Tradition Not Treason
Reflections on Deuteronomy 30.15-20
Founders’ Day
RCL Proper 23C
8 September 2019
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
30.15See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20loving the Lordyour God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Tradition or Treason?
I grew up in a household filled with two kinds of music: the music of the Church and the music of the stage. Church music came from my mother’s long involvement in church choirs, an involvement that I shared from the age of eleven or so. The music of the stage was also my mother’s passion, although my father was a fan as well.
One of my favourites was and remains A Fiddler on the Roof. I think that part of my attraction is the sense of identity with the struggles that Tevye and his family undergo in the early years of the twentieth century as questions begin to pound against the walls of the traditions and customs that surround not only Tevye’s community but many other communities at that time. There is a sense of doom that casts a shadow because you and I know that World War 1 in on the horizon, the Russian Revolution is stirring and the horrors of the Shoah, the ‘Final Solution’ are only thirty years away.
I cannot help myself when, in the opening number, Tevye sings his lament, ‘Tradition!’ It is a lament, you know, because in the space of the musical, tradition, as Tevye and his community know, will lie in pieces all around them. The moment that really touches me is a little later when he sings ‘If I Were a Rich Man’:
If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack
to sit in the synagogue and pray
And maybe have a seat by the Easter wall
And I'd discuss the holy books with the learned men,
several hours every day
That would be the sweetest thing of all
That would be the sweetest thing of all
Tradition is an interesting word. It comes from the Latin traherewhich means ‘to hand over, to pass down, to transmit’. In the English language traherehas given birth to two words whose connotations are at cross purposes: ‘tradition’ and ‘treason’. There may be some deep wisdom in how we distinguish between ‘tradition’ and ‘traditionalism’. We intuit that ‘traditionalism’ may, at times, betray ‘tradition’, commit ‘treason’ against the wisdom and insights that have been handed down to us from our ancestors.
Honouring our Tradition
Today we honour the tradition of the founders of this Parish. They came to this place bearing a variety of motivations, some we remember as honourable, some we remember as causing harm to the indigenous peoples who dwelt and still dwell in this fertile land. We fail the founders and we fail ourselves if we do not remember both the light and shadows of our past. We will not commit the treason of an unquestioning traditionalism.
What is the tradition that the founders passed along to us and that we, in our turn, are called to hand on to those who follow?
- We celebrate and hand on to others a tradition of faithful witness to the saving work of God made known to us in Christ Jesus through our life as a community of word, prayer and sacrament.
- We celebrate and hand on to others the resolve to face and resist evil in whatever form it takes, to be courageous enough to acknowledge our own part and to seek reconciliation.
- We celebrate and hand on to others our experience of the good news of God in Christ and invite others to join us as disciples of Christ and as agents of God’s saving purposes.
- We celebrate and hand on to others diakonia, a self-giving and self-sacrificing life of service for the good of the world around us recognizing that we are all children of one Creator, embodiments of one Christ, bearers of one Spirit.
- We celebrate and hand on to others the call to strive for justice and peace, ‘thinking globally and acting locally’ so that ‘all [God’s] children shall be free’.
- We celebrate and hand on to others the stewardship of this earth, the only home we have.
This is the tradition we have received. This is the tradition we live out in this time and in this place. This is the tradition we and every generation struggle to express in ways that speak and encourage those with whom we live, move and have our being.
Where are we going from here?
In 1859 the Rev’d John Sheepshanks used the tools he had to hand, space in the Customs House and a Chinese gong, to summon the good folk of New Westminster to join in the pilgrimage of Christian tradition. Not many showed up. But soon land was acquired and a building built so that the tradition could be shared and lived sheltered from the rain and the sun.
In 1865 the first church burnt to the ground and the opportunity was given to Parish to build a new church on the foundations of the tradition of Christian discipleship to which they were summoned by a gong and later by bells. The Parish became a Cathedral Parish with the prestige and the pitfalls of being the ‘Mother Church’ of the Diocese. New challenges were faced, traditionalism no doubt raised its head, but the heart of the tradition continued to beat.
In 1898 a fire roared up the creek valley to the east of us and the splendid Cathedral found itself in ruins again. Within three years a new Cathedral was built and consecrated. Our story and our participation in God’s mission continued. A Parish Hall was built, then demolished so that a new Hall could rise. The Bishop moved the centre of the Diocese to Vancouver, a loss that even decades later can arouse warm feelings. But the tradition of ministry in this place, the tradition of service to the needs and concerns of this city, the tradition of witness to the good news of God in Christ could not be undermined.
Ten years ago we began to envision a renewal of this Cathedral so that we could honour the tradition handed down to us, not just by the generation of 1859, but by the generations since the apostles and earliest disciples of Jesus. It has not been an easy journey and we are not yet where we hoped we would be ten years ago. But the ministry began continues because
The Spirit of the Lord is upon [us], because he has anointed [us] to bring good news to the poor. He has sent [us] to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. [Luke 4.18-19 NRSV alt.]
This is why we are here. This is why we seek to renew this place in the heart of New Westminster. This is the tradition on which we were founded. May God give us the strength, the perseverance and the patience to hand it on.
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