Are you a person of integrity? Can people take you at your word? There was a time when people said that ‘their word was their bond.’ A bond was a financial guarantee that one posts in order to assure the fulfillment of a promise.
At the beginning of Lent we read from the Sermon on the Mount. I have always been intrigued by the statement "Let your yes be yes and your no be no." (Matthew 5: 33-37)
Most of us easily assume this is simply about taking oaths and it is. But, perhaps it goes deeper?
In Jesus' day an oath was a promise to accept certain consequences if something was not done. Hence it was often used as an assurance that a person would do what they said. A vow, however, was a promise concerning the consequences if something was done. Thus vows were (and are) often made in the belief that they encourage divine favor.
The opening formula, “you have heard it said,” reminds us that Jesus was about to present well known material. Even though these words were familiar, ears would have been cued that Jesus was about to do something different with them, to go deeper.
Oaths were given to secure the reliability of a person’s words and, in an economy where bartering was commonplace, a transaction bound by an oath should have been trustworthy. How much more so when it came to oaths made by people to God.
Yet that was not the situation that prevailed within First Century Judaism. Legislators had, down the years, developed the concept of a hierarchy of oaths in which only those that mentioned the divine name were considered binding.
In First Century Judaism people were using a loophole provided by the need to mention God's name to indicate a special status amongst oaths: where swearing upon anything set-apart in God's name (set apart for holy use) was considered binding. By contrast, oaths sworn upon items that had not been set aside for God's use could be ignored or forgotten without consequence. Jesus presents a corrective teaching in his sermon on the Mount that should give us pause in Lent as we consider the oaths we have made.
Your agreements, your word(s) give something to others and represent a very real exchange. Failing to keep your word steals something from the person to whom you have given it. When your ‘yes’ becomes ‘no’ or your ‘no’ becomes ‘yes’ then you steal another's trust in you, if not something greater. When you guarantee your word by swearing on something for which God has responsibility, then, if you break your word, you (in some sense) steal God’s reputation. God’s decisions and promises are unchanging, so if we follow his example our ‘yes’ or ‘no’ are enough.
In our Baptismal covenant we answer many questions (vows) in the affirmative: "[Yes], I will, with God's help."
As we look at our lives, our intentions, our words during Lent, where has the distinction between yes and no been blurred in our lives? Has the forthright conviction and promise made in Baptism been put on the back-burner or forgotten in our busy lives? It is the central vow/oath of our lives that governs all we do?
As our book reminds: our commitments to one another are grounded in such truth and mutuality that we mean what we say: "Let your words be 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'. This is the constitution of Kingdom people.
O God of Covenant, our Divine Promise Keeper:
Deliver us from the shackles of "Yes, but"
and free us to sing songs of miracles.
Open our hearts and minds to your creative word,
which calls into being things that don't yet exist
and brings life that is extraordinary and new.
Amen.
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