Holy Tradition

Yesterday I had lunch with about a dozen folks at The Oaks, one of the three United Methodist retirement communities in the state (the other two are in Greenwood and Florence).  I couldn't help but smile when I noticed that it was being billed as "Lunch with Pastor Mike".  Suddenly, I felt like a a star, despite the fact that the only goal I had was simply to spend some time with and enjoy the company of the residents of The Oaks who are members of (or are affiliated with) the church I serve.  What better way to do that, we figured, than around the dinner table?  It was a wonderful, if not fattening, experience as we shared great food, heart-felt prayers and a lot of laughter.  We also shared my cell phone filled with pictures of our seven month old little girl, Anna Faith.  As it turns out, humility set in quickly because she--and not her Daddy-the-pastor--was the hit of the hour!

At any rate, I had a great time, as did everyone else.  But beyond that, I couldn't help but get the feeling that even though I had gone there to "give" something to them, they were giving much more to me as around the dinner table, they shared with me years of collected knowledge and experience of serving Christ and his Church.

Of course, if I ever want to eat with them again I dare not add up the total number of birthdays at the table yesterday, but suffice it to say that those dozen or so people represented a lot of years on this earth.  And more importantly, a lot of years in the Church.  There were two retired pastors I admire greatly, Ernest Heape and Phil Jones, along with former Sunday School teachers and youth leaders, choir members and Bible study leaders, prayer warriors and founders of mission agencies.  All of them together representing not merely years, but rather, centuries of faithfulness and service to Christ!  Which in this day of low attendance and even lower committment in every denomination, is a lesson they can surely teach us all.

Which brings me to this thought...

In the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Church, there is something known as Holy or Sacred Tradition.  They understand it to be the deposit of faith that Jesus left with his Apostles to be passed down from one generation to the next. 

We United Methodists also hold tradition in high regard, as it takes the best of what the saints who have gone before us have learned and experienced in their years of living for Jesus and then passes it along to us.  Helping us to not only know God in deeper, richer ways, but also how to understand the Bible more completely and how to serve and follow Christ more faithfully.

Why do I bring this up, you ask?  I bring it up because yesterday at The Oaks, I was surrounded by such a group of saints: a great cloud of witnesses who spent an amazing number of years learning about, serving, following and living for Jesus.  And who, at a dinner table, passed that living faith down to me.

In my multi-faceted role of husband/father/pastor/chaplain/Christ-follower, I need to remember that I am also somehow a part of that holy tradition, and it is my task--indeed, it is the task of all of us who call ourselves Christians--to do the same:  to pass the faith that was "once delivered to us" along to everyone we can.