I imagine many have heard the story, yet I believe it bears repeating.
A young married couple was cooking their very first Easter dinner. They had bought a beautiful ham and were so proud of hosting the Easter morning brunch. When the wife said to the husband, honey will you take the ham out and slice it, the husband was perplexed as he opened the roaster to find both ends of the ham had been cut off and were neatly tucked on the sides of the ham. He sliced the remaining ham, but the ends were too small to slice, so he placed them neatly on the platter.
As Easter dinner was underway, the husband leaned over to his wife and said…honey I am curious why did you cut the ends of the ham off and put them like that on each side of the rest of the ham. She looked at him and said….because that’s how Mom taught me to make ham and I wanted it to turn out perfect, and I think it did! He agreed and then said….maybe you should ask your Mom why she does ham that way? I’d love to know. So in the midst of the meal, the wife said to her Mom….Mom, do you like the ham? Mom said, yes, its perfect! The wife said, thanks I made it just like you taught me to! So Mom I have a question….why do you cut off the ends of the ham and put them on each side for roasting? Mom looked at her daughter and together they laughed, and Mom said, because that’s how my Mom taught me to cook ham. You know what, she said, when we get to the nursing home this afternoon, let’s ask her if she can tell us why she does that? Great idea and everyone continued to marvel at how moist and delicious the ham was.
When they got to the nursing home and everyone was gathered in Grandma’s room, everyone toasted the Easter day and then the wife, the grand-daughter, asked her Grandma….Grandma, the ham we had today was wonderful and I made it just like Mom made it, and when I asked Mom why she cut off the ends of the ham, she said it was because that is the way you taught her to make ham, can you tell us all why you cut off the ends of the ham and tuck the ends on the side as it roasts….Grandma looked perplexed and confused, and then she started laughing hysterically….she said….the only reason I cut off the ends of the ham and put them on the side in the roaster, is because the ham was too big to fit in my roaster if I didn’t!
Two generations……..,
just because, that’s what my Mom taught me……
and no one dared to ask!
Talk about the power of tradition! Kind of reminds us all of Tevia and Fiddler on the Roof!
Please don’t take me wrong….there is nothing wrong with Tradition….in fact sometimes it can carry meaning, purpose, and expression, that nothing else can carry,
And sometimes we do it, just because our parents did, or their parents did…or because the Priest does, or the Bishop said so…
What I have come to find out in my own life is that Tradition that carries deep and profound meaning are not threatened by inquiry or question, like bread and wine, water, oil, those symbols which have become tradition in our faith, they carry meaning in ways that I do not believe anything else can carry.
And yet other traditions, especially those defined by words, since they are so culturally conditioned, historically nuanced and contextualized when spoken and written, can often stand more in the way of their intent than they do in revealing their intent. Those kinds of traditions are often very threatened by inquiry or question.
I would cite our development as 21st century Christians, and the growing realization of the sometimes hurtful, limiting, and constricting ways we speak about God, especially when God is given names of one gender, the majority of male gendered attributes, and solely referred to in male pronouns.
We have grown as people to see and to appreciate that God is beyond gender, that the fullness of the experience of God has nothing to do with male or female, but rather with pure love, light and peace.
While our historical conditioning may color our expression and understanding of God, we are coming to realize as a people, that God is bigger than our words have often given credit.
I wonder how much of our faith, we have allowed to be dictated by tradition, which we were either too fearful to question, or tradition that we have come to believe must always be, just because in our life time it has always been?
Over this past year, I have been learning a little bit about the Aramaic language, the language which Jesus spoke, and I have found some very interesting things…like first and foremost it is primarily and idiomatic language. (we don’t literally hold our horses and it does not literally rain cats and dogs) Aramaic’s primary structure is expression through idioms, rather than the rigorous noun, verb, adjective structure/construct that finds expression in the English or romance languages. The thing about idioms is that unless we know the meaning, our translations will fall far short. Such is much of the experience of the early Church, while translating and retelling the stories of the early church and eventually them becoming written down, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, they were stories…elongated idioms.
So as we think about the reality of the power of tradition, especially in our religious or spiritual experience, I am going to invite you tonight to pray the “Our Father” with me, but not translated into English, but literally the translated idiomatic prayer that Jesus taught the disciples, from the Aramaic idiomatic language…..I think you may find it to be an enlightening and thought provoking experience.
Tradition…do we ever allow ourselves to ask the question or do we just do it because it’s the way that we have always done it? Maybe we even pray it that way, because that’s always the way we have prayed it…yet, maybe there is more?
I wonder?