Matthew 5:31-37: a reflection

31“It was also said, ‘Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce,’ 32but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery. 33“Again you have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall perform to the Lord your vows,’ 34but I tell you, don’t swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God; 35nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can’t make one hair white or black. 37But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Whatever is more than these is of the evil one.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses the practice of swearing oaths. People made elaborate oaths, swearing by heaven, by earth, by Jerusalem, to guarantee their truthfulness, which implied that their ordinary word could not be trusted. Jesus cuts through it: Do not swear at all; let your Yes be Yes and your No be No; anything more than this comes from the evil one. His point is that our plain word should be so reliable that no oath is needed to back it up.

Notice what Jesus is calling for: simple, complete truthfulness. The elaborate oaths existed because people's ordinary words were not trusted; you needed an oath to know someone meant it. Jesus calls for something better: a truthfulness so consistent that your simple yes and no are enough, that your plain word can be relied on without any oath. Let your Yes be Yes and your No be No, he says; be a person whose word is simply true.

That is a searching standard for our speech. We live in a world of exaggeration, spin, and unreliable words, where people say things they do not mean and promise things they will not do. Jesus calls his people to a plain, reliable truthfulness, so that our word can be trusted at face value, our yes meaning yes and our no meaning no. Be a person of simple, dependable truthfulness. Let your word be reliable enough that no oath is needed to back it, your yes a real yes and your no a real no. In a world of unreliable speech, be someone whose plain word can simply be trusted.

Lord Jesus, you taught that our word should be so reliable that no oath is needed, that our Yes should be Yes and our No, No, our plain speech simply true. Make me a person of that simple, dependable truthfulness. In a world of exaggeration, spin, and unreliable words, keep me from saying things I do not mean or promising what I will not do. Let my word be trustworthy at face value, my yes a real yes and my no a real no, so that no oath is needed to back it. Root out of me all falseness and evasion, and make me someone whose plain word can simply be trusted. Let my speech be honest and reliable, to your glory.