In the Gospel lesson for Sunday Jesus quotes Isaiah, "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human traditions." This quotation reminds me of another quotation from a book on conflict management that says something like, "our gut theologies are usually never wrong but they are never right." I take this to mean that our instincts about life point to some kind of truth about how we are feeling. However, the general truths about how we are feeling are limited. Why? Because we can't see the whole picture (on a personal and global level). In the same way, human traditions are never totally wrong but they are never completely right. Human traditions are limited in the same way that gut theologies are limited.
Take for example the complaint of the Pharisees in the lesson for Sunday (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23). They had very specific human traditions in regards to the washing of hands, among other things. This human tradition was the way in which they were freed from being defiled by the unclean. Originally, this human tradition separated the Jews from the Pagans. This tradition developed during a time when the Jews needed to be distinguished from the Pagans. In other words, this gut theology helped the Jews survive during dark times. In that regard, this theology is not wrong. However, this theology is limited to a very specific people during a very specific time.
Our gut theologies help us get from point A to point B. Inherently, there is nothing wrong with that. In many ways, our gut theologies help us survive very difficult times. They give us what we need at a very specific time but they will never last. At some point, we will be confronted with a greater truth about life that destroys our gut theologies. In time, our gut theologies can become destructive to us and to others. Sooner or later, our gut theologies will become idols (i.e. fill the place where God means to be).
While my gut theologies might be right for a specific time and place, they can't possibly be right in the context of all time and place. While I might do something that is right for me and my family, I could quite possibly do something to negatively affects my community and the world. In addition, who am I to impose my gut theologies onto how others should live? I don't know their whole situation. I don't know what it is really like to be them--whoever them is. I am not God!
Our heavenly Father has given us a way through Jesus Christ and by the
power of the Holy Spirit to reframe our gut theologies in the context of
the entire picture, of a completed creation. More specifically, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, can put to death our gut theologies and give life to a theology that completes all time, a theology that is everlasting in nature. Like the Pharisees, I still may fall into the trap of hypocrisy. However, there is a way through Christ that is leading me into the knowledge of all truth and love.
I pray that I may daily walk in the way of Christ and be freed from my gut theologies--not because they are wrong but because there is a better way.
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