(Audio)
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.”
We desire to speak with more certainty than our station as creatures makes possible. We seek to give more power to our words than our words truly have. We act as though, through our effort with words, we can control the future or the opinions of others. We almost use them as if they had magical powers.
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Our misplaced oaths crash against the rocks of a reality that is beyond our control. Because of an oath Herod had to behead John the Baptist (see Matthew 14:7) even though he liked to listen to him speak. Because Peter so wanted to convince he accusers that he had nothing to do with Jesus he did not simply speak against him but even took an oath (see Matthew 26:72) that he did not know him.
God is concerned with the truth, because he himself is the truth (see John 14:6). But we take the truth lightly. We can recognize that we are doing this because we don't really want to involve God as a witness at such times. We make the source of our certainty some created things, heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or our own heads. But created things can't provide the certainty we ask of them. We would be afraid to involve God at such times because we know that our words might come back to haunt us and, if so, God would be a witness against us.
There are things we can swear. In those cases we swear by God and we do not swear lightly. We, like the martyrs, can give testimony that we do believe in Jesus Christ. The Sacraments are covenant oaths where Jesus guarantees what we ourselves could not promise. We can swear to tell the truth in court and rely on God for assistance in doing so. We can swear ourselves to our vocation, to marriage, or the priesthood, or consecrated or religious life, and rely on God to help us fulfill the duties of our chosen station in life.
Perhaps the difference between valid oaths and those against which Jesus is warning is still unclear. The oaths which we must not swear are those where we ourselves are trying to make up for the lack of certainty in the facts of the matter, or in our persuasiveness. The oaths which are not condemned are those situations that are serious enough where we must be sincere, but can only do so by relying on God as our help. He is the guarantor who signs those checks.
Our own lives are meant to be marked by such sincerity that simple our simply 'Yes' and 'No' are enough, that we never need to go above and beyond that precisely because of the integrity which marks all of our speech. In our personal lives we ought not need a higher level for times when we 'really mean it.' When society does require oaths of us we exercise the caution and holy fear that is appropriate.
Elisha is permitted to go and say goodbye to his father and mother before following Elijah. Jesus demands something more of us (See Luke 9:59-60). He insists that once we meet him our entire lives must be so different that the old priorities no longer have precedence. Of course we are still called to honor our parents, but we can do this better precisely by following Jesus. This is the integrity, the unity of purpose, that allows us to be sincere in speech, to take oaths unless sparingly, and with utmost conviction.
I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.”
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot.
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