Tradition and Hypocrisy

Mk 7:1-8

 

1. Today we celebrate 490^th anniversary of the Reformation that Martin Luther started in 1517. It was the movement of the Holy Spirit to reform and purify the Church of Jesus Christ, for the Roman Catholic Church had been seriously corrupted and secularized at that time. The reason why we remember the Reformation is not simply to criticize the Roman Catholic Church to justify the Protestant Church but to reflect and reform our church continuously so that we would stop our corruption and secularization, because “if the salt loses its saltiness… be thrown out and trampled by men.”(Matt 5:13)

2. Even though the Reformers raised some serious corruptions like the sale of indulgences by the use of unbiblical fictions like purgatory and limbo that recently they gave up, their principle was “Back to the Scripture!” The Church of Christ had started under the persecution of three centuries, but when the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian and made Christianity as the national religion, the Church became suddenly rich and powerful and the Roman bishop self declared himself as the only invincible Vicar of Christ under the heaven as equally powerful with the Roman Emperor. Moreover, the greater danger came when the Pope declared himself as divinely inerrant and in addition to the Word of God he added his word as another source of truth. This system of double authority, Scripture and church tradition, invited serious corruption of the Church for a thousand years while the church piled up extra-biblical traditions by the authority of the Pope. At the time of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was hard to be called the faithful and obedient Body of Christ. Of course, it was initially founded on the Scriptural truth, but now suffering with heavy accumulation of human traditions.

3. The situation was similar with that of Jesus when the Jewish Church was full of human traditions, totally secularized. Its result was against God and against the Son of God. They counted 613 commandments in Torah, that is, Pentateuch, and they made many detailed rules for each commandment, producing the massive rabbinic collection of rules and regulations in the system of Talmud. It was called “the tradition of the elders” and it gradually occupied dominating authority in the church, even higher than the Word of God. So, Jesus strongly rebuked and condemned such practice: “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men… You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!”(8-9)

4. The formation of tradition and heritage is natural and even blessing, and why did Jesus condemn it? It was because they gave more importance and authority to their own traditions than the Word of God. As a result, they worshipped themselves, their own value and tradition, than God. Do we have our traditions? Yes, we have many, such as our by-laws and denominational church laws, mission statement and objectives, worship and liturgy style, organizational chart and officer system, budget structure and activities, church culture and fellowship pattern, food and clothes, and others. They are not clearly designated in the Scripture, but we created or adopted them. If we worship them as divine and absolute, we may be similarly condemned by Jesus our Lord. The Word of God is absolute and eternal, but our traditions and cultures are relative and temporary. We need freedom and flexibility from such laws and regulations, cultures and systems. We should not be slaves of such human traditions and systems whether we made them or we received them from our former generations or other sources. If they are no longer effective, we need freedom and courage to change them for the best system of operation to obey the Lord.

5. Jesus condemned such traditionalism as hypocrisy: “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”(6-7) It is hypocrisy, because they insists that they worship and obey God, but in fact they worship themselves and despise God. We need examine ourselves ceaselessly and critically whether we really worship God or our idea of God, or even ourselves as God. It is hypocrisy, if we insist that we pursue holiness and selflessness while we pursue our selfish egoism in fact. We have to purify our prayer, opinion, talk and behavior.

6. Jewish traditionalists criticized Jesus, because some of his disciples did not observe their tradition to wash their hands before eating. It may be a healthy behavior, but when it becomes a forced rule it becomes hypocrisy and unfaithfulness because Jesus freed us from laws and regulations. As far as we are enslaved by laws, we cannot be spiritually free in the Holy Spirit. We may need some helpful rules and regulations for training and discipline, but we need to train and discipline our God-given freedom, most of all, to truly grow in the Lord. They pursued external and physical cleanness but Jesus demanded internal and spiritual purity: “Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.”(15-16) Whatever good work we do, or whatever beautiful word we speak, if it does not come from our heart, it becomes hypocrisy. Human traditionalist cares external behaviors, but the Holy Spirit cares internal motif of love. We need to go back to the basic and original of the Gospel. Jesus saved us by paying the debts of our sins and asked for us to love God and our neighbors including our enemies. We exist to love, to love God and our neighbors who need our love. If we lose this central teaching of Jesus, we are not free from human traditions of religion and our every effort becomes hypocrisy as a result.

7. In remembrance of the Reformation, let us go back to the starting point of our faith. Let us refresh our dedication to the Lord. Let us recover our first love. I hope that you go back to the starting point even in your marriage, your relationship with your parents and children, your study or business, your career, your church office, and your life. Whenever you lose your way, whenever you lose your passion and hope, go back to the starting point. It is the principle and lesson of the Reformation. Whatever accumulated between then and now, let us have freedom to reform our life and our church! Amen.