What is a vow?

I don't wear a wedding ring. It's not that I don't want people to know that I'm married, which I am, to the same woman for over 34 years, but I hocked my wedding ring.

My wife and I hadn't been married very long, three years at the most, and I was trying to finish college on the G.I. Bill, was working a job, and was trying to support a wife and toddler. Still, money was tight and one month we simply didn't have enough to pay the rent. I tried to work extra hours but it was all to no avail. So, unbeknownst to my wife, I went to a pawn shop and hocked my wedding band. It was enough to pay the rent that month.

In the wedding services at our church, the minister states that the wedding band is a symbol — not of marriage, but of the vows taken at the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. The ring is to be a reminder not of the person to whom one is married but of the sacred vows taken before God and witnesses. My feelings about my wife may change from day to day, depending on whether or not we have had a disagreement, the finances, the weather, whether she accords me proper worship and adoration, and a host of other issues. But the vows — that's something else.

Like most married persons, I vowed — before God, mind you — to be faithful to my wife, to forsake all others, to love and to cherish her as long as we both were alive. It didn't matter if we were richer or poorer, were sick or healthy, or if it was better times or worse times. None of that mattered, the vows trumped all.

Whether or not I wore a ring was irrelevant, the vows were still made and were and are still binding.

The word "vow" comes from the Middle English "vowe," from Old French "vou," from Latin "votum," from neuter of "votus," past participle of "vovEre" to vow; akin to Greek "euchesthai" (to pray, vow); Sanskrit "vAghat sacrificer." The word dates from the 14th century and means, "a solemn promise or assertion; specifically: one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition." Note that one is "bound." A vow, then, is "binding."

I suspect that many people take their vows lightly these days. There are, after all, individuals who made solemn vows of marriage who have forsaken them without any thought to the temporal and spiritual consequences. They think to themselves, "Well, God wants me to be happy." And I ask, "Wherever did you get that idea?" God, at least in the Christian understanding of him, desires for his people to be "changed into the image of Christ," and one of the chief characteristics of Christ is that he obeyed his heavenly Father to the point of death on a cross. That was not a "happy" day, but it was a day of obedience. He fulfilled, as it were, his vows.

In my denomination, those who are being ordained make "sacred vows." One of those vows is to "obey your bishop" and "others in authority." I realize that in America we are loathe to submit ourselves to any human being. We believe in autonomous individualism, which, in effect, sets each person up as his own self-contained authority, or Pope, or God! I have been in the ministry some thirty-five years and the first twenty-five of that was mostly as an "autonomous individual," although I gave lip service to submission to authority. I have been ordained a priest for over nine years and I can honestly say that I've never been instructed by my bishop to do anything illegal, immoral, unethical, or unbiblical. I can say that I was instructed to do some things I didn't want to do. And that's where the vows come in.

No soldier wants to go to war, but he has taken an oath — a vow — to protect and defend the nation under the direction of those over him. So, to war he goes, unless he betrays his vow. No witness really ever wants to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," in a court of law, but he is administered an oath — a vow — and the penalty for violating the vow is jail. So the truth he tells.

Like those around me, I have seen the vow-breakers at work. They leave their spouses and children, they disobey their bishops, they desert their comrades in arms, and they lie on the witness stand. Tell me, please, what is the difference between a man or woman who betrays his or her wedding vow and the soldier who deserts his post? What is the difference between the priest who betrays his vow of obedience to his superiors and the witness who lies in a court of law?

I once taught a police academy ethics class and shared with the students that those officers who betray their wives are very likely to betray their badge. Several squirmed in their seats. Once one vow is broken, it is simply too easy to break others.

The issue is not whether one wears a ring or other symbols of a vow made. The issue is character, integrity, and trust, all which "get hocked" when vows are broken.