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True Lies (James 5:12)
Based closely on the French film La Totale,
the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenneger action/drama True Lies, tells
the story of a seemingly boring computer salesman who is actually
an undercover agent. No one in his everyday life, including his
wife and daughter, knows about his alter ego, as shown by the blurb
on the poster which carries the catchy legend, "When he said I do,
he never said what he did." Of course, the truth comes out and in
a way that puts his family in peril and that totally changes their
view of him.
This is only a movie, an entertainment (well I liked it) but it
shows "what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive".
One lie leads to another until you're not sure what the truth is
anymore. It also shows, perhaps, how easily lying sits with our
society that we find entertainment in it, and in its consequences
- or am I being too starchy?
James is writing here about oaths and the way we represent ourselves
to others. When he writes "Do not swear" he doesn't have in mind
bad language but the making of oaths designed to guarantee the truth
of what we are saying. We hear this sort of thing a lot in certain
circles; "On my mother's life!" someone might insist when something
they have said is challenged, a particularly obnoxious oath inasmuch
as it indicates that neither their word nor their mother's life
means much to them. This reaches its extreme noxiousness when it's
expressed as "On my baby's life!" something I have overheard all-too-often.
In particular James means invoking the name of God for this purpose.
We often hear this in the form of, "As God is my witness!" How often
does the oath giver know the God whose name they invoke and if he
was known to them would they so casually invoke his name?
Building on the Anabaptist tradition, some Christians take this
verse as meaning that a Christian shouldn't swear an oath of any
kind even in a courtroom. Others believe that it is the indiscriminate
and casual taking of oaths and of avoiding the more serious consequences
of oath taking by invoking less sacred things that James has in
mind (Mt.23:16-22). Jesus addressed this issue in his Sermon on
the Mount:
"Again, you have heard that it was said,
to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths
you have made to the Lord'"
Clearly he is addressing the issue of people discriminating between
oaths to the Lord and other, "lesser" oaths. However, Jesus went
on to say:
"But I tell you, do not swear at
all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth,
for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of
the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make
even one hair black or white. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes', and
your 'No' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one" (Mt.5:33-37)
The similarities with what James writes are clear and the lesson
here is that, whichever view you take on oaths, whether they should
be taken sparingly and seriously or not at all, a Christian's word
should be so consistent and dependable that we should need no oath
to support it. In this way we are left with no excuse for making
oaths or statements that avoid absolute truthfulness, no excuses
for telling true lies.
In our witnessing this is important, especially as people notice
who we are much more than what we say. May God give us the grace
to grow in him such that our word will be sufficient and the fruit
of God's Spirit evident in our lives.