Friday 22nd March
Read Matthew 5:33-37
“‘Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “Do not break your oath, but fulfil to the Lord the oaths you have made.” 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath 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 All you need to say is simply “Yes,” or “No”; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (NIVUK)
There is a hilarious British show called Taskmaster where contestants have to complete a range of sometimes quite ridiculous tasks. One of the tasks involved the instruction to ‘place these three giant balls on the mat on top of the hill’. The intention of the task was quite clear. The contestants had to get each of the balls to the top of a rather steep (and windy) hill and keep them there somehow until all three were on the mat. One of the contestants sat and thought for a while, then walked to the top of the hill, grabbed the mat, carried it down the hill to the balls and placed them on it. The Taskmaster then had to rule on whether this met the conditions of the task and hilarity ensued.
By twisting the task ever so slightly the contestant met the letter of the rule whilst clearly breaking its spirit. This is precisely what the Pharisees and teachers of the law sought to do with most of the laws they encountered. They sought a way to obey them without actually having to obey them. If the intention of the laws surrounding oaths was to establish truthfulness and honesty in everything you said, the teachers twisted it around such that the object by which one swears became the determining factor in whether what you said needs to be true. You can lie and deceive one another with impunity as long as you don’t mistakenly swear by God Himself.
Whenever we find ourselves carefully crafting the conditions under which we become obligated to follow through on what we say, we are as guilty as the Pharisees. It is a sobering thought indeed. What does truthfulness look like for you?
