5:1 Seeing the crowds, [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
5:33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 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 take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”
In The Sermon on the Mount Jesus is teaching his disciples, and a large crowd of onlookers who did not believe in him, what it means to be men and women after his own heart. He is not laying down a new law that we must follow if we wish to make ourselves acceptable to God. Instead, he is showing us what a person looks like who has already entered into fellowship with God through God’s grace alone.
This is something that most of us need to hear and take to heart again and again because we are so prone to forget it. Like the Jews of Jesus’ day most of us religious people believe that we can earn our way into heaven by living a moral, upright life, defined as obedience to rules and tradition. In this sermon, Jesus shows us that that no one can enjoy fellowship with God by doing that sort of thing.
The problem is not so much our behavior as it is the orientation of the heart which is the source of our behavior. What God requires of us is a transformation of the heart that goes far deeper than strict, superficial obedience which leaves the heart untouched. That’s what Jesus meant back in verse 20 when he told his disciples: “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Having said that, Jesus gave a number of examples of what he meant. So far, we have looked at three of them.
In verses 21-26 Jesus made the connection between the act of murder and the sinful orientation of the heart that leads to murder: "You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. . .” and so on. As far as Jesus was concerned, the act of murder grows out of a heart-orientation called anger, or bitterness or scorn and contempt. It is not enough to refrain from the act; the underlying heart-sickness which gives birth to the act must be dealt with.
In verses 27-30 Jesus connected the act of adultery with the sinful orientation of the heart that leads to it: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The act of adultery grows out of a heart-orientation that Jesus calls “lust”, which is the hunger, the desire to possess another person whom we have no right to possess.
Last time we saw how Jesus spoke to the issue of divorce in verses 31 and 32. One school of Pharisees believed in no-fault divorce. Divorce was okay for almost any reason at all as long as the proper legal formalities were observed, all the Is dotted and Ts crossed and legal fees paid and so on. Jesus rejected that. He pointed out that marriage is ordained by God as a union between one man and one woman which makes them “one flesh” in the eyes of God. He said that divorce is the consequence of an underlying hardness of heart which refuses to do whatever it takes to mend the marriage and strengthen that “one flesh” union. Divorce is only the public, legal recognition that the “one flesh” union intended by God at Creation is broken beyond repair.
In today’s teaching Jesus gives another example of how our behavior is rooted in the orientation of our hearts. Once again he points people beyond formal obedience to rules and regulations which make us appear respectable to other people, and focuses on our innermost character which is an open book to God.
What Jesus says in this passage this morning may not seem as dramatic as anger or lust or divorce, but I want to show you that he is speaking directly to an issue that plagues our nation and also many of us as individuals. The issue is personal integrity. Am I an honest person? Am I a trustworthy person? Can I be depended on to tell and do the truth, even if telling or doing the truth conflicts with my own best interests?
Jesus begins by summarizing a number of Old Testament passages which address the issue of truthfulness (v. 33): “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’” Jesus is not referring to “swearing” in the sense of profanity or vulgar language. He is talking about the oaths that people swear when they want others to believe that they are telling the truth.
In a perfect world men and women would tell the truth in every circumstance, even if telling the truth was not in their own best interest. For example, in a perfect world a merchant in the marketplace of an ancient city like Jerusalem might find himself with a faulty product on his hands, say a bowl that has a hidden crack which will eventually make it leak. In a perfect world the merchant would either take the bowl off the market and throw it away, or if a customer showed interest in it the merchant would be upfront and point out the crack.
But we do not live in a perfect world. In the real world where we live, personal self-interest often trumps basic honesty. So, instead of taking a loss the merchant might decide to unload the bowl on the unsuspecting customer by praising all of its good points while ignoring the crack. He might flatter the customer on her good taste and eye for quality. He might claim that this is the last bowl in stock and she better snap it up before someone else buys it, even when he has a room full of bowls in the back.
If none of this works and the customer still seems reluctant to buy the bowl, the merchant might convince her that she can trust him by taking an oath and calling on God as his witness: “I swear by all that is holy that this bowl is worth every penny.” When the unwary buyer takes the bowl home and it leaks the first time she uses it, it’s too late. She’s stuck with a broken bowl.
The merchant lied by misrepresenting his product. He lied again by insincere flattery. Then he compounded his lies by invoking God as a witness to his truthfulness. His lack of truthfulness, of personal integrity, not only cheated his customer out of her money, but it also opened one more crack in the foundation of honesty and trust that is necessary if people are to live together in peace without constantly looking over their shoulders to make sure someone is not trying to swindle them. This is the sort of thing that Jesus was talking about.
As the Son of God, Jesus knew our human nature all too well. He knew that when our self-interest is at stake basic honesty and truthfulness often go right out the window. He also knew that when people cannot take each other at their word, oaths – and in our day multi-page contracts – become a substitute for simple honesty and a handshake.
