Yes, I’ve made a vow of life-long celibacy and, believe me, it took me years to make. I am Mrs Slow (sorry …Miss Slow) herself. ‘Yes’, you say, ‘that all very good but what if you find ‘someone’ after making your vow? And anyway, didn’t Jesus tell us not to swear and make vows?’
OK, let’s think about the swearing first: It seems to me that there is a difference between the careless swearing Jesus condemned in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 33-37) and serious, carefully considered vow making before God.
The type of oaths described by Jesus in Matthew 5 were supposedly serious declarations, made with an appeal to God (or something else) to support (or otherwise) the truth of what people said. The result of such a broken oath would be the returning of some sort of vengeance/punishment by the person or thing they had appealed to. It appears that the Jews of Jesus’ day were well into the bad habit of swearing by all sorts of things (but not God) and weren’t always too bothered about breaking their oaths. Jesus was correcting this as well as encouraging His disciples to speak in an honest, straightforward way.
A vow is a promise, often made before God and/or people or a person. As I understand it, a vow is not foremost a declaration of the truth of something present or past but rather the sealing, with a solemn promise, a chosen direction for the future.
I doubt very much if Jesus was repudiating serious, premeditated vow making in Matthew 5. After all, if He was, shall we no longer make or support marriage vows?
In Ecclesiastes Solomon warns us not to be hasty in our heart ‘to utter anything before God’ and tells us that if we make vows we certainly better keep them (Ecclesiastes 5:2, 5) I have certainly found the very few vows I have made have held me to my resolutions and kept me ‘on track’ in difficult times and, for that, I have valued them. Vows of marriage, celibacy and commitment to God by nature close down some options for us. They also free us for the one person or the one thing that we value so much. Surely, that’s got to be good….
Yes, it can be tough .. there are temptations in marriage as we know. Your marriage partner will probably not be the last person you feel attracted to. Unless you become a celibate hermit, you’re bound to bump into someone you like …
Personally, I have found my vow of celibacy has brought freedom to serve within the church. Everyone knows where I stand: it’s not worth asking me out as I’m going to say ‘no.’ I’ll not want to be looking round at anyone with a ‘view’ – no, I just want to be a sister or mother or a friend. Also, I’m not suddenly going to have a new set of priorities as I’m going to get married and have children. Altogether, in a nutshell, in the complicated realm of human relationships, things can be a little more straightforward if you make a vow. In any church where relationships are all important all these aspects of the vow are a huge plus.
So … there are some good reasons for making vows of commitment here … but don’t forget … Solomon’s advice. He was a wise crack….
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