Sermon for August 29, 2021 - The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B, The Rev. Elise A. Feyerherm

Jesus said, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” These words have been used as weapons for millennia – by Christians against Jews, by Protestants against Catholics, by evangelicals against the Anglo-Catholic wing of Anglicanism, and by many others against those who practice their Christianity in a different way.

 In Deuteronomy, Moses seems to corroborate this perspective when he tells the Hebrews, “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.” Implicit in both of these proclamations by Jesus and Moses is the idea that it is possible to distinguish between the commandment of God and human tradition, sifting out the weeds from the wheat, as it were, and that once we have done the sifting, we can choose God’s commandments over what humans have added.

 I think that this process of sorting out what comes from God and what comes from human tradition is more messy and complicated that it has been made out to be, and that it is worthwhile on a regular basis to ponder it in our own lives as individuals and as church communities. Over the past year, worshiping together mostly online, having to reimagine our worship life and our corporate work as disciples of Jesus, all this has made me pay attention to our traditions in a new way. Our worship has been in many ways stripped down, our life together distilled into what is absolutely necessary and possible, and much of what we had known dropped away, until all we had was the core. A barely sustainable core, but a core nonetheless.

 As a model for the future, that distanced, distilled version doesn’t work very well. As Isaac reminded us a few weeks ago, our bodily, incarnational presence together around the table of the Eucharist is absolutely central to who we are and who Jesus calls us to be. But the experience has helped me to think about the relationship between our traditions and the essence of God’s call to us.

 Here are a few things I am learning, and want to keep learning:

 First, pretty much every element of our faith is a mysterious mixture of God’s commandments and human tradition, from Holy Scripture to the Book of Common Prayer to our particular style of worship to our experience of personal private prayer. Because of that, our life of faith is a constant discernment, probing for the leading of God in the midst of mixed material and messages.

 Sometimes we hear the commandments of God clearly: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.”

 At other times we have to dig for God’s wisdom in the midst of human traditions that block our way – “Wives, be submissive to your husbands” or “Those who commit adultery must be stoned to death.” Our relationship with God’s commandments and human tradition is a continual process of interpretation.

 Second, the human traditions that we have are by and large full of wisdom, because they are born of centuries and in some cases millennia of communal experience. People just as earnest and wise and dedicated as we are found these traditions helpful in their journey toward God, and we can learn a lot from them.

 The other day as I was driving home I heard a story on the radio about David Brown, who lost his sight at a young age, and is running the 100-meter dash in the Paralympics in Tokyo. Blind competitors run with a sighted guide – they are tethered together with a short cord attached to each one’s finger. They run stride for stride together down the track, the sighted guide keeping the runner focused straight toward the finish line.

 Our human traditions are or can be a little like this. We do our own hard work of running toward God, but we are companioned by people and practices that have longer, broader vision, because they have been at it for so long and been guided by the wisdom of so many others. Our guides are not perfect, not God, but they run with us, keeping us from veering into dangerous territory.

 And third, our traditions are only as good as their capacity to keep us oriented in the right direction, focused on loving God, ourselves, and neighbor. If we forget the connection, or forget the ultimate goal, our traditions may pull us off track.

 Over the past year, I’ve been thinking about this in terms of our worship – in particular, about the practice of the passing of the peace. What I’ve noticed has made me realize how my own practices – the human tradition – could pull me off track, like a running guide that isn’t quite paying attention.

 The passing of the peace is rooted in the commandment of God – Jesus said, “Peace be with you; my own peace I give you, not as the world gives” and “Be reconciled to your neighbor before you offer your gift at the altar.” Jesus’ instructions remind us that offering each other a sign of peace before celebrating and receiving communion is first and foremost a sign of the radical and unconditional love God offers us, and especially calls us to reach out to those from whom we are estranged.

 My own practice of the peace does not really reflect this. I tend to approach first those I know and like. There is a hierarchy in terms of how I greet people – from a hug at the top, to a handshake, to a brief nod, to a passing glance. Even if I know I will have a chance to catch up after the service, it is tempting to insert a reference to some in-joke or experience only we know about. The peace becomes about me, about how I feel about people, not about the peace of Christ that binds us together.

 During the pandemic, the peace had to change. We shared peace in the chat on Facebook or Zoom. As unsatisfying as that was, I noticed something – peace was shared not to individuals but to the whole community. “Peace, St. Paul’s!” was the common refrain.

 Those of us in the sanctuary, and now the larger group that is able to gather, we still must share peace outside our family units without physical touch. It is painful not to be able to grasp each other, to connect in that tangible way. But there is also a gift here. Our peace is less hampered by that hug-handshake-nod hierarchy. We greet each other equally, with a reverent bow, with the dignity each deserves and from which none should be excluded.

 There are many other traditions that need to be examined in the light of God’s unconditional love – the human tradition of binary gender; the traditions around voting that have excluded people of color and the poor. We know that our human traditions must be guided and formed by the greatest commandment, to love God with all we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves. These trying times call us to examine our traditions in the light of love that is so much deeper than our emotional attachment to one another, and that is showered upon the stranger and the enemy most of all.

 We are tethered by the finger – or perhaps by the soul – to our human guides, as they help us stay true to the goal of union with God and with each other. Jesus’ words are for all of us – not that we have to discard human tradition, but that we understand that its purpose is to keep us rooted in and accountable to God’s love.

 Glory to God, whose power, working in us,

can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church,

and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.