Today’s Scripture Reading (June 14,
2015): Genesis 29
On February
2 of any year, a groundhog is removed from his burrow and forced to go outside
and walk around outside while thousands of people look on. The Groundhog’s Day tradition
says that if the groundhog sees his shadow, then we are in for six more weeks
of winter. But if it is cloudy and the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow, then
spring is coming early (admittedly, where I live, six more weeks of winter
after February 2 is spring coming early, but that is beside the point.) The
most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania. And someone did a
little checkup on Phil’s accuracy and found that he was right about 39% of the
time (insert your favorite weatherman joke here). There are a couple of things
that seem important to note. One, a coin would seem to have a better chance of
predicting the weather than Phil, and two, why a groundhog? Why are we looking
down at the ground to see whether or not the sun is shining? The answer, of
course, is that for some reason it is more fun to watch Punxsutawney Phil walk
around than it is to see a coin flipped or see me walk out of my house and
check for my shadow. (However, a variant on the tradition where the President
walks out of the White House on February 2 and wanders around the Front White House
lawn, with the Secret Service in tow, and checks for his shadow might be a real
crowd pleaser.) But essentially that is the only reason why Groundhog Day
works; because it is fun. There is no other purpose.
And we get
that, but not all traditions are so benign.
Some can be harmful. The five second rule for dropping that donut on the
floor might work for mom’s clean kitchen, but you need to be careful where else
you might exercise it. Germs have steadfastly refused to obey the tradition. I
admit that I have never really felt bound by tradition. Being bound to
something because we have always done it that way sounds to me like a stupid
reason to do something. Having said that, if you do something twice, you have
established a tradition. And if the tradition works, great. But if, for any
reason, the tradition stops working, throw it away and find a new tradition.
It seems
that at this well, Jacob has encountered a tradition. The reason for the tradition
was probably rooted in the fact that the shepherds were young and that the rock
was heavy. So to remove and replace the rock from in front of the well took
several of the young shepherds to accomplish. And so the tradition of waiting
for all of the sheep and shepherds to arrive at the well before removing the
rock began. The tradition was practical and it worked.
But Jacob
wasn’t a young boy. Some experts seem convinced that this incident is an act of
superhuman strength caused by Jacob’s love (at first sight) for Rachel. But
there is no real reason to assume that. Jacob was old enough to roll the stone
away himself, and old enough to realize that the tradition, at least in this
moment, wasn’t working. So he threw the tradition away in favor of the tradition
that if someone at the well is strong enough – because they are old enough – to
open the well, then the well can be opened
So Jacob opens
the well and allows Rachel to bring her sheep to drink. Did Jacob intend to
impress Rachel? Of course, that is exactly what Jacob was doing. And not only
was this his intention, but it also worked. And that was all that mattered to
Jacob.
Sometimes we
need to examine our own traditions and make sure that they are still working.
Too often in the church we treat our traditions as if they are the way that we
get to Jesus. But the reality is that our Christian traditions at one time
helped us to get to Jesus, and so we kept them. But if they stop working and we
just aren’t having fun anymore, then we need to find new traditions that work.
And that is all that should matter to us.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis
30
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