Monday of Week 21 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
2 Thessalonians 1:1-5,11-12 | Psalm 95:1-5 | Matthew 23:13-22
In today’s Gospel, Jesus revisits His edict on swearing found in Matthew 5:33-37 (“Do not swear by heaven…”), but from a different angle. Here, He takes the scribes and Pharisees to task for splitting hairs on the matter of swearing.
Even to a non-Christian, the idea that an oath made on a sanctified object doesn’t count must seem absurd, so one wonders how the learned religious of the time could concoct something so bizarre. I suspect it was a case of too many “canon lawyers” spoiling the Mosaic law, or perhaps too many amendments or clarifications formulated over time that had unforeseen interactions with each other.
Still, I don’t see this as Jesus going back on His previous words; He’s not implying that swearing on the Temple of Jerusalem or its altar is actually OK. Instead, I think He’s actually pointing out that the scribes and Pharisees didn’t give the act of swearing the level of gravitas that it deserved – because all swearing on objects deemed holy transitively meant swearing by the Most High.
Which is why I find the parent’s reflexive admonition to “behave yourself or I swear to God I’ll wallop you in front of everybody” quite disturbing, not so much at the idea of corporal punishment for a child (I think it’s sometimes deserved) as at the flippant promise to inflict great pain in the name of our loving Creator.
And if I hear “really, it’s true, swear to God!” one more time, I swear I’d be sorely tempted to respond with “everyone take three steps back, lightning bolts a-coming”, a suitably facetious reply to a frivolous oath.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I really should police my own use of the exclamation “Holy <faecal object>!” in times of great surprise or stress. After all, the Greatest Commandment we know:
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)
certainly encompasses “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Amen.