounter is handwashing. This was not about cleanliness or hygiene, but rather a purity ritual patterned after one used by Temple priests. It emphasized Israel’s call to be a nation of priests, impressing on people the seriousness of this call. I don’t think that we have any similar tradition, but perhaps a tradition I grew up with served a similar purpose, trying to help people focus on their relationship to God.

When I was a child, everyone put on their “Sunday best” for church. Women often wore hats and gloves. When we went into the sanctuary, even as small children, we were expected to adopt of pose of quiet and reverence. It might be okay to run or yell in the Sunday School building, but never in the sanctuary. And no one dared bring in anything to eat or drink. It was a special, sacred place.

But Jesus’ disciples don’t wash their hands. They come into the sanctuary without putting on good clothes and plop down in the pew with a big cup of coffee. Naturally the religious leaders are upset, but Jesus proceeds to give them a lesson in how easily little “t” traditions can get in the way of big “T” tradition. Jesus is all for purity but sees it in moral terms rather than ritual ones.

The larger issue here is whether a tradition aligns people with God’s will. This was a real concern for Matthew’s church, Jewish Christians who increasingly found themselves in conflict with synagogue leaders over the belief that Jesus was the Messiah and the fulfillment of God’s Law. For these Jewish Christians who were being threatened with expulsion from their synagogues, Matthew has Jesus make clear that their religious purity, their standing before God is not about synagogue rituals, church rituals.

But our gospel reading takes a strange turn when Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman, a non-Jew who begs his assistance. Now it is Jesus who seems bound by the traditions of his day. He refuses to help, saying he is sent only to Jews. He even refers to Jews as the children, presumably children on God, while calling the woman a dog. But even this slur does not dissuade the woman. In fact, she turns it to her advantage, insisting that even dogs get some of the children’s food that falls from the table.

It is remarkable enough that a woman, and Gentile at that, stands up to Jesus and argues with him. But even more remarkable, Jesus praises her for it. “Woman, great is your faith!” Pharisees, scribes, and priests always lose when they argue with Jesus, but this woman, this foreigner, succeeds with a one sentence comeback. What on earth is going on here?

Did this woman just school Jesus about the expansive boundaries of God’s love? That is certainly one possibility. But I wonder if Matthew isn’t giving his Jewish church an object lesson about the Gentiles who were increasingly being drawn to the Jesus movement.

The early Church had nasty fights over whether these Gentiles had to become fully Jewish, children of the covenant, before they could be baptized and join the Church. Jewishness was very important to the first followers of Jesus, a Jewish Messiah. But was the requirement to become Jewish first a big “T” tradition or a little one?

In our scripture today, the same Jesus who reprimands Jewish leaders about making big “T” traditions out of little ones drops his insistence that he is as Jewish Messiah sent only to Jews with astonishing ease. Perhaps Matthew has Jesus model the change he wants from his congregation, the same change that transformed the Apostle Paul from rigid enforcer of tradition into one who said, There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.

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Two thousand years later, we may well be facing more change and upheaval in the Church than has happened since the Protestant Reformation. Not only has the American Church lost its favored status that once closed businesses and entertainment on Sunday mornings and required church membership to hold many jobs or to get elected, but now Covid-19 has completely upended the worship, study, and fellowship traditions that many of us hold dear. Some of these may not return for a long time. Some may never look the same again.

In such a time, what is essential and what isn’t? What are the truly big “T” traditions that need to be maintained? What are little “t” traditions that we may have elevated to a status they do not deserve? And where might some of our traditions get in the way of the new things Jesus is calling us to in a new time?

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When Jesus first began his ministry he proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Change your ways to fit the ways of God’s new day. What change might Jesus be calling the people of FCPC to make so the world might glimpse that new day in us?