Jesus tells us in the Gospel reading today, “not to take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow”. We are supposed to let our “yes” mean “yes” and our “no” mean “no”. We are to say what we mean, and mean what we say. Jesus said anything else is from the Evil One.
It is hard to keep a promise sometimes. After we have given our word about something, unforeseen circumstances can occur that prevents us from keeping our word. We might pledge some money to a worthwhile cause and then lose our job or get sick and have a large amount of medical bills to pay for. This is an example of something that legitimately did come up that prevented us from fulfilling our word.
But, sometimes we also use an excuse for not doing something that we don’t feel like. For an example, we might promise to help a friend move, but later pretend something came up and we couldn’t be there to help them. What we may not realize though, is that we let our friend down by not fulfilling the promise we made to them. If the friend knew in advance we were not going to be there, they could have made arrangements for someone else to help out with their move. The consequence of not fulfilling our word to our friend caused them a great deal of extra work.
Often, it is simply poor planning that resulted in our failure to do what we made a promise to do. We really wanted to buy a few extra treats at the grocery store and the result was a lack of funds to fulfill a monthly pledge to a charity. Or we wanted to finish a load of laundry instead of meeting a friend for coffee.
It can also be something a great deal more serious, like the vows we make to one another in marriage or in the religious life. Sometimes there truly are factors that were not known at the time the vow was made, such as mental illness or we were pressured by someone to commit to something we really did not want to do. This is an example of a legitimate reason and the church will often grant an annulment in these cases. However, just to decide to ditch a vow that we made because something better comes along is not morally right. This kind of thing is from the Evil One. It would have been better to not make the vow in these cases, than to make one we never really intended to keep.
The first reading today talks about reconciliation with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He died for our sins and calls us to become a new creation in him, whatever the past may be. The first reading says, “from now on we regard no one according to the flesh”. We can decide from this point forward, we will make every effort to fulfill the promises we have already made and in the future to be sure to not make a promise what we may not be able to keep. No other person or situation should prevent us from doing what we say we will.
The past is the past though, let us go forward and be reconciled to God and to one another, and keep the promises we make in the future. An apology may be in order to whoever we let down. Then we should remember like the first reading today, that we are ambassadors for Christ and it is not a good reflection on us or Christ if we fail to fulfill our promises.
Today is a new day. Let us wipe the slate clean and begin again, in our relations with one another and with the Lord Jesus Christ as well.
