Today's Gospel

The Yes Test

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we explore the genius of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Matthew 5:33-37. Jesus said, "Again, you have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, 'Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 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 one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from evil.'" So each day I encourage you to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you to a word or a phrase or an idea in this scripture reading. The reason is is because I want us to learn to listen to the voice of God in our lives so that he can guide us.

And we read something like this, and Jesus says, "Well, no oaths." And then you think to yourself, "Okay, but we go to court. We take an oath in court." You sign certain documents. You're swearing an oath in many of those documents. And you can see how you can get down a rabbit hole, and part of that rabbit hole is created by the idea of fundamentalism. And we're not fundamentalists. We don't take every word of the scriptures only on its literal meaning. But more importantly, there's a lesson here for us for how we approach this every single day. And that is if there's something there you don't understand, that's okay. We're moving on. We're just looking for that one word, that one phrase, that one idea that the Holy Spirit is using to capture your attention, to challenge you, to inspire you, to encourage you today. That's all we're looking for. We're not looking to understand every part of this reading and every aspect and every context throughout history. We're not looking at that. That isn't the exercise. There are biblical scholars; they do that. And there may be a time in your life and my life where that's what we're called to do. But that isn't this exercise. This exercise is allowing God to speak to us each day through the Gospel, through a word or phrase or an idea. And so if there's something you don't understand, we just move on.

The thing that jumped out at me today is when Jesus says, "Let what you say be simply yes or no." That's hard to do, isn't it? And the thing is is not only do we not let our yes be yes and our no be no, but very often we say yes when we should be saying no, and we know we should be saying no, and we say no when we should be saying yes. And so getting clarity around being able to say yes, being able to say no, and feeling like your yes and your no is in full alignment with the gospel, with who God is calling you to be, is a very, very powerful thing. One of the things I've been talking about for years is the idea that if you're not free to say no, you're not free to say yes. So if somebody asks you to do something and you feel, "Oh, I have to do that," out of obligation or whatever else, then you're not really free to say no. And if you're not free to say no, then you're not actually free to say yes. And so you're saying yes out of a slavery, out of a false compulsion. And the obligation might be real. The obligation might be imagined. And so when we're saying yes to things, I think it's good for us to ask ourselves, "Am I free to say no to this? Do I feel free to say no to this?"

And if we don't feel free to say no, then to take that to prayer, to explore that, "Why don't I feel free to say no? Do I feel obligated? Is the obligation real? Does it come from something that I committed to in the past? Okay, that's real. Or is the obligation imagined?" Or sometimes we think, "Oh, I have to go to that thing or otherwise, everyone will be upset at me if I don't go to that thing." And then you get sick the day before, and you don't go to the thing, and nobody actually notices you didn't go to the thing. And very often, we place ourselves at the center of things that we are not the center of. And that also can lead us to say yes, to overcommit ourselves. It leads to getting anxious, getting overwhelmed, which is just so common in our society today, that our yes be yes, that our no be no. If we don't feel free to say no, let's start praying about why. Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.

I was at dinner many years ago, was about to speak in a parish. And there were a bunch of people at the dinner. And I heard out of sort of just peripheral, a pre-say at the head of the table, "You can become a saint just by governing your speech." And it was just so convincing. It was so compelling. I have wanted to write this book for at least 20 years. And it's The Forgotten Way: The St. James Master Plan. The Forgotten Way: The St. James Master Plan. If you haven't got a copy, I encourage you to pick a copy up. I think it might be the most challenging thing I've ever written. The promise of this book is very simple. You can transform your life by changing the way you speak. The Forgotten Way: The St. James Master Plan. Hope you pick up a copy today. God bless you, and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.