Friday's Thoughts

Tradition is a resource of faith. It's one of the four resources of faith we hold as United Methodists. How we use it is important and the sermon will look at the use of tradition.

We are recipients of tradition and realizing that we come to understand that what is right with the world and what is wrong with the world, it didn't begin with us. We take and learn from those who have gone before us. We receive their understanding of ritual and truth and we employ it in our lives.

We do have a responsibility to use tradition that has been handed to us in a way that makes it relevant to our day. Tradition becomes treacherous when we fail to contemporize it. It becomes stagnant and stale. We will want to apply tradition handed to us and build on tradition and establish traditions for our day.

There comes a time in life when we realize "it didn't begin with us" but "it didn't end with those who gave it to us" and "we must pass it on".

It isn't age related and the earlier we think about this the better it is for everyone. If we realize it doesn't end with us then we can think about future generations and we can live our lives to pass it forward. If we all lived our lives that way it would be a better world because our concern would lead to the generations yet to come. It impacts the way we spend our money, our concern for the environment, the use of resources, and all other areas of our commerce. We become stewards of what we have as we work to ensure others who come after us have a claim on it.

Tradition is what we receive, what we mold, and what we pass on.

What are you doing with tradition? How have you received it, how are you molding it and how are you passing it on?

If you have advice or thoughts about the write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to have others read your thoughts click on the box below.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Charles Schuster