Matthew 5:33-37
Politicians
seem to have a bad reputation for not doing what they say. They are known for
making promises they cannot keep and for saying things just to please
people. We need to make sure that we do
not fall into the same trap.
It is
very important that we be trustworthy and sincere. People should believe what we say. An extreme example of someone who was not
trustworthy is the boy from the story The
Boy Who Cried Wolf. This boy
repeatedly tried to trick the villagers into thinking that a wolf was attacking
his flock when in reality there was no wolf.
Eventually the villagers caught on that he was not being truthful. When a wolf really did attack the flock and
the boy sought help, no one believed him and so no one came to his aid. What the boy said was no longer worth
anything. Sometimes when people realize
that those around them no longer believe what they say, they try to swear by
some higher authority in order to lend credence to their words. People “swear
to God” that they are telling the truth.
We are called to be trustworthy in what we say. We should not have to appeal to some higher
authority for people to believe us. In
this way we imitate God. God is always truthful;
He does what He says he will. We find a
great example in the creation story in the Book of Genesis. There God says “let there be light” and there
was light. He means what He says and He
does what He says. When we are
trustworthy and sincere we imitate God.
Sometimes
we end up saying things we do not mean or making promises we cannot keep
because we do not want to offend others.
Sometimes we fall into the trap of insincerity because we do not want to
hurt the feelings of others. Something
that comes to mind immediately is that when people ask us for their help it can
be very difficult to say “no” to them.
We have this desire to make everyone happy and we do not want the other
person to feel hurt. Because of this we
often agree to do something we cannot do or really do not want to do. This can often happen to me at the parish. People will ask if I can help with something
and before I even think if I really can, I hear myself saying “yes”. Sometimes I
realize later that I have double-booked myself or have committed to doing
something I cannot really do. I am then
forced to go back on my word. My “yes”
becomes a “no”. People can then feel
more offended and hurt than if I had just said “no” in the first place. Learning to say “no” to people is a difficult
task, but if we want to be people who are sincere and trustworthy, it is
something that we must do sometimes. We
have to avoid falling into the trap of saying things we do not mean or making
promises we cannot keep because we do not want to offend others.
Jesus
calls us to be people of our word. We
should mean what we say and do what we mean.
Today let us take a look at the way we speak to see if our “yes” really
means “yes” and our “no” really “no”. In
particular let see that we do not fall into the trap of saying things we do not
mean or agreeing to do things we cannot do just because we do not want to hurt
someone’s feelings.
