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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
The Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof” has as its opening number a song titled “Tradition”. In the song, the main character, Tevye, explains how different social classes and traditional roles are important to their village. As the song and production play out, villagers struggle to keep their Jewish traditions as the world around them changes in early twentieth‑century Russia. (Wikipedia) In today’s Gospel Reading the conflict is not so much between Jewish traditions and a changing world but more between Jewish traditions and the Word of God. This morning, on which we also have Rally Day activities, we reflect on the Gospel Reading under the theme, “God hands down His Gospel tradition through us”.
As we heard in the Gospel Reading, some Jewish leaders saw Jesus’s disciples not keeping the Jewish tradition of ceremonially washing one’s hands before eating bread, and the Jewish leaders confronted Jesus about it. Jesus answered that Isaiah had prophesied accurately about the Jewish leaders’ honoring God with their lips but keeping their hearts far from Him, worshiping God in vain by teaching their own commandments. For, Jesus said that the Jews left God’s Commandments to hold their own commandments and voided God’s Word by the tradition they had handed down. And Jesus illustrated His claim with the example of one of many such Jewish traditions that, in this case, allowed even a vow that might never be fulfilled ultimately to break God’s Fourth Commandment, that to honor one’s father and mother.
We might be familiar with the terms “RINOs”, “DINOs”, and “LINOs”—Republicans, Democrats, and Lutherans “in name only”. Those terms refer to people who pay lip service to a position but are deemed not to hold to what may be regarded as the core principles of what the name represents. In fact, the expression paying someone “lip service” is said to come from today’s Gospel Reading (Oschwald, CPR 25:3, p.39; confer NEB), as Jesus, quoting the larger passage of Isaiah that we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 29:11-19), says the Jewish leaders hypocritically honor God by claiming to declare His will but in fact trying only to assert their own tradition.
We also may well be guilty of doing the same thing: claiming to declare God’s will but in fact trying only to assert our own tradition or ideas. As the Jewish leaders could do, so we may even claim some ancient authority, such as Martin Luther, for a teaching or longtime use, such as in the Missouri Synod, of a practice that nevertheless is not found in and contradicts the Word of God. Today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 5:22-33) suggests the example of marriage (confer Bestul, CPR 28:3, pp.46-48), and we would not have to look far in the writings of Martin Luther and in the history of the Missouri Synod to find teaching and practice related to marriage that arguably contradict the Word of God—something I recently have had occasion to discuss with a couple of pastors I know. And, even if you or I do not think that we sin in exactly this way, we certainly sin in other ways, for we all are sinful by nature. We may say one thing with our lips externally, but internally our hearts may be far from God! Our sinful natures lead us to commit actual sins of thought, word, and deed, for any one of which, apart from faith in Jesus Christ, we would deserve not only death here in time but also torment in hell for eternity.
Like the people in Isaiah’s time, we may try to hide deep from the Lord our thoughts, to perform our evil deeds in the dark, and wrongly to think or say “Who sees us? Who knows us?” We God’s creatures wrongly turn things upside down and say that our Creator did not make us, or that He has no understanding of us. In fact, God knows full well—better than we ourselves know!—our sinful nature and all our sins, and, as with the people in Isaiah’s time, God calls us to repent. God enables us to read and open His Word and to respond both with sorrow over our sin and trust in Him to forgive our sin. And, when we so repent, then God forgives our sin—all our sin, our sins of hypocrisy when it comes to His Commandments and Word, or whatever our sin might be—God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. Then, as God said through Isaiah, alternating words of judgment and promise (Oschwald, CPR 25:3, p.38), the meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
At its base and center, the word “tradition” has to do with handing things over, as in handing things down from one generation to the next. And, there is an interesting thing about “tradition” in the Bible: while false traditions such as those of the Jews are criticized, true traditions such as those of the Christians are praised. In fact, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul writes to the Corinthians that he “delivered” (or “handed over”) to them as of first importance what he himself also received: namely, that Jesus Christ died for our sins in accordance with (that is, both fulfilling and as recorded in) the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and so forth (1 Corinthians 15:3‑4). That’s Gospel tradition! As we heard in the Old Testament Reading, the Lord was prompted to act for His people: to do wonderful things with them, with wonder upon wonder. As we heard in the Epistle Reading, Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. The Word of God tells of more than Commandments that we fail to keep; the Word of God also tells of Him Who kept those Commandments for us and paid the price for our failure to keep them. In Christ Jesus, God our Potter at least re‑creates us His clay to be vessels of His mercy who honor Him with lips and hearts (Romans 9:21-24), especially seeking and receiving His forgiveness of sins through His Means of Grace.
Today’s Gospel Reading can bring those Means of Grace to our minds. As it is read and preached, the Word of God that Jesus mentions therein is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). Holy Baptism is the ceremonial washing of water with the Word that cleanses the Church, making us holy and without blemish. After private confession of the sins that trouble us most, our pastors in individual Holy Absolution do not “leave” God’s Commandments but “forgive” our sins against those Commandments (John 20:23). And, though the disciples in the Gospel Reading were eating only bread, in the Sacrament of the Altar, we eat bread that also is the Body of Christ, and we drink wine that also is the Blood of Christ—Body and Blood that is for us, as St. Paul, who received from the Lord, delivered (or “handed down”) to the Corinthians and to us (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Clearly not all “tradition” is bad!
In our Circuit Pastors’ Meeting this past week, we studied the article in the Augsburg Confession (one of our Lutheran confessional writings to which we all are bound) that deals with “traditions” such as the Roman Catholics’ distinction of food and prescribed fasts (Augsburg Confession XXVI). Such “traditions” can obscure the grace of God and faith in Him by wrongly suggesting that by keeping such “traditions” we earn grace and make up for sin. Such “traditions” also can obscure the Commandments of God, as they did in the case of the Jewish leaders in today’s Gospel Reading, and such “traditions” can burden consciences. However, we keep and properly teach about and practice other “traditions” that serve to keep order in and build up the Church, such as the use of liturgy, vestments, and the Church year or calendar. Those “traditions” serve and support God’s Gospel “tradition”. And, especially on Rally Day, we think of not only what our Hymn of the Day called “retaining” Scripture and the Catechism’s plain teaching (Lutheran Service Book 865), but we also think of handing down Scripture and the Catechism’s plain teaching to our children and to others. “God hands down His Gospel tradition through us”! We do not teach or do our own made up good works, but we teach and do God’s Commandments—such as God’s Sixth Commandment, with wives’ submitting to their husbands and husbands’ loving their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. In short, enabled by God, we draw near to God with our mouths, honor Him with our lips, and have our hearts close to Him, too. We walk according to His Word, both law and Gospel, living in His forgiveness of sins. We hold to our confession of faith based solidly on God’s Word (Hebrews 4:14), and so we hold to the hope that it sets before us (Hebrews 6:18).
In “Fiddler on the Roof’s” song “Tradition”, the main character, Tevye, says that, without their traditions, their lives would be as shaky as a fiddler standing on the roof (Lyrics). Perhaps we could say better that without God’s Gospel tradition our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler standing on the roof, if not that our lives would be as something much worse! We give thanks that God hands down His Gospel tradition to and through us. And, as we prayed in the Collect, we know that, as God defends His Church from all false teaching and error, then His faithful people will confess Him to be the only true God and rejoice in His good gifts of life and salvation, both now and for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +