There are times in a devout person’s life where we will want to make vows. We might take on a practice of abstaining from something we enjoy as an offering. We might vow to undertake prayer five times a day for a certain period of time. We might take a vow of enoughness, choosing not to acquire more wealth than we need for day to day living and giving anything extra away. We may take marital vows, of how we wish to treat the one we are marrying and how they shall be with us. We may take vows of celibacy, to devote all our energy in service to the greater good or in devotion to the sacred. A vow is a faithful promise that we are going to fulfill. So when Unitarian Universalists covenant (are bound in a faithful promise) to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, that’s a vow that requires daily efforts to fulfill. Exactly how we end up promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person may present differently depending on our life circumstances, gifts, and abilities. And there will be, as I have said many times before, people we would like very much not to affirm their inherent worth and dignity, our personal exceptions list. Except vows rarely come with clauses of exemption or exception.
Vows are challenging precisely because they ask more of us than is easy, routine or habitual. Vows can help us change spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally as we pursue fulfilling these faithful promises. When we vow to nurture equity, compassion and justice, we approach life very differently than when we may be comfortably supported by inequities, or when we would rather be stony-hearted toward someone, or when justice seems rather more difficult than accepting the status quo. This vow challenges us to change so we experience, perceive, and live life differently than before we made this faithful promise.
Vows in ancient times and even now often have a component of sacrifice in hopes of achieving some blessing. We might think about the last time something awful happened and we found ourselves spontaneously promising the Holy if only our loved one would be okay or if we can find a way through some seemingly impossible situation. When my father was struck by a vehicle moving at considerable speed, I know I was praying the entire way to the hospital that he would survive and be all right. Bargaining is, in contemporary faith development theory, viewed as something that we do if we have a less mature faith. If we’re praying “Lord, I’ll give up snacks for a month if my team can just win” then yes, that may be so. But prayers and promises of intercession out of compassion and for love and justice are not reflective of an immature faith. And the kinds of vows we might take, for example, in hopes our family will be blessed with children, or our communities might thrive after major employers pull out of the area are not. They reflect the real truths of our lives, where we are suffering, where our communities are suffering, where our world is suffering, and our attempts to seek to mitigate that suffering without adding to anyone else’s pain. Whether our vows are sacred promises to each other witnessed by the Holy, or holy promises to the One to seek a blessing, or faithful promises to see change in ourselves and our world at large, these promises matter.
And that is why I struggle with this week’s passage from Numbers (30:2-36:13). Not only is there a huge theological justification for violence in the second part of the passage, but the first part speaks about how women’s faithful promises can only be fulfilled if her father or her husband approves. Why? Well, when this passage was set forward, women most frequently had to have the protection of men and had the status of dependents. Independent women, such as widowed or divorced women, or Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah (a/k/a Zelophephad’s daughters, known by their father, not their mother) are recognized as separate people whose vows are of equal weight to any man’s. This issue of dependent or independent women’s vows was of some concern in the ancient days, because as Adele Berlin notes in the Jewish Study Bible (2nd Edition) “The Dead Sea Scrolls, however, placed almost equal weight on the oaths of adult females and limited a husband’s or father’s right of annulment to oaths and vows which transgress the laws of the Torah.” (note on verses 30:4-13). Today, adult daughters living with their parents and wives are not necessarily dependents, but active independent agents in their lives, regardless of their financial independence or dependence. As long as the faithful promise isn’t committing resources that aren’t ours to commit to fulfilling it, the vows are freely given and thoughtfully made, I believe that each person’s vows matter.
Sometimes, though, we can’t be faithful people and keep the vows we have made. Vows, for example, made in a relationship that becomes abusive, should be nullified. Or our circumstances change and to keep those vows is to injure ourselves or another or require stealing from ourselves or another. Some folks, for example, are encouraged to take vows of chastity because of their sexual orientation. This is a vow of injury to one’s self if done for reasons other than freely choosing to give their primary relational focus energy to the sacred. I want to note that plenty of faithful people manage to live into their sacred callings without needing a promise of chastity. For it to meaningful, that faithful promise needs to be freely given. Vows thoughtfully made are intensely personal and weighty spiritual practices. How we promise does indeed matter and each of us needs to be free to make faithful promises as part of our spiritual lives and practices if we so choose.
What are the vows you have made? What vows have challenged you to change? And what vows turned out to be vows that couldn’t be faithfully kept? How do your faithful promises affect your relationships with this Earth, one another, yourself, and the Holy?
