I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago while ministering with my friend Pastor James Conley in rural Delta, Colorado. James pastors Delta First Baptist and also a very small church in nearby Austin, conducting a service in their building on Saturdays. As we walked into the Austin church, it looked like it would be just a few people, so I asked James if I could speak while sitting down. He assented, so I opened my sermon by “reading from an unrelated text, Luke 4.16 – 20,” which ends this way:

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. (Luke 4.20, ESV, emphasis mine)

I fit my actions to the text and sat down! It felt like a more natural way to talk with about 10 people. When I finished the sermon, I had the Halverson Benediction prepared. It went perfectly with the sermon, and I asked Pastor James if I could go ahead and pronounce it. He said, “Why not?” So we all stood, I pronounced the benediction, and James dismissed us…

Except no one moved. There was a guy sitting at the piano ready to do “the last song.” Which they did. All four stanzas. There’s no underestimating the power of tradition. It trumps flexibility every time!

Jesus seemed to be more into flexibility…so James and I got to flex. Who says you can’t have a song after the benediction?!

On a Sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?” And Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” (Luke 6.1 – 4, ESV)