Faith to Follow

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; John 9:1-41; Ephesians 5:8-14

Rev. Chris Harbin, Central Baptist Church—Lowesville, VA

02 March 2008

This week, AMC showed an abridged version of the 1971 film, Fiddler on the Roof. The film opens with Tev’ye telling us about keeping a tenuous balance in life by means of our traditions. When life is uncertain or troubling, we seek stability in tradition to give us a harbor from the winds of change that would upset us. As Tevye finishes his remarks, we begin to see that even his beloved traditions are on the verge of change. Is there a way to keep our balance on the precarious roof of life when even our traditions are in jeopardy? Can faith grant security beyond that offered by our traditions and heritage?

Tev’ye has some interesting comments to make about tradition. We like tradition, we fight against it. We crave the structure tradition brings into our lives, yet we struggle to break the bonds of those same structures. We hold fast to traditions, yet have no understanding of where they came from, nor why they were ever begun. Traditions are little problem until they are challenged. Challenge is often disconcerting, however. It causes us to enter unknown territory, where there is often great anxiety.

Samuel faced uncertainty and fear in the wake of Saul’s apostasy. It had not been long since Israel had demanded a king, and Samuel had warned against it. As the people continued to beg for a king, Samuel anointed Saul. For a while, things progressed well, but this new tradition brought about some of the problems Samuel had foreseen. Saul had been transformed from servant of God and the nation to servant of selfish power and ambition. God called Samuel to anoint another king in his stead.

It was a new tradition to have a king in Israel. A few year before, they had operated with prophets, priests, and judges. They had sought wise counsel and leadership independent of an established monarchy. A few short years into this new tradition of having a king like the other nations, Samuel found it difficult to obey God and counter they new system.

He yearned for what could have been. He grieved over the distressing results of Saul’s wayward actions. He burrowed in disappointment over his failure and complicity in Saul’s rise to power. He was bound to this new system and trapped. God called him forward. “How long will you continue to grieve over Saul? Will you allow structure and tradition to bind you, or will you follow my leading?”

Unwittingly, Samuel had fallen into the trap of supporting the new tradition of kingship rather than serving and following God. He had predicted that a king would lead the nation away from depending on God as King. He had not seen that he himself had fallen into the same trap. He gave more faith to the new monarchic tradition than following the lead of God.

The king was a visible icon. He gave structure to questions of authority, power, and direction. He crafted tradition as a visible means of granting security to the nation, even if he strayed from serving God and following Yahweh’s direction. It was difficult for Samuel to find courage to buck the system. It was easier to look at the king as shepherd of Israel, than depend upon Yahweh to provide for his needs.

Tradition is easier to follow than a dynamic faith in God. It is much simpler to do as we have been taught, follow the patterns already established, and go through the accepted motions of rites and rituals of faith. Following God requires a different quality of confidence, another means of security. Jesus had a knack for making people uncomfortable in light of religious tradition. His disciples struggled with tradition’s understanding of faith and life. They had trouble with Jesus’ lessons, but they were not alone. Jewish tradition was at odds with Jesus’ teaching on many points. Jesus challenged all to listen to God beyond the boundaries of tradition and religious observance.

The Samaritan woman of Sychar struggled between the answers of competing traditions. Jesus cast both aside as irrelevant to the real issues of faith. The man born blind’s experience offered a whole new interchange between faith and the security of received tradition. Jesus healed the man to teach the disciples that God’s grace went far beyond the bounds of traditional religious considerations of sin, its consequences, and the forgiveness of God. In the process, however, he ran up against tradition on a deeper level. Indiscriminate grace and healing upset the apple cart of accepted religious answers.

Rather than question their traditions in light of God’s action through Jesus, the leadership of the day chose to defend tradition for its offer of security despite the evidence of God’s action. Their reaction was not about seeking truth. Theirs was a response to a threat to the security based on tradition. “We know the truth. Our traditions have already defined it. Don’t confuse us with the facts.”

What they did not say, was perhaps more important than what they did say. They were afraid. The very foundation on which they based their security and confidence was being revealed as an unsteady footing. Tradition and heritage could not answer the challenge of God’s action through Jesus’ actions. It did not have room for the kind of grace, mercy, and love Jesus portrayed. It did not have room for God’s willingness to offer forgiveness, healing, and blessing apart from attention to legalistic observance. It was unable to accommodate the dynamic nature of faith Jesus preached and lived. They were afraid to let go of their sense of balance, security, and stability. Letting go would require beginning a wholly new life without those things on which they relied for assurance. It was easier to attack the messenger and brush aside the turmoil that addressing Jesus’ actions and claims would generate. Attack, rather than analyze, consider, and evaluate. Hold to tradition, rather than assess its value.

Jesus challenged them to a different quality of faith. He called for faith in God, not traditions about God. He called for living assurance based on God’s character of grace, love, and mercy. Their traditions were not evil. They were somewhat misguided. They had value, but were not focused on a vital, living faith in God. Jesus wanted more than they were settling for. He wanted them to follow God’s revelation of loving character. He challenged them to lay aside things of lesser value in order to embrace the world with the grace and acceptance of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness. He wanted them to depend not on the shaky security of tradition, but on the unchanging character of God.

Paul phrased it another way. Rather than embrace traditions whose purpose and structure we do not really understand, we should lay hold of the light of God’s revelation in Christ. Tradition must be assessed for its contributions of value. It should not lay claim to legislating our lives. It should not bind us into routines that inhibit us from following God’s direction. It should not be allowed to keep us captive to the past such that we cannot walk into the future God is calling us to embrace.

Would anything keep us from faithfully following Jesus Christ? Will we allow tradition, heritage, or grief over loss to keep us back from God’s mission to spread grace to the world? It is not to the patterns of the past we are called embrace. It is the call to faith in Christ Jesus. Any other sense of stability and balance is like fiddling on a roof.

—©2008 Christopher B. Harbin

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