Pinches and Punches

Traditions and Religion.

Matthew 15:2  

“Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition?”  New Living Translation (NLT)

My wife and I had the opportunity to visit England back in 24 B.K. (before kids). That was in 1990 and 1991. While there visiting my brother, one of his friends lightly pinched me on the shoulder and lightly punched me and said, “A pinch, a punch, for the first of the month; white rabbit!” It was the first day of July that year. It is a traditional thing they do, and saying “white rabbit” means that I could not pinch or punch him back.

I saw a tee shirt in a store the other day that had a slogan on it that read; “I know I’m not wearing green; pinch me and I’ll punch you.” It had a gray graphic of a mean looking Leprechaun, gritting his teeth with his little fists balled up on it as well. I could have used that shirt all through my life when encountering the traditional pinchers on St. Patrick’s Day. One day a year we forget to wear something green and the pinchers seek you out. We should combine St. Patrick’s Day with April Fool’s Day then we could say, “look, your shirt is green; not.” Then we could pinch them.

Many of these old traditional things are harmless. I guess people got bored just living life and came up with something to liven it up a bit. Traditions have a way of taking root in cultures just as religion does. There is not a lot of differences between religion and traditions. For instance, Jesus never made a big deal about washing your hands before eating. He never used hand sanitizers or anything. Germs; that is why we wash our hands; germs. An age old tradition that is supposed to protect us from harm. Wash your hands all you want but eat poison and you die. That is sort of what Jesus was saying about the Jewish hand washing tradition. “It is that which is on the inside that will kill you, not what is on the outside.” Religion attempts to wash us from the outside, in; Jesus washes us from the inside, out!  Get your heart cleansed first and then worry about your hands. Germs kill the body; sin destroys the soul.