A few years ago, my aunt made a sort of a recipe scrapbook. She took recipes from my grandmother, along with pictures and written memories, copied and compiled them into a format that each of the children and grandchildren could use. It was a wonderful present – and humorous too. For example, under the section on desserts there is a photo montage of my aunt and myself celebrating our birthdays. We are there sporting a variety of styles, from Farah Fawcett wings in the seventies, asymmetrical cuts and perms in the 80’s, the plaid of grunge in the 90’s and the no-nonsense mom haircuts of the last ten years. And in the midst of it all sets a German Chocolate cake. My aunt and I, you see, have birthdays one day apart and so have always celebrated a family birthday together with my grandmother providing a German chocolate cake - year after year – and now that she is gone, my mom has become the cake baker.
That’s a little bit of a strange family tradition, though probably not the strangest. Families, individuals and groups seem prone to creating traditions, ways of ordering life together that provide connection, structure and order. I’m sure each of you here today could probably name a tradition or two from your family. Often times they are centered around holidays, gatherings and celebrations, like oyster stew being served up on Christmas Eve. Sometimes they reflect a heritage. I had never heard of duck served for Christmas or Christmas Eve or eaten so many kolaches until I pastored a church with a Czech heritage. Even church families create traditions, from how communion is served to what fellowship events take place, to how we see ourselves in conversation with the world.
The lectionary passage for this Sunday happens to be a grounding center for one of those traditions of the church – prayer, most specifically the Lord’s Prayer. Found in both Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ answer to his disciples request for teaching on prayer has become a unifying core for Christians throughout time and place. Not only is it embraced across denominational lines, even in the less liturgically focused churches it is one of the things most often taught in Sunday School and used regularly in worship. Used in personal prayer and devotions, it is also oftentimes one of the last things to be let go by people suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia or those in the last moments of life. There is a certain beauty in a tradition that centers us in a reality that is bigger than the “right here, right now” of ourselves, that honors God’s involvement with many people throughout history, that binds us together with one another, and that celebrates a richness of many layered meaning.
But last week I was talking about garage sales, if you remember, the church and its struggle to make sense of and relate theologically and practically to changes in society and culture, science and technology. How churches were trying to decide what they needed to keep and what they needed to let go to a different era. And the question this week becomes, what do we do with our traditions, our heritage in the midst of that sale?
Some churches, with a small “c”, have decided to set it all out on the tables. The Willow Creeks, the Saddlebacks, and so many like them have created “seeker services” where the assumption is that people attending have little to no background in liturgy or theology. There is no organ, no stained glass, a very different worship order than we are used to, and a different style and emphasis in preaching. Many symbols that we take for granted, even the cross, are not used, nor found, in the sanctuary – or as they might term it “worship space.” And to some degree they have experienced numerical success. Just a few months ago, the Gazette ran a piece on a Brethren church here in town that had moved out of its white steepled building, changed its worship order and its name, and had more than doubled in size. I must admit, there has been more than one time in my ministry that I’ve been helping serve a struggling, smaller church in decline and felt more than a bit disheartened as one of what my first congregation dubbed the “Morton Building” churches seemed to have no end of new members.
But is that the only way?
Diana Butler-Bass in her book, Christianity For The Rest of Us, holds forth another option. Studying mainline Protestant churches for over three years, she identified ways that a number of churches across denominational lines were remaining faithful to traditional practices and values but yet were vital, multigenerational communities of faith. Centered around Christian practices such as hospitality to the stranger, healing for the broken, justice for God’s people, beauty in the midst of worship, contemplation and centered prayer, along with five others, these communities found their center in a common story – and that story became the foundation and guide for their future ministry and mission. The how we do things became less important than the what and why. Butler-Bass uses the term, “re-traditioning”, and I think the best way to explain that term is to go back to the German chocolate cake.
