May 28 / Mark 7:1-13

Mark 7:1-13

“Notice what you notice.” Once again, Mark with his details…, spending two verses (3 and 4) highlighting the marketplace as a source of uncleanness – much more vivid, especially if you’ve visited Middle Eastern marketplaces!!

Jesus’ focus on tradition in this passage calls to mind our Anglican history of “Scripture, tradition, and reason”, first attributed to an Anglican priest, Richard Hooker, in the late 16^th century. When I first heard this triad I remember thinking that the Catholic Church held strongly to the first two, but did not encourage reason among the laity. If there was any reasoning to be done, let it be done by the clergy and their higher authorities. But I also felt that Protestant churches had their own problems, with what seemed to me their rejecting (or reducing) the importance of tradition in our Christian heritage. There is value in holding to all three, Scripture being the most prominent, but not elevating tradition over reason or reason over tradition.

Tradition became really important to me when the Episcopal Church was faced with the divisive issue of the election and consecration of a homosexual Bishop. This “icing on the cake”, this “straw that broke the camel’s back” served to move our local body away from the Episcopal Church into forming our own congregation, St. Andrew’s, now part of ACNA – the Anglican Church in North America. And as both “sides” sought to reason their way through Scripture to justify or reject this New Hampshire outcome, I remember the phrase that brought peace to my soul – that our St. Andrew’s position was to embrace the truth of Scripture and “our traditional, historical faith”. We need tradition; we just can’t let it overwhelm Scripture or reason.

Blessings!