Jesus talked about this because in his day swearing oaths was a very common tactic which people used to convince others they were telling the truth, even when they were not. They swore by heaven and by the earth. They swore by the temple. They swore by the gold of the temple. They swore by the altar, or by the gift left on the altar. They swore by the holy city, Jerusalem. They swore by the hairs on their head. All of these oaths were intended to make other people believe that their word could be trusted, even when they intended to deceive.
This is still common today, isn’t it? Even now, some people feel the need to swear an oath in order to underscore their truthfulness, even if they are exaggerating or worse. Sometimes this is fairly trivial. For example, haven’t we all challenged someone when they tell us an incredible fish story or tall tale that makes us doubt how true it is, and they insist: “I swear on my mother’s grave” or “I swear on a stack of Bibles” or “May God strike me dead if I’m not telling the truth” and so on? Oaths like these are fairly harmless because everyone knows that that’s what is going on and there is no intent to benefit at another person’s expense.
But some oaths are a bit more serious because they attempt to hide or evade the truth. For example, did you ever catch a child doing something naughty, and when you confronted him he tried to deny it by looking you straight in the eye and saying: “I didn’t do that. Cross my heart and hope to die.” What he is really saying is: “In my heart I know I did wrong, but my pride won’t let me fess up and take my lumps. Please, please don’t punish me.”
Many years ago when I was a police officer, I was walking on foot patrol one night. As I passed the end of an alley I startled inside the ally a man who caught my attention. His back was to me and he didn’t hear me walk up behind him. When I asked him: “What do you think you are doing?” he jumped and got all nervous and said: “I swear to God, officer, I’m not doing anything!” What he was really saying was: “You caught me red-handed, but please don’t lock me up or give me a ticket!” It turns out that he was fiddling with a pistol that was stuck in the waistband of his pants, so I arrested him and gave him a summons.
Of course the worst oaths of all are the oaths which people swear to benefit themselves at the expense of other people. The merchant with his broken pot that I talked about a moment ago is an example of an oath sworn with the intent to profit by deception.
On the night of Jesus’ arrest the Apostle Peter was confronted by the servants of the high priest. Three times they demanded to know whether he was a disciple of the Lord. Three times he denied it, the third time: “with an oath” (Matthew 26:21), that is he said something like: “As God as my witness I do not know the man!” What Peter really meant was: “I’m terrified that you are going to arrest me like you arrested him! I will do anything, anything at all to save my skin, including calling on God to witness my lie as I betray my friend and Savior in his time of need.”
Friends, if we resort to casual oaths when we could just as easily tell the plain truth, or if we swear to a lie to protect ourselves from the consequences of our actions, or if we invoke God as our witness that we are telling the truth when we actually intend to deceive others, we reveal a basic lack of integrity in our character, our hearts. This is just as true in our personal relationships as it is in a court of law when we place our hand on a Bible and solemnly swear “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”
For many people these days, this question of personal integrity is not such a big deal, which may be why there seems to be less and less of it in our public life. I believe that there is a real crisis of honesty and integrity at every level of our nation today.
All of us are used to the huge difference between what a product looks like in advertising and the real thing when we buy it. The next time you are sitting in line at the drive through of your favorite fast food joint compare those glossy pictures of juicy, appetizing sandwiches with the wretched little thing in your bag and you will see just how far truth is from reality. But this sort of misrepresentation is an integrity issue, and just because we have all gotten used to it does not mean that it is right.
We are all used to politicians who swear an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, but who then go on to spend a career ignoring the Constitution in 95% of the laws that they pass. When an honest politician comes along who actually upholds the Constitution we think he is crazy. This is an integrity issue.
If we have young people in school we know how competitive it is, how much pressure there is to make good grades. The Educational Testing Service has done studies which show that beginning in middle school and continuing all the way through college and graduate school, and on into the professional world beyond, cheating is rampant. Students routinely give in to the temptation to make themselves look better by cribbing on exams, or by downloading other people’s work and presenting it as their own, or by falsifying data and stroking statistics in order to get a grant. The real tragedy is that many of them accept this as normal and necessary. This is an integrity issue.
We have all heard stories of churches covering up clergy misconduct, and stories of otherwise honest members of law enforcement or the military closing ranks around crooked colleagues to protect them because they are comrades or members of the brotherhood. These, too, are integrity issues which go straight to heart of our character.
Jesus called himself: “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). His heavenly Father is the God of Truth(Isaiah 65:16). The Holy Spirit Who indwells every true believer is the Spirit of Truth. When that Spirit awakens us to the truth about Jesus we are reborn into the household of God, and we are to begin living as His beloved sons and daughters. This means that truth is to be a fundamental part of our character and the behavior which flows from it just as truth was a fundamental part of Jesus’ character and behavior.
That is what it means to be a disciple. A disciple follows in the footsteps of his master. A disciple learns from his master. A disciple imitates his master. Jesus tells us (v.37): “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” To the extent that we obey him, and truth becomes part of our makeup, we will become men and women of unimpeachable integrity, men and women whose word is as good as gold, who have no need to swear on a stack of Bibles, or cross my heart and hope to die, because everyone will know that for us, “Yes” means “Yes” and “No” means “No.”