I went rock climbing the other day with a buddy of mine. Two hundred and twenty pounds, and you have never seen a man go up a wall that fast.
But before either of us touched the wall, there was paperwork. One contract to come through the door. Oh, you brought kids? Here is another one for each of them. Oh, you want to climb today? Sign this. Oh, you want to belay that man on a rope? Here is one more.
Five contracts before I was allowed to leave the ground. Eighty pages of fine print.
Now I get it. We live in a litigious society. I own a business here in Miami, so I understand covering yourself and protecting people. But look at why any of that exists. We paper each other because we do not trust each other. We write fine print because we want an escape hatch in case the thing we just promised does not work out.
That is our world. And it is not one bit different from the world Jesus was preaching into.
Why oaths exist in the first place
Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely... but I say to you, do not take an oath at all.
An oath is a promise you prop up by appealing to God, or at least to something bigger than you. I swear on my mother. I swear on my life. I swear to God.
So the surface reading is that Jesus bans oaths, we close the book and go home. But we read the Bible in context. In the Old Testament God himself commands oaths — Exodus puts them in the court of law, which is a large part of why we still swear to tell the whole truth in a courtroom. Paul takes an oath three times, always in an official setting. So that is not it.
Ask the better question. Why do oaths exist at all?
Because people lie. Or they tell part of the truth, which is what the father of lies specializes in. You need a notarized promise precisely where a plain word is not worth anything.
What the religious leaders had done with it
The Pharisees had turned this into a game. Jesus goes after them for it in Matthew 23 — you can swear by the temple, they said, but the binding one is swearing by the gold of the temple. Fine gradations of how much a promise counts. They were strict about washing hands, and Jesus asked why they would not start with the heart. They tithed their dill and their spices down to the grain and neglected the weighty things — justice, mercy, forgiveness. Straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
Here is what was really happening. They could not live up to God's law, so they wrote laws they could live up to, and then stacked those on everybody else's back.
And this is the pattern of the whole Sermon on the Mount. You think you have not murdered — but you have been angry. You think you have not committed adultery — but you have looked. You know you should not lie — and I am telling you not to even need the extra words that prop up your truthfulness.
Jesus is not concerned with the hand. He is after the heart. Because whatever is in the heart eventually shows up in the hand.
A country where nobody signed anything
When Heidi and I started out in ministry they sent us, of all places, to a city in New Zealand called Christchurch.
I love hiking up a mountain. I have never enjoyed hiking down one. So when I found out you could paraglide down instead, that settled it. We went out for a first lesson. He had me running the field with the chute up, learning to control it, and I figured that was a good day's work.
He said, great. Now to the hill.
I am standing at the edge of a drop-off looking at a valley that runs down to the water. It is gorgeous. I have signed nothing. There is no waiver. I am not wearing a helmet. And the instruction is: run, take off, and listen to the walkie-talkie.
So I did the gentlemanly thing and told Heidi, ladies first.
Then I ran, and I stepped off, and I was flying — thrilled right up until it occurred to me that I had no idea how to land. That is what the walkie-talkie was for.
That would never happen in America. And I have to tell you, I liked doing business on a handshake. It was simple. It was clear. Your word was your bond, and what you said was what you meant.
I think that is closer to what Christ wants for us. Cut the red tape and the legalese and the catch-22s. Let what you say be simply yes or no.
Anchored, not propped up
Here is where the gospel comes alive in this text.
Jesus wants a people so anchored by grace they do not need to be propped up by oaths. People who tell the truth because they are following the man who said, I have come to bear witness to the truth.
Think about Peter. He denied Jesus three times, and he did it under oath. And when Jesus came back, he did not demand an apology or a performance out of him. He forgave him three times over. Grace.
We are not telling the truth in order to become truth-tellers. We tell the truth because the truth himself is living in us and starting to show.
The new year is right around the corner. The gyms will be full for a few weeks. Goals are getting written this week, and most of them will be broken before the month is out. Not because you did not mean it. Because try harder and do better has never once been able to fix a heart.
So do not resolve to be more honest this year. Ask him for the new heart that makes honesty possible — and then, what would change if your word alone were enough?
