Most of us are probably following a number of traditions in our lives without necessarily being aware that we are doing it. Such traditions could include celebrating Anzac Day each year, eating Vegemite on toast, buying a meat pie at the footy, and enjoying a sausage at the local Bunnings sausage sizzle. These are all examples of customs being passed on from one generation to another.
Two other traditions are the umpire bouncing the football to commence each quarter of play in an AFL game (and to resume play after a goal has been scored), and the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer to begin each day of sitting in Parliament. Both of these traditions have been the subject of recent debate, with some calling for the abolition of both. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for a tradition to be challenged, especially in the case of that tradition being harmful, such as the practice of segregation in the Deep South of America.
Segregation was designed to separate white Americans from black Americans, and it was largely based on the premise of white superiority. It was at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement in America during the 1960’s, and it was the cause of much violence and discrimination. Thankfully the Civil Rights Movement was successful in bringing about the dismantling of segregation in America, although the sentiment of segregation probably still exists in the hearts of some in the Deep South.
Like the Civil Rights Movement, Jesus also opposed segregation. In his case, this segregation was between Jew and Gentile, and it was based upon a number of Jewish religious traditions that were designed to distinguish Jewish identity from non-Jews or Gentiles. One of these traditions concerned the eating of foods that deemed by the Torah (Jewish law) to be ‘unclean’ that would defile a person.
Jesus is recorded in the gospels of Mark and Matthew as telling a parable to illustrate that it’s not what enters the body from outside (i.e. food) which makes someone unclean, rather it’s what emanates from inside a person that is the problem. As Jesus says, acts of violence, and crimes such as theft and deception, together with malicious, arrogant and envious behaviour, all originate from a person’s heart. It is harmful actions and intentions like these that identify a person as undesirable. That person might have been Jewish, Greek, Egyptian, Libyan or one of the other ethnic minorities living under Roman occupation in first-century Palestine, but it was not their ethnicity that made them someone to be avoided; it was their character and actions.
So once again we have an example of Jesus transcending the human barriers that separate people from one another. Christianity, much like Judaism in the time of Jesus, has many traditions that divide and separate people. As Christians, we are called to pay attention to, and follow, the examples that Jesus has supplied us with, rather than necessarily following human traditions that have been established during the history of the church.
