I heard a story once about a church with a curious practice on Sundays when they observed the Lord’s Supper. The congregation would enter the sanctuary to find the trays containing the bread and the juice (it was a Baptist church, so no wine, more’s the pity) covered by a clean white sheet. When it came to the proper time in the service, a pair of deacons would come forward and with solemn dignity very carefully lift the sheet, fold it, and set it aside. After communion, the deacons would reverently unfold the sheet and place it back over the elements.

In the course of time the church called a new pastor, and after watching this ritual a couple of times he (again, it was a Baptist church, so the pastor likely wasn’t a she) asked about it, but no one seemed to know why they did it that way. “That’s just the way we do it,” was the most common answer he got. “We assume there is a good reason for it.”

Well, there was . . . fifty years earlier. After some digging through the church archives, the pastor finally solved the mystery. It seems that in the early part of the last century, before the church installed air conditioning, they would keep the windows open during the sweltering summer months. The windows had no screens, so flies would come in by the dozens and settle on the bread and the little cups of grape juice. To contend with this problem they developed the practice of covering the elements with a sheet until it was time for the Lord’s Supper. Over time this practical expedient took on sacred overtones and became part of the liturgy on a par with the sermon and the Supper itself.

In Matthew 15 Jesus confronts the scribes and Pharisees about a more harmful tradition they have elevated to an almost sacred practice. They have just criticized Jesus for allowing his disciples to eat without going through the meticulous hand-washing practices that have developed over the centuries. Jesus knows these practices are irrelevant to one’s standing with God, so he basically ignores their criticism and levels one of his own. “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God” (vv. 3–6).

What he describes here is the practice of corban, by which one could dedicate part of one’s income to God—it could be used to support the priesthood and the temple operations and for no other purpose, sort like a super-tithe. But since the scribes are themselves a part of the temple hierarchy, this practice is rather self-serving. Worse, they use it as an excuse for not caring for the needs of their aging parents, which Jesus interprets as a violation of the fifth commandment. Tradition has won out over God’s intention, and some members of the community suffer as a result.

Traditions can be innocuous, like the sheet-folding in that Baptist church, but they can also become sinful when they take the place of true worship and service of God, or when they lead to the slighting or marginalization of God’s children. We need to be rigorous in examining the things we do in church and in the life of discipleship to see if we are honoring God or we have substituted an expendable tradition for an essential practice. It’s not always easy to tell the two apart, but we can do it if we try.

The church in my story, now that it knows the origin of the sheet-folding tradition, can safely retire it, as it is a non-essential element. Holy communion, on the other hand, is a core practice of Christian worship. Serving the poor is an essential practice; having a beautiful church building is inessential. Worshiping God is essential; having a pipe organ (or guitars and a drum kit) is inessential. Let us always keep our eye on the ball and not confuse the necessary with the dispensable.