There were some notable occasions where Jesus did not hold back when people questioned him. His criticism tomorrow of those who put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions is one such occasion. It is the kind of text that we can easily sanitise. Clearly he was addressing his peers and he could not possibly be referring to us. This Gospel provides an oft-quoted defence for dispensing with religious traditions that do not suit us. Sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes not. The challenge is in distinguishing between traditions that are valid and ones that have passed their best-before dates.
A matter that we rarely consider is that our parents would not recognise the church we live in today. Our grandparents would find it unrecognisable and their parents would probably suspect that there was a change of the family’s church traditions in every generation. Wars and famines were commonly seen by many as God’s methods of population control in the early part of the last century. That is hardly surprising considering that faith probably had not encountered a more barbaric age than that one before.
Accepting natural and fabricated atrocities as manifestations of God’s will would not be a widely-held belief any more. In fact, mainstream faith is often embarrassed about its past silences as attitudes, faith and traditions change.
Tides, times and traditions defy human control. Rather than forcing them we can easier travel with them. Every Christian may be said to have the Scriptures in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The ideal Christian would also access to the teachings of the great saints of their tradition. These writers record the growth and decline of the tradition over history. Knowing their story is tradition; replicating it is not. Learning from it is fruitful; knocking it is not. Travelling on it brings life; bearing it does not. Identifying some random period as a golden age and pretending we are still in it kills tradition. It is not compatible with a Gospel of life.
Some see tradition as an earlier fixed point in time. In fairness, tradition is something that evolves alongside a society and ties it to the familiar world of our parents. Our religious traditions are as fluid as the musical, linguistic, economic and political traditions of our community are. We expend a lot of effort debating whether a particular tradition is a hindrance or a help to faith and then try to freeze or speed its slowly-flowing stream accordingly.
Alone or together, the struggles of faith have risen and fallen throughout the human story. Practices die and resurrect according to need. Restoration is often a helpful solution to a challenge but not always so. Tradition is a living bond and deserves the respect that we afford to all life. Jesus did not criticise the tradition of the Pharisees, he confronted their inability to bring the wisdom and rituals of the past into their own times. Adhering to the traditions of the elders may sound admirable; it quickly descends to lip-service when that adherence is a defence for not doing good. Christ puts the living being at the centre of the tradition rather than the other way around. That was a genuine revolution. Perfection comes from the thoughts, words, deeds and actions of the individual Christian. Adherence to traditional practices can help to educate and inspire us to higher levels. A living tradition can enrich any life that wants to be enriched just as Christ’s ministry stressed time and time again.