Saturday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time 

This Is My Word, Spoken From Your Heart 

There is something about us that doesn’t attach much value to our words or to the words of others. We feel that a human word as such is not very convincing; that a word of promise, unsupported by anything else, does not inspire trust. We seem to take the position, consciously or not, that neither our words nor our persons are all that sacred in themselves.  

We back up our statements with oaths because we don’t think our own words or our own persons are sacred enough. We swear by someone higher than ourselves, or by something we hold to be more sacred than just our given word. And the Old Testament commandments seem to support us in this tendency: all they say is that we must not give false testimony against our neighbor, and that, if we do swear to anything by God’s name, we must fulfill what we promise and not use His name to swear to anything untrue (Exodus 20:7 and 16; Numbers 30:3).  

The emphasis of these commandments is on telling the truth and keeping intact the bond of trustworthiness that society is built on. Nobody’s dignity is in direct focus except God’s: “You shall not swear falsely by my name, thus profaning the name of your God. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19: 12). Jesus changes these commandments.  

Jesus says, “What I tell you is: do not swear at all … Say, ‘Yes’ when you mean ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ when you mean ‘No.’ Anything beyond that is from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:34-37).  

In doing this, His purpose is not to protect the dignity of God; it is to proclaim the dignity of man become one with God by grace. This new commandment is focused on the sacredness of human words. But by giving a new teaching about the value of our words, Jesus is giving a new teaching about our own value as persons in grace.  

We are the Body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the true children of the Father. We have the dignity of Christ Himself because we have been made one with Him, the way the various parts of the body are one with the head. We need not, and we should not, swear by anything outside of ourselves, because we are one with Christ. Our words have the sacredness that belongs to His person, and to swear by anything else is implicitly to deny what we are.  

Some Christians take the teaching of Jesus here to be a rule, and they observe it literally, refusing to ever take any oath at all. But Jesus is not making rules in the Sermon on the Mount. What He is really doing is proclaiming the good news of who we are, of what we have become by grace. He does this by drawing some practical conclusions from the commandments that exist, but in such a way that His conclusions don’t logically follow from the law unless we see the law itself as having a whole new basis and goal. He doesn’t replace the Ten Commandments with a new set of rules. He transforms our understanding of the Commandments by replacing the concept we have of ourselves. Once we know ourselves as united to God by grace and called to live and act on the level of God Himself, we bring an entirely new approach to our interpretation of the Ten Commandments. They are no longer norms for good human behavior but starting points for a reflection on the behavior that is proper to God. Their aim is no longer the good life on earth in a society characterized by peace. Their goal is the union of mind, heart, and will with God.  

From this point of view, the important question is not whether we should ever swear an oath at all, for any reason, but rather how we are to understand the value of our words and the sacredness of our persons. The conversion asked of us in this passage of the Sermon on the Mount is not a conversion in the area of speech only, but above all in the area of our self-understanding. If we can see ourselves as Jesus sees us and remain conscious always of the sacredness that is ours through union with Him, then not only our language, but our every act of self-expression will be transformed.  

This is discipleship: not to conform mechanically to rules, but to change in understanding and appreciation. Our efforts as disciples should be not just to obey, but to grow in likeness to the mind and heart of Christ. It is from this interior likeness to Him that all our behavior should flow.  

Decision: Before you speak, recall that Jesus is speaking with you, in you, and through you.  

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #364, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.