Does breaking Sabbath tradition mean we can break Scriptural tradition? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Richard Hays is a quite different writer from his son. I think the elder seems to go after the more emotional appeal in this chapter than I usually saw his son go after. He also has some of his own personal testimony in here.
So in this chapter, he is talking about the Sabbath tradition and how the Pharisees and the scribes held to it so strongly. Many people would show up at the synagogues in the time of Jesus in need of healing. Jesus would heal them and the Pharisees would be upset. Why are they coming on the Sabbath to be healed? Come on another day.
We all understand Jesus’s position on the matter. If it’s okay to lead an ox to water or to rescue a child on the Sabbath, why not tend to a man in such distress? If a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath, why not heal the whole man? It makes sense. Yet Richard takes matters a step further.
In the silence of these scribes in the synagogue, I see a reflection of my own longstanding reticence to speak about the question of same-sex relationships in the church: uncomfortably aware of aching human need but constrained by my interpretation of scripture from responding with grace or generosity. And so I kept silent.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 130). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Okay. But doesn’t Scripture, not just tradition, speak on this?
That means that actions done for healing and human wholeness should be welcomed rather than forbidden, even if they appear to violate a particular scriptural prohibition.
Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (pp. 133-134). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Readers of this blog know that I am divorced. It is hard. I had a therapist here tell me “Would you like to go a week without thinking about your divorce?” I told him I would like to go a day without thinking about it. I carry a loneliness with me every day. I see it when I see other couples together and when I go to bed at night and there’s no other human next to me.
So, if I followed what Richard Hays says in this chapter, then I could say, “Dating is such a long and arduous process and I’m no good at it. Therefore, to bring about healing and human wholeness, I should be allowed on Tinder and go and just find someone I can hook up with for whenever I get extremely lonely. Thankfully, because of Richard Hays, I don’t have to worry about what the Scripture says because this is more important.”
I won’t.
My allegiance to how God has revealed Himself in Scripture and reason as well both tell me that that would be a bad move. They tell me that women are to be treasured and that sexual relations are to be saved for a marriage covenant between a man and a woman. They do not deny that my life as a single, divorced man is hard, but they also assure me that God is with me in the process.
Would I love to find someone again? Every single day. I pray it happens every night. May God bless me with this, but if He doesn’t, I will not violate what He has said because true human happiness and healing can never be found in that route.
Richard Hays thinks he is showing love to people. He is not. Hs is leading them on a path to destruction.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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