HOMILY for the 6th. SUNDAY of ORDINARY TIME [A], February 13th., 2011.

“Say ‘yes’ if you mean ‘yes’”

“The oldest member present pricks the finger of the initiate and spills his blood onto a sacred image, usually of a saint. The image is placed in the hand of the initiate and set on fire. The novice must withstand the pain of the burning, passing the image from hand to hand, until the image has been consumed, while swearing to keep faith, vowing: ‘May my flesh burn like this saint if I fail to keep my oath’”

When do those words date from? The 14th. century? In fact they were said in 1984 by the repentant Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta to the investigating Judge Giovanni Falcone, as Buscetta described initiation into ‘Cosa Nostra’, the Mafia. Buscetta was to die peacefully in New York, after an operation to change his facial features. Judge Falcone was to be blown up by a bomb on a motorway near Palermo; his roadside shrine has been a place of prayer for the present Pope and his predecessor.

From the beginnings of time, people have sworn by something dear, sacred or valuable. As in the case of Abraham in the book of Genesis, this consisted of animals and birds cut in half. It was like saying: “May I suffer loss and be divided like these creatures if I do not fulfil my oath”.

Ancient Jews made frequent use of oaths for private property, but later the practice also spread to religious property such as donations to the Temple. Jesus probably had this practice in mind when he said the words we have heard today, even though they have a much wider application, like his words about the ‘Widow’s Mite’, her offering to the Temple.

The trouble with such oaths is that an elaborate formula (and they were sometimes very elaborate) could serve as a smokescreen in cases of insincerity. Rather as ‘infrequent Catholics’, possibly as an insurance policy, make a practice of crossing themselves repeatedly in church. Those who made such oaths may have hoped that admiration for their oath took first place over admiration for their genuineness.

Despite Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, Christians have made frequent use of oaths, justifying themselves by saying: “It is part of God’s divine service and commanded by him”. One might ask, in all honesty, “what is the psychology behind people swearing on the Scriptures?” Is it the equivalent of saying: “If I am lying, may God strike me dead”?

Human nature instinctively wants to reinforce its own story, its own words, so humans have recourse to religious supports. So that this should not seem a misuse, the words are slightly changed, and have just become a mild exclamation. So for “God” we get “Gosh” or “Golly”, we have “Crikey”, we have what the Irish are alleged to say – though I believe they do not – “Begob and Begorrah” for “By God”, and we have the colourful “Gadzooks” – which the Duke of Edinburgh spontaneously uttered on seeing a portrait of himself with an enormous nose and a plant sprouting from one of his fingers; “Gadzooks” being “God’s hooks”, referring to the Crucifixion.

Jesus, as ever, was concerned with the movement of the heart rather than the lips. He is not here talking about using ‘four-letter words’. And he is not against forceful language, as we see in many of his parables. Remember the Prodigal Son: “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you and am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants” – an utterance which the father does not actually allow the returning son to say in full.

Jesus is concerned when, as we say, form triumphs over content. One wonders what he might say about, for example, our modern craze for mission statements. Are these ever more than a pious wish, deflecting attention from reality?

The fact is that the stronger the reality, the less needs to be said. The strongest reality of all requires silence – as the Christian mystics knew quite well enough. Ironically, this truth persists in a perverted way in the Sicilian law of silence or, as it is called, omertà – where the woman knows the name of her husband’s killer but must not tell the police.

Elaborate language often exists when we are getting furthest away from the truth, as in all kinds of “spin” – politicians’ ludicrous optimism, advertisers’ gush, and so on.

Hence it is linked in Jesus’ words to anger, for anger takes command of us and detaches us from the rational, the real. And to adultery, which defiles the words of a solemn marriage promise.

Remember the scene in Romeo and Juliet where Romeo is in the Capulets’ orchard and calls us to Juliet at her famous balcony window?:

Romeo: Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops ...

Juliet: O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circling orb,

lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Romeo: What do I swear by?

Juliet: Do not swear at all; or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self ..... and I’ll believe thee.

Swearing by our gracious selves? Are we to be our own oath, and rather unreliable ones at that? Perhaps our most reliable pledge, as Christians, are the words which sustain us at the beginning and end of every act of worship: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.

“So help me God”. Indeed! God will not do it for us; God will not smite us either. But God is ready to help us if we turn to him in Christ. For, as the Psalmist says: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made Heaven and earth”.