Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus is addressing a pretty specific issue in Israelite culture, Israelite oath swearing. A vow in the Bible in ancient Israel, this is when people make promises to God, God, if you do this for me, then here’s what I’ll do for you. Vows are between people and God and then usually between each other, between humans, it’s called an oath, which can be a synonym for a covent, but it’s basically a promise. In these oaths, often times people will invoke the name of God, but don’t bring Yahweh into it, because I brought Yahweh into it, I better do it and also if I make a vow to Yahweh, I better do it. On the simple level, that’s what these vows are talking about. We have to imagine a culture where people do this, they swear by the name of Yahweh and that’s a big deal and it means something significant. There are stories about people doing this in the Hebrew Bible, usually it’s a little formula in Hebrew, where somebody says, may Yahweh do such and such to me and even more if I don’t…, but it gets more complicated.
By Jesus’ day, Israelite culture is already over a thousand years old and has developed, there’s already a tradition that’s a century or two old, where people don’t say the name of Yahweh anymore, people avoided pronouncing the Divine name. This whole practice was about using the name of God, but nobody says the name of God anymore, it creates this vacuum, what do you swear by. So they develop this practice of swearing by things that are really closely associated to Yahweh. They started putting in these other sacred things, but then as human nature is, you find ways to twist it to your own advantage, a loophole. Jesus actually brings this up later in the gospel of Matthew, the prophetic woe oracles that he pronounces over the Pharisees, Matthew 23:16.
Let your statement be yes yes or no no, Jesus’ point is, humans inevitably develop these ways to manipulate and take advantage of each other and in his day, there was this practice of, you can swear by certain things that are close to God, but not totally, like hedging your bets. If I just swear by the sky and Jesus is saying, anything that you would even try to swear by is God’s creation and you’re implying God in any oath you take invoking anything at all, so don’t swear by the sky or the land or Jerusalem or by your head. But it’s my head, it doesn’t have anything to do with God and Jesus’ point is, what, you don’t even have control over your head, where did your head come from, it comes from God, you can’t escape God.
Humans go to elaborate efforts to construct these schemes that help us avoid having to have a real vulnerable transparent moment with each other. Instead of just saying, I know that you can’t trust me, because of the way I’ve treated you and so instead of manipulating you, I’m just going to ask you to give me one more chance and I will try and do what I said I was going to do, that’s a very vulnerable thing to be that transparent with somebody. The essence of swearing oaths that Jesus targets here, is about invoking something or someone else, especially God, to make your words seem more significant and more weighty. The aim is to impress others with your seriousness or your piety, so that you get what you want. It’s a device of manipulation designed to override the judgment or input of others in order to possess them for our purposes. It’s manipulation or as we say in our culture, spin and Jesus says it’s evil. Instead of loving and honoring others with truthfulness, the intent is to get one’s way by verbal manipulation of the thoughts and choices of others.
This gets expressed in the practice Jesus targets, is the way we borrow from the importance or honor of someone else, to bolster my lack of integrity. What are other ways that I use God to manipulate other people’s perception of me, to get them to do what I want. In religious cultures, people use language about God to cut off input from other people or to plow over other people for their own purposes. This is not exactly what Jesus is talking about, but it’s another way that people use God to get what they want. The principle is, I’m bringing God in to bolster or validate something that I’m saying or doing and Jesus wants his followers to be hyper vigilant and aware of how we bring God in to our desires to get things done in the world and how we relate to other people.
Jesus wants us to cultivate a hyper self-awareness that we’re not beyond manipulating other people by trying to use God’s reputation and it’s something we need to have on the radar. We don’t want to use the God card to manipulate other people, but we honor the relationships and do our best to communicate in an honest transparent way. For a friend or family member who you share the same religious convictions, sometimes those religious beliefs can form a bond and create a safety between you for to share things that are really powerful and vulnerable, but at the same time, in other relationships, it can become a tool to manipulate each other. Royal images of God, who are called to represent God to the world, they don’t need to do that with each other, they can be honest with each other and learn God’s wisdom to figure out their differences and treat each other with integrity.
By Jesus’ day, Israelite culture is already over a thousand years old and has developed, there’s already a tradition that’s a century or two old, where people don’t say the name of Yahweh anymore, people avoided pronouncing the Divine name. This whole practice was about using the name of God, but nobody says the name of God anymore, it creates this vacuum, what do you swear by. So they develop this practice of swearing by things that are really closely associated to Yahweh. They started putting in these other sacred things, but then as human nature is, you find ways to twist it to your own advantage, a loophole. Jesus actually brings this up later in the gospel of Matthew, the prophetic woe oracles that he pronounces over the Pharisees, Matthew 23:16.
Let your statement be yes yes or no no, Jesus’ point is, humans inevitably develop these ways to manipulate and take advantage of each other and in his day, there was this practice of, you can swear by certain things that are close to God, but not totally, like hedging your bets. If I just swear by the sky and Jesus is saying, anything that you would even try to swear by is God’s creation and you’re implying God in any oath you take invoking anything at all, so don’t swear by the sky or the land or Jerusalem or by your head. But it’s my head, it doesn’t have anything to do with God and Jesus’ point is, what, you don’t even have control over your head, where did your head come from, it comes from God, you can’t escape God.
Humans go to elaborate efforts to construct these schemes that help us avoid having to have a real vulnerable transparent moment with each other. Instead of just saying, I know that you can’t trust me, because of the way I’ve treated you and so instead of manipulating you, I’m just going to ask you to give me one more chance and I will try and do what I said I was going to do, that’s a very vulnerable thing to be that transparent with somebody. The essence of swearing oaths that Jesus targets here, is about invoking something or someone else, especially God, to make your words seem more significant and more weighty. The aim is to impress others with your seriousness or your piety, so that you get what you want. It’s a device of manipulation designed to override the judgment or input of others in order to possess them for our purposes. It’s manipulation or as we say in our culture, spin and Jesus says it’s evil. Instead of loving and honoring others with truthfulness, the intent is to get one’s way by verbal manipulation of the thoughts and choices of others.
This gets expressed in the practice Jesus targets, is the way we borrow from the importance or honor of someone else, to bolster my lack of integrity. What are other ways that I use God to manipulate other people’s perception of me, to get them to do what I want. In religious cultures, people use language about God to cut off input from other people or to plow over other people for their own purposes. This is not exactly what Jesus is talking about, but it’s another way that people use God to get what they want. The principle is, I’m bringing God in to bolster or validate something that I’m saying or doing and Jesus wants his followers to be hyper vigilant and aware of how we bring God in to our desires to get things done in the world and how we relate to other people.
Jesus wants us to cultivate a hyper self-awareness that we’re not beyond manipulating other people by trying to use God’s reputation and it’s something we need to have on the radar. We don’t want to use the God card to manipulate other people, but we honor the relationships and do our best to communicate in an honest transparent way. For a friend or family member who you share the same religious convictions, sometimes those religious beliefs can form a bond and create a safety between you for to share things that are really powerful and vulnerable, but at the same time, in other relationships, it can become a tool to manipulate each other. Royal images of God, who are called to represent God to the world, they don’t need to do that with each other, they can be honest with each other and learn God’s wisdom to figure out their differences and treat each other with integrity.
