1. Good morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: Today Gospel reading enters into the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s now that Jesus, after establishing the baseline of the Beatitudes, He begins to mine for a deeper understating of the OT Law – the Torah. He now begins to offer a reinterpretation of them.
3. The first reading from Siriac, otherwise known as Ecclesiasticus, stresses the responsibility that comes from human freedom of choice. Ben Sirach reminds us that if we are to obtain life we must observe the commandments. This uncompromising tone plays a perfect backdrop, as it were, to what is to follow in our Gospel reading when Jesus reinterprets uncompromising prohibitions against 6 cardinal sins.
In our Responsorial Psalm we hear echoes of that theme again in the words, “Blessed are those who follow the law of the Lord.”
I’ll talk more about our Second Reading at the conclusion of my Homily.
Finally we turn to our Gospel reading from the Book of Matthew. It’s here that Jesus insists that He has not come to abolish the law of the prophets but to “fulfill” them – to bring them to completion! His reinterpretation of the prophetic declarations takes them to a whole new level of spiritual insight. His reinterpretation takes us beyond the letter of the law to the spirit behind it! It’s this deeper truth that is not being observed or taught by the scribes and Pharisees.
Jesus gives us what amounts to 6 case studies in which he radically extends the law and, if we’re listening our understanding of who Yehweh – God Almighty, really is. We’ll tackle 4 of them this morning and the remaining 2 will be in our readings for next Sunday.
In typical Rabbinical fashion Jesus begins, “You have heard ‘Thou shalt not . . . but I say to you!’ He’s setting Himself up as an authoritative interpreter of the law. He cites a ruling from the Torah – the first 5 books of the Bible – and then modifies, radicalizes, or extends it in some fashion.
So over against the prohibition “you shall not kill . . . ,” Jesus addresses the anger in the heart of the person:
“But I say to you,
whoever is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment;
and whoever says to his brother, “Raqa,” –imbecile, fool or blockard!
will be answerable to the Sanhedrin;
and whoever says, ‘You food,’
will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,
And there recall that your brother
Has anything against you,
Leave your gift there at the altar,
Go first and be reconciled with your brother,
And then come and offer your gift.
Jesus then goes on to cite “adultery, divorce and false oaths” in today’s reading.
Now this morning I’m not going to exegete each of those reinterpretations. Instead I want us to focus on the fourth one against “Oath breaking!”
Please focus with me please on chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew beginning at verse 33 and concluding at verse 37:
Let me read once again:
Matt. 5:33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Now before we proceed I need to clarify something. In these reinterpretations of the law Jesus is telling us that it’s this deeper understanding of the law that will prevail in the Kingdom of God. In other words, the spirit behind the law is what must be the rule and not just the outward observable actions.
You see God sees all – nothing is hidden from Him! He sees into the very heart of each and every one of us.
So while you and I may not murder someone physically we may murder them in our hearts and it’s this murder that God, King of His Kingdom, can always see!
Don’t commit adultery – but I say to you don’t even look at a woman with lust in your heart because you have, in fact, committed adultery in that lustful look!
St. Paul reminds us to
. . . lead every thought captive to the obedience of Christ! (2 Cor 10:5)
Wow that’s that heaven on earth will be like. Can you imagine such a community?
Every word and every thought are as Christ would speak and thing and then every action would be as Christ would act.
Yes, Jesus is the gold standard! We must become more and more like Him in thought, word and deed.
Now back to our original focus on “Oath Breaking.”
Matt. 5:33 Jesus said, “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Don’ break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I tell you, Don’t swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
You see Jesus never swore an oath. When He was challenged by the High Priest to swear by the living God whether He was the Christ, Jesus simply replied: “The words are your,” refusing to invoke the living God. Aren’t we meant to imitate God?
The early Church took this prohibition extremely seriously. In fact, St. James put it at the top of the list of practices to avoid. Apparently, it was only when the Church and State because entwined three hundred years later that policy changed. The Church preferred to avoid tension with the political authority which required oaths as a supposed guarantee of truthful speaking.
