A Time to Work and a Time to Rest

When I was younger I worked in a factory. It was monotonous work to say the least. Day after day I stood in the same place doing the same thing over and over again.  It became brainless work for me.  I no longer had to think about what I was doing.  My body became a robot, and I became quite dull.  I spent most of each day daydreaming about anything and everything.  I wanted to be any place but there.

One day I was leaning over the machine I was operating and began to drift off to sleep.  When I did my hand slipped and fell against a fly-wheel and got caught on a screw, I summer-salted through the air and landed on the floor.  The side of my right hand was gashed to the bone.  I was rushed to the hospital for immediate attention.

Life can become very monotonous in the church as well.  Traditions are great things to adhere to but when they lose their purpose they can soon lull us to sleep.  We begin to feel like robots with no sense of satisfaction, spiritual or otherwise, when doing the things we do.

I once asked a man at a church meeting why we should do something the way he demanded it to be done.  He said, "Well, that's the way we have always done it."  I said to him, "But why do we do it this way?  There must be a reason."  He turned to the person standing behind him and asked, "Can you remember why we've always done it this way?"  The person behind him couldn't remember either.

There is a time to work and a time to rest, and the resting is for a purpose.  It is to take a breather so that our faith does not wax cold.  It is also to take stock of why we are doing the things that we do.  When the purpose is long since dead and forgotten then it may be time to pray for something new - a new way to accomplish the same purpose.

A part of the maturing process of any church is in its ability to easily change with the flow.  We should not be afraid of this process because it is God-given.  Once the church adopts a tradition for doing something and can't remember why, then it might be time to change before it's too late and that particular church dies.

I think this became the case for the religious leaders of Jesus' day.  They had done things the same way for so long that doing them became more about themselves then it did about God; and when traditions become more about us than God, they become nothing more than man-made traditions.
Hopefully we will never go as far in our traditions as the religious leader of Matthew 23 in the "Seven Woes" passage of scripture.  In verse 27 Jesus said, "Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside."

Who wants to feel like a whitewashed tomb?  I certainly don't!  Therefore, let us be diligent to know when to give it a rest!

Blessings,

-Leo