Superstition as religion: who do you worship?

A few weeks ago I tweeted this:



Now, I'd like to further explain this.

I don't know how superstitious you are or your grandmother is, and I don't know how prevalent superstitious beliefs are among Christians, so this may be a post only for my family and a few others.

I never considered my family to be very superstitious growing up, but after years of funny looks, and "what are you talking about?"s I guess I had picked up more superstitions that a good number of my peers (though I'm definitely not the only one).


Photo by california cowgirl1 on Flickr

So what if I knew by a curious, young age which direction a black cat had to cross your path for it to be bad luck, with which hand and over which shoulder to throw salt when you spilt it, and the meanings of the different directions to hang a horseshoe over your door? Not to mention my collection of lucky rabbits' feet, and the fact that I would never, ever walk under a ladder. It was never a big deal, at least not to me.

Then again, it's what I grew up with, so it was normal. The fact that my great-grandmother had to enter the house from the same door she exited made perfect sense to me. (I really don't think this is related to my unwillingness to get out of bed on the opposite side from which I entered, though it is similar. Getting out on the other side just feels wrong, like when you turn halfway around one way you have to turn back around the other way. It feels wrong. Oh, that's just me?).

However, there is one superstition that has always been treated as a big deal, one that's always been taken very seriously. One that caused my mom to freak out on more than one occasion when my dad or sister almost broke it. This is the superstition that really got me thinking.

This is the holiday laundry superstition.

The basics are that you cannot launder on certain holidays, Easter, Christmas, New Years? Thanksgiving? Eh, might as well be on the safe side. As I stated earlier, I was very curious about these things, so I asked my mom, "what would it mean if you did do laundry? What would happen?" Not wanting to burden me with such a big scary responsibility at a young age, she would not tell me the consequence, just to not do it. Eventually, she did tell me, and if you don't want to know, this is your last chance to quit reading.

She told me that if you do laundry on one of those days, someone in your immediate family will die. I've also heard it put like this: If you do laundry on this day, you'll be doing laundry for a corpse by the end of the year. I believe this is said when applying the superstition to New Year's Day, but what is New Year's Day?

New Year's Day is what got me thinking about this the most. I couldn't do laundry on that day, but the next I could, even though it was the Sabbath. I thought to myself how if I were living under the laws of the Sabbath, this would probably be forbidden, they would have done such tasks the day before, the day on which I told myself I couldn't because of a superstition.

Why are we giving so much reverence to this man-made celebration? By giving a man-made superstition such control, we are honoring it with the type of importance that the Jewish people were commanded to give to the Sabbath. And it's not just about New Year's, this also goes for all the other holidays this superstition is observed on and all the other superstitions that may be observed on any given day. We are putting man-made observances before God-made observances. How is this different from making idols to worship?

To break it down: By observing superstitious rules we made up ourselves, we are treating them in a way that gives them honor, but what are we honoring? God intended his people to observe His Holy day and give Him honor. Yet, we tend give more importance to these superstitions than we do to God's ordained Holy day. It is almost like we have replaced the Sabbath with idols. God told His people certain things they were to do and not do on the Sabbath as well as during other important times like the Passover and different feasts. We decided to make up our own rituals (superstitions) that have nothing to do with God. Superstitious practices could even be related to the specific practices of different types of sacrifices, but I mainly want to relate it to commands we are still supposed to be observing today. Like the 4th commandment.

Yes, since I am a Christian and not Jewish, I know we are no longer under the law, but under grace and while strict observance of the Sabbath was given exceptions by Jesus Himself (we are supposed to put peoples' needs above rules, spiritual work.), we are not to disregard any of the commandments, the principals still apply. See also, this page on keeping the Sabbath.


Photo by two stout monks on Flickr

After thinking about this for sometime, I see that we observe superstitions in a much more serious manner than we observe the Sabbath. Think about it, do you observe the Sabbath at all? Whether the Sabbath to you is Saturday or Sunday, or from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, how is that day any different from its weekend partner?

If there is no difference, or if the only difference is that you attend a church service, I would hope that you would take some time to pray and think over this, I know that I have.

I feel that the way we observe the Sabbath today needs to change, it's the how I'm still not sure about. If you have any suggestions or special ways in which you observe the Sabbath as a Christian today, please share them by commenting on this post.