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The Paradox of Reality

 

by john o'keefe

 

Any culture, or group, which spends time defending and demanding their traditions, is dying.  They believe, even in their subconscious, that what lies ahead is not as great as what was part of their past.  This is true of all cultures, all civilization, and all instructions.  If we look at the institutional church, which is neither true nor sacred, we see how it is holding fast to traditions, and refusing to look to the future, we see an instruction on the verge of collapse. 

 

The current instructional church has become totally irrelevant to human life; that is not to say that God, spirituality, Jesus and his teachings are irrelevant, because they are not.  While the instructional church holds less and less value in the human heart and mind.  People are seeking a deeper relationship with God – more God, less institutional church.  It’s funny how that relationship works.  What is even funnier, to me, is this fear of change.  Let’s examine this “fear” in light of two very important realities:

 

Realization One:  God never changes.  Now, our perception of God may change, and often does, but God never changes.  In the case of our understanding of God changing it is not God that changes, but our views, of how God is relating with us as His people.  Jesus never changes, he is the same today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow.  As with God, our perceptions may change and grow, but Jesus is always Jesus.

 

Realization Two:  Everything Changes.  Every aspect of our life is centered on change – every aspect of our life; there is nothing in our lives that is outside the reality of change.  No part of who we are and how we live does not change; none of us live in the same body we did 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, yesterday.  We have moved for oil lamps to electric lights, from horse and buggies to cars, from steam ships to jet planes, from the 19th to the 21st century. 

 

The Paradox of the Two Realities:  I love the paradox that everything changes, but God never changes.  It’s just cool to think in a mind-blowing reality of God.  While some see this paradox as a problem, I see it as refreshing and enlightening.  When we say, “God never changes, everything changes” moderns hear, “God (and all things related to God like doctrine, church, traditions and liturgy) never change, all things (except those things related to God) change.” 

 

You see, in our paradox the operative word is “change” but moderns see the operative word as “God.”  Many people connect God and the institutional church, and because “God never changes” that includes the institutional church.  Some believe the two are not to be separate, but in reality the institutional church has nothing to do with God, and I believe that God has very little to do with the institutional church.  But because of that misunderstanding of the paradox people say, “The church never changes, while everything else changes.”  The idea of a non-changing church is foreign to me.  Traditions, I have found, have little to do with my relationship with God.  Most, traditions are meaningless today; while they may have had great meaning to those who started them.  They lost their meaning to the most people outside the “inner circle.”  I remember talking with a member of a the church and I asked they “why they did what they did” and the only answer I got was – “I’m not sure why, it just has a lost of meaning to us all.”  How can anything have a “lot of meaning” if you have no idea what it is and why you do it?

 

A Traditional Christmas:

Before you get all righteous let me ask you, how do you define a “traditional Christmas?” I was speaking to a friend a while back concerning church traditions and he likened them to “Christmas Traditions” and how they hold great memories for him.  He was telling me, as a way of proving traditions are important, that one Christmas he was visiting with his wife’s family and they served ham for Christmas dinner (one of their traditions) and he said that it did just not “feel” like Christmas (his family had fresh pork roast for Christmas dinner).  He felt that his Christmas was ruined because his traditions were not kept.  This is why he no longer goes to his in-laws for Christmas dinner.  His traditional understanding of Christmas was lost because of the experience. 

 

This got me thinking, our family always had turkey and all the fixings – we love turkey.  But we spent a few years in New Jersey as I was working on my MDiv at Drew and we spent holidays with family.  Each Christmas we would spend time at Aunt Gail’s and we would have all the fixings, and even one extra thing “lasagna.”  Over time my daughter’s tradition became “Christmas Lasagna with all the fixings.”  This got me thinking deeper – the tradition we enjoyed over at Aunt Gail’s was not food, but family and good times.  We made the mistake so many people make – we replaced the function (food) of the tradition with tradition of function (family).  What should be seen as friends and family, became food and football. 

 

We do this a great deal in the church when it comes to traditions.  We forget why we do them, and we just keep the mechanics of the event going.  The “doing” of the tradition out lives the “reason” for the tradition.  Most Institutional Churches keep the traditions alive to the point of where the tradition becomes absurd.  We move traditions to the point where what we do is more important then why we do it.  Because the intuitional church spends time striving to maintain the past and they miss the opportunity to connect to the future.  They miss the ability to travel in a new direction.

 

New directions vs. old traditions:

I believe most of the debates concerning traditions centers on the way we see things.  Most Christians see our faith as “the faith of our ancestors.”  We see ourselves standing looking back at those from our past and believe we need to keep “what they did” alive for our faith to have value.  I do not see Christianity as “only of our ancestors.”  In fact, for me looking back is only a reference point and not a distention as it is for many in the church.   I believe we can respect out past, but we must not live there.  If Christianity if “the faith of our ancestors” what value does it hold to my future and me?

 

Scripture teaches that we cannot put new wine on old skins.  It does not explain why, because people living in the first century knew why.  By putting new wine in old skins you run the very real reality of causing the old skin to split wide open, not only ruining the skin, also wasting the wine.  Too many churches are striving to do just that – put new wines in old skins.  There is no way a church can minister to a postmodern people if it is steeped in so much tradition it can even turn around to see who’s in front of them.  I remember “talking” with Brad Cecil, the Lead Pastor at Axxess, on the Postmodern Theology e-group about the coming of the “New Amish.”  It seems that the church is birthing a “New Amish” style group based on the 1950’s and 1960’s (the “good” and “true” years of the church) – they will split and form “closed” churches where everything, doctrine, preaching, style, wording, clothing and all will tend to the 1950’s and 1960’s.  You can see it happening, if you look closely.

 

Closing:

Traditions are fine, if they are done for a true reason and everyone knows the reason.  To simply do something because it was done before is just wrong.  I love churches that claim they want to “increase the church attendance” and yet they refuse to change to accomplish the goal.  Remember, the definition of insanity is “doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.” 

  

 

  

  

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