Broad leaf lettuce, vine ripened tomatoes, and purple sweet potatoes caught my eye. Arranged like an artist’s palette, the tomatoes, lettuce and an assortment of pole beans and radishes framed the sweet potatoes – Stokes Purple. They have been commercially available since 2006, but are not widespread in our super markets. These were huge by any standard, and any two, picked at random, would make a delicious lavender casserole. Such is the greeting you receive when you ascend the few brick steps to Alexandria, Virginia’s Market Square on a Saturday morning. For over 260 years, local farmers, along with artists and artisans and bakers and butchers, have brought their goods for sale in the square. There is an apocryphal story that local farmer George Washington gave the land to the city for just this purpose. When the market was established in 1749, Washington was a magistrate for the local court and a trustee of the city. He was among those who approved and oversaw the construction of the new city hall and courthouse in 1752 and argued for the continuance of Market Square – the place where he sent his own farm products for sale.
The farmers market had fallen on hard times by the 1970s. Fortunately the city’s commitment to maintain the market as a local tradition was strong enough to ensure its survival, even though only a few venders set up their stalls on Saturday mornings for a handful of local residents. The 1980s saw resurging interest in healthy food choices and in locally grown produce. The city responded with new rules for the market intended to bolster its popularity and to ensure that the market tradition would remain strong. Today, the Alexandria Farm Market, held every Saturday morning throughout the year, is the oldest continuous farm market in the country, a delight for residents and tourists alike. There were no purple sweet potatoes in 1749, but I’m sure that their pale-yellow cousins were arranged just as artfully; business is, after all, business.
The outcome could have been different. Reduced popularity and support by local residents could have spelled the end of the market. There are many readily available alternatives. But these alternatives lack two essential elements – history and tradition. Such connections with the past speak to our need for both meaning and stability, assuring us that we are part of something of enduring value. Innovation and modernization ensure that we are not mired in the past, but agents of change need not abandon the core essentials that define organizations and enterprises.
There is a movement within American Christianity to redefine what it means to do church. Groups like “Fresh Expressions” are open to new ways of expressing religious faith in the public square. These non-traditional “churches” experiment with different modes of worship, different worship venues, and different organizational structures, and within both mainstream and evangelical churches there are calls for radical rethinking about all aspects of worship and discipleship. All of this is in the cause of modernization and the perceived need to make church relevant. Much of it is singularly ineffective.
What is missing is a vision of the future that includes a deep and abiding connection with the past, with those who have gone before us in the faith. It is not only possible, it is imperative that we modernize the church. At the same time, it is a terrible mistake to think that we can do so by severing ties with tradition. When Isaac returns from the lands of the Philistines to the land of his father Abraham, the writer of Genesis tells us: “Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham; for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham; and he gave them the names that his father had given them.” [Genesis 26:18] It is again time to re-dig the old wells. The traditions of the church – traditions in hymnody, traditions in preaching, and traditions of liturgy – are rich wells that can be dug again in every generation. They bear the names our fathers have given them for a reason. They present the timeless truths of the Christian faith that remain relevant for every generation.
There were no Purple Stokes sweet potatoes on market shelves in 1749, but there were sweet potatoes. Lavender or pale yellow, they make the same casserole.
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