How do I hold tradition?

This past week I had the privilege of helping with the Rolling the Stone Away Conference in St. Louis. A conference for LGBTQIA saints and prophets, approximately 300 gathered to honor our history and empower our future. It was inspiring!

During one of the panel discussions, a responder asked us to consider how we hold inherited religious traditions.

How do we hold our religious tradition/s?

A tight grip, closed off from God’s ongoing transformation?

A fist, used to punch that which we don’t like?

One of the reflector’s comments:

“There is little more authoritarian Church hates more than an open hand.”

Deconstructing institutional conformity and rigid orthodoxy doesn’t know what to do with open hands, open hearts, and open minds. Christ, radical openness par excellence, testifies to the transformative power of authentic believing – not in traditions that demand obedience from the top down but movements of faith inspiring from the bottom up.

Jesus didn’t hold his tradition tightly or use it as a weapon against others. He celebrated the best of it while calling it beyond itself. Openness to encounter. Expansive in vision. Rooted in relationship.

Another important question surfaced: What is worth holding on to? 

What is worth retrieving? What is redeemable? What is heartful and hopeful?

God is there.

Inevitably, we first deconstruct that which no longer fits in order to clear space for what’s emerging. Let us not fear the unknown. Tradition anchors where we’ve come from, but it should not disrupt the newness of where God is leading us today.

Open hands. Open minds. Open hearts.