focusing on tradition

Just this past Sunday at Simply Church we looked at the passage in Mark 7 where the Pharisees were complaining that Jesus' disciples did not wash their hands (Jews perform a ceremonial hand washing before eating) before eating, condemning that they were eating with "unclean" hands. Then, Jesus rebukes the Jews that they had let go of God's commandments and are just holding onto tradition because the Jews were only focused on following the letter of the law instead of focusing on the purpose of the law which points back to a relationship with God.

This sort of problem is still prevalent now, and as Pastor Tim said that sometimes even going to church on Sunday might seem more of a tradition rather than an authentic desire to worship God. The danger is that attending church becomes another routine and it does not increase our adoration toward our mighty God. This escalates to other areas such as serving and participating in church events. I have personally seen ministries and serving done out of tradition rather than a given desire by God and this has often resulted in people getting burnt out and lack of fruits.

As an individual who is actively participating in many church events and ministries, I feel that it is easy to fall into the attitude of self-righteousness and condemn others who are not as active or who do not follow the traditions set by the church. This narrows my mind in the understanding that God can work outside of the domain set by traditions. (Please note that I am not stating that traditions are bad, they can be good things but when we focused on traditions above God, we are missing the point and leads to other sins).

In the recent Olympics, two Tunisian athletes Habiba Ghribi (silver on women's 3,000m steeple chase) and Oussama Mellouli (gold on men's 10k swim) won medals for their country and it was big because there aren't that many successful Tunisian athletes. Actually Ghribi's medal is huge because the women on Tunisia are fighting for equal rights. Unfortunately there are some extreme extreme religious groups that expressed that their medals should be taken away because both of them have broken certain religious rules (her sport wear is apparently too revealing, and the swimmer was drinking juice during fasting season).