Tradition And Change

WED., JAN. 26, 1995, 9:00 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM HALL

Tradition AND Change… notice that I don’t offer it as Tradition OR or VS. Change. I see these both as important, and in the Christian faith, which is yours, these must be eternally balanced. There is a tradition that is a kind of bedrock to your faith. Yet you realize that this tradition has changed and developed over the years. What you recognize and accept as tradition is not fully ancient tradition.

Paul, My special apostle, whose letter you studied today, came out of a tradition which had been important to him. He was compelled by Me, the Holy Spirit, to change that tradition. But he wanted to establish a new tradition, that would be followed for the rest of the Christian era. He didn’t want his new “converts” to go back to Jewish traditions, but he also was not urging them to innovate further. The truth he gave them should become the new tradition, which would be kept and passed on.

Still, this Christian faith that I have encouraged has had many changes over the years, and will continue to experience differences in interpretation. Paul affirmed to the Galatians that in Christ, we are neither male nor female, but equal in Christ. Yet it is only in recent times, by a Biblical standard, that women have been ordained, to be elders and even pastors. In the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox traditions women still may not be priests, but the call for change is in the air (accompanied by the unsavory news that celibate male priests are not always the paragons they have vowed to be).

Paul says we are neither slave nor free, but equal in Christ. Actual slavery, in the sense of a person being the property of another, legally, is virtually gone from the earth, but some, even in your culture, live lives of extreme dependence on some others, on a job, often because of little learning capacity and adaptability. Are we all equally independent? In this independence do we choose to be dependent upon the Triune God? Hmmm. Are we actually equal in Christ?

Paul encourages the tradition that we are chosen by God to be His servants. A change to the predominance of free will is more compatible with your culture, and so this tends to dominate and become the accepted tradition. You remain in Paul’s tradition, which make you uncomfortable among your own brethren.

Christianity also has a long mystical tradition, and, of course, I am primarily responsible for this. I led Jesus, who was also Myself, out into the wilderness to be tempted. I conjured up a satan to tempt Me, and I guided myself to respond against these strange temptations. I came as a dove at My baptism, as Jesus. I died on the cross, as Jesus, but was back again less than 2 days later. In the meantime I preached and taught in the nether regions to people who had died without knowing Me. You have eternal life with Me, sin-free because of My death and resurrection. Yet spirit life has always continued on. Mystical rather than rational.

You hear Me, in a way called the mystical tradition. You write on greenish, lined paper, with a ritual pen, replenished from time to time with non-sacred cartridges. You are in a tradition which, however, is a change for most of your colleagues, friends, and brethren. Stay faithful to this tradition, say I. Paul would too… except when what you hear from Me sounds different than what he heard.