Sometimes, finding the "good news" in the texts we read is a little like trying to find a needle in a haystack. We find a caution toward our behaviors: "Sometimes there is a way that seems to be right, but in the end it is the way to death," and a caution toward traditionalism: "Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?"
One of my professors has said, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." Are our liturgy (the rhythm of when and how we do things in church and in life) and our traditions marks of how we live, or are they things that ultimately point to something that is not longer alive?
If it is we who make our traditions, our dogma, and our liturgy alive, then they are ultimately destined for death. If it is God who breathes life into our traditions, into our dogma, and into our liturgy, then they are, indeed, alive. It is Christ's living that inspires our lives and it is the breath of the Spirit that inspires the life within our church. Whatever our liturgy, whatever our tradition, it is not we, but the Spirit, who makes it live.
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