The simple answer to when should a Christian swear to God? Is Never! Unless requested to do so under oath in the Court of law. For if we are disciples of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who is the Truth, the Way and the Life then how can we ever lie to begin with? Let our ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and our ‘no’ mean ‘no’.
What about those of us who are married? Do we remember our wedding vows? Do we remember saying the three ‘YES I DO’ even before we made our vow to one another?
- “Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to each other in marriage?”
- “Will you honour each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?”
- “Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”
I, (name), take you, (name), to be my (wife/husband). I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life. Where did we declare this? In Church before the Lord our God and in the presence of family and friends. Jesus said, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4–6).
Lord Jesus let your truth reign in our hearts always. Amen
God our Heavenly Father Bless all our marriages…Amen
First reading
James 5:9-12
Do not ask for judgement, or you may receive it
Do not make complaints against one another, brothers, so as not to be brought to judgement yourselves; the Judge is already to be seen waiting at the gates. For your example, brothers, in submitting with patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord; remember it is those who had endurance that we say are the blessed ones. You have heard of the patience of Job, and understood the Lord’s purpose, realising that the Lord is kind and compassionate.
Above all, my brothers, do not swear by heaven or by the earth, or use any oaths at all. If you mean ‘yes’, you must say ‘yes’; if you mean ‘no’, say ‘no.’ Otherwise you make yourselves liable to judgement.
Gospel
Mark 10:1-12
What God has united, man must not divide
Jesus came to the district of Judaea and the far side of the Jordan. And again crowds gathered round him, and again he taught them, as his custom was. Some Pharisees approached him and asked, ‘Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife?’ They were testing him. He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ ‘Moses allowed us’ they said ‘to draw up a writ of dismissal and so to divorce.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘It was because you were so unteachable that he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body. They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.’ Back in the house the disciples questioned him again about this, and he said to them, ‘The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another she is guilty of adultery too.’
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