One Commentator by the name of Michael Tate put it this way,
“It’s clear that our Lord was establishing a new sort of society – The Kingdom of God – within which truth-telling was of paramount importance, where there is no two tiered way of speaking the truth. Straightforward, unadorned language will do. Truth telling should issue simply from the character of the person – the truthful person ‘truthes.’”
I love that last phrase “The truthful person ‘truths.’” Ha! Fr. Michael Tate is an Australian. Australians love to invent new “silly but truthful” words!
This prohibition explicitly commands us not to make oaths but to let our yes be yes and our no be no!
“Will you love your wife and honor her until death separates you” Yes or No!
Will you serve the Church of God on earth? Yes or no!
You see - an honorable man or woman’s “yes” is “yes” from a redeemed and transformed heart! I need to add “most of the time!”
I’m very privileged to have met and formed deep friendships with the members of my Rector’s Council. Dn. Dave, Fr. Eric, Jimmy Miller and Scott Schwabe are men about whom it can truthfully be said, “Their yes is yes and their no is no!”
What an honor it has been to serve with such men. Now, I hasten to add, that this is not to say that the rest of you can’t be trusted! Not at all but It seemed a tood time to remind you all that you have such people steering this church into the highlands of the Kingdom.
Are they perfect – about as perfect as I am and Randi – let me ask you candidly “Am I perfect?”
To which she resoundingly responds “Absolutely not!” ha!
Let your yes be yes and your no be no!
How many of us lie – not only to others but to ourselves. Do you know that there is not a “Liars Anonymous” in existence! It think that’s a little silly or perhaps it’s tact recognition that in this world “lying” is the way of life and were we to eradicate it the superstructure of our culture would begin to break apart.
Think about it – what makes one man richer than another? Yes, hard work, but what he knows and the other doesn’t. Were I to go to such a man and ask him to tell me what I don’t know about a certain stock or a certain business deal. Do you honestly think he will tell me?
No way! He might hedge or just simply tell me a lie but the fact is that I won’t leave him any more enlightened!
But in the Kingdom of God there are no secrets and no lies! All the dead cat are up on the table!
Can you imagine such a world?
Can you imagine this working in your family? . . . day in and day out from this moment on?
That’s the standard that you and I are walking towards if our Christianity isn’t a sham.
Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your King? Yes, or No?
And He’s not going to ask you to make an oath to Him! He knows that your Yes will be yes and your no will be no. Or sadly He may know that your yes is a “maybe yes” and your no is a “maybe no.”
How many of us have learnt from bad parenting and poor subsequent behavior that “Yes” can more often than not MEAN “No?” and “No” has no meaning at all behind it?
What terrible consequences bad spiritual formation has on us and our society!
I’m going to resign! Said President Mobarick – and this according to our State Department and that resignation turned into one more equivocation! He lied! It’s as simple as that! His yes in not yes and His no is not no!
Now let’s get personal!
Is your “yes” yes and your “no” no?
Now let me clarify that question a bit. I’m not asking you if you’re always absolutely integritious – always absolutely truthful! No . . . but I am asking you this question, “Are you always trying to tell the truth” no matter the consequences and when you don’t do you feel very very bad and seek to put it right in the end. So that, even in the end, your yes is yes and your no is no?
Another way to getting at this is to ask this question,
“Have you become comfortable with equivocation?” or more specifically, “Have you become comfortable with untruth or lies in any area of your life?”
In you answer yes to these questions then you are cooperating with the devil.
Let me read the last verse of our Gospel reading:
Jesus said, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matt 5:37
But if you are striving to make your “yes” truly “yes” and your “No” truly ‘no” then what St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in chapter 6 verse 9 is true for you:
No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
We who are trying with all of hearts, minds, souls and strength to reveal our true love for God by making our yeses “YES” and no noes “NO!”
Amen and Amen!
Let’s pray . . .
