Do Not Swear

Truth is a synonym for God; thus to be a follower of that God is to be truthful. Perhaps the best complement that we can receive is that she is truthful, he is truthful. As a follower of that God and as a part of a sane and civilised world we all like and wish to be truthful; but as life gets on we realise that one of the hardest thing on earth is to be truthful. Therefore we try to pretend to be truthful, to be authentic and genuine. And to claim our truthfulness and authenticity we argue, we say lies, we put forth false proofs, and as a last resort, we even swear. Jesus elsewhere has told us no to lie, not to give false witness and proofs, etc. here he explicitly tells us not to swear.

Why does Jesus encourage and exhort his disciples not to swear? Because, we know a fact only with our limited knowledge; we are able to carry out an action only with our limited capacity. When we swear by God or anything of which God alone is the master the fact that we hold to be right is kept in par with God. We claim to be omniscient and all-powerful. In other words, when I say that I hold this or that to be true as God lives, I am meaning that this fact is as true as the existence of God itself. Isn’t it an act of exalted pride, and Jesus rightly tells, such act of swearing comes from the evil one (Matthew 05: 33-37).

There are three reasons or situations when we resort to swearing.

To uphold something that I think is true: It is not needed. It is superfluous. Whether you swear or not truth remains truth. We only have to say yes or no. Truth is its own propaganda. By swearing we make a truth vulnerable because it becomes a victim between the antagonisms of the two arguing rivals.
To assert something that is not true. It is false. It is manipulation.
To convince someone of something by which we think a good result will follow. A news reporter was going through a little town, when he saw a crowd gather at a junction. He learned from a passerby that there was an accident. He saw a good prospect of a piece of news. He tried to go to the middle of the crowd but the police would not let him to do so. He thought for a while for a way out and came up to the police and said, ‘the victim is my father.’ “Are you sure” asked the policeman. “I swear by my father.” Replied the man. The policeman let him in with a smile. When he went in to his embarrassment the victim was a donkey. We may think that it is prudent and clever to swear at times to make things and situations favourable to us but at times it can turn out to be an embarrassment.

What is the antidote for swearing? Humility. St. Anthony in one of his sermons proposes that ‘O father, in your son’s humility I have learned truth’. Gandhiji would say if you have some thing valued and true, give it in humility. By doing so you save the message and save the opponent.

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