Why do we continue to have that cake? It’s not my favorite kind of cake, I might go with a Boston crème or a carrot cake. It’s not my aunt’s favorite cake either. But though we have this tradition, a birthday party with shared German chocolate cake, it’s not about the cake. The cake represents family and laughter and food, getting together for parties, all sorts of parties not just the big holidays but all of them and everyone’s birthday too. It’s about how things are celebrated with every aunt, uncle, cousin who can make it, those related by blood as well as marriage – as well as boyfriends, girlfriends, and in our family, various canines. The German chocolate cake is homage to Grandma Grayce who would gather us all together in her home – and then promptly tell us to get out of the kitchen and stop picking at the food because dinner wasn’t done yet. Will it always be German chocolate cake? Maybe not, in fact we now offer other dessert options because German chocolate is not a favorite with her great-grandkids. But we will hold on to the important parts, the gatherings, the family, and remembering Ronnie and Grayce, even if our dessert changes.
A joke is told about a woman who is preparing a ham for Sunday dinner. She slices off the ends of the ham, puts it in the pan and slides it into the oven. Her daughter asks her – why did you cut off the ends of the ham? I don’t know is the answer, that’s the way my mom always did it. So they go and ask the mother/grandmother – why did you cut off the ends of the ham? I don’t know is the answer, that’s the way my mom always did it. So they go to the grandmother/great grandmother. Why did you cut off the ends of the ham? Because we had a small oven and that was the only way to make it fit.
Re-traditioning is the art of looking for the why. It is looking at our traditions, practices, the way we’ve always done things and asking, “What is at the heart of this?” “What makes this important for our faith and life together?” And then, having discovered the answer to that question, looking for ways to share that guiding center with newcomers and the coming generations rather than getting bogged down in the “how things have always been.”
Re-traditioning is looking at the Lord’s prayer and thinking about the meaning behind the words.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. God is related, connected to us, concerned about us like a father or mother to a child. But yet, God is also hallowed, holy, more than the limitation of human relationship and interaction. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This places the focus of the prayer, not on our needs, but on the fact that there is a greater will and hand at work in the world, a will that would have things look different than what they currently are. Give us this day our daily bread. Ask for nourishment, but just what you need to sustain you. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Life in this world takes a lot of forgiveness. We need it and we need to give it to others too. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. God will look out for us. Actually, each petition can be unpacked into an entire sermon. I believe First Lutheran did that earlier this summer in a ten-week sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer. And if you look into the broader context of the prayer we see things that we cherish as a community of faith – the disciples desire to pray, to be in communication and conversation with God. We see an assertion that God also desires that relationship, that conversation – we’re not talking about some distant deity here. We also hear that God desires good things for us – and knows what we need, no matter what we might ask.
Re-traditioning says that these things, this relationship with God through prayer, is more important than whether we say trespasses or debts or sinners. Oftentimes when teaching confirmation, I lead the students through a rewrite of the Lord’s prayer, and this week I looked high and low to find some of my saved examples because many of them were beautiful words that startled you into considering what the prayer might mean and signify beyond the codified words we say each week.
Some of you remember me talking last week about the Doxology, and how as the first notes hit the air, 5000 Presbyterian youth stood to sing those familiar words together. What I didn’t mention, however, is that those first notes were played on electric guitar with the rest of the band joining in to fill. Or that a variety of screens projected scenes of abundance and God’s presence while the voices sang on. What was important was not the musical instrument or setting, but the spirit of thankfulness to God and the connection to each other through the words of the song.
Every family shifts as new members are added, through marriage or friendship, adoption or birth. It takes a little flexibility and grace, and a little effort to determine what is important and how that can be shared. Our calling as a church – particular church – is to embrace that effort. To neither throw out our heritage, nor to just blindly cut off the ends of the ham. We are called instead to balance that fine line between honoring what we’ve received, and being open to differing expressions of worship, fellowship, education and mission that still ring true to the core of what we believe and the heart of who we are as a church.
I invite you to join me now in the prayer that’s been said by millions…but as you pray each petition – make it your own. Amen.
