Jesus said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna.” (Mark 9.43-47)
Recently deceased, the writer Larry McMurtry’s greatest book arguably may have been his 1985 western called Lonesome Dove, an epic story of several former Texas Rangers that became a household name when it was turned into a TV mini-series. Even now, the series can be found on Netflix, among other venues.
At one point in the book, Jake Spoon, one of the former Texas Rangers, finds himself on the wrong side of the law. After a poker game in Fort Worth, Jake agrees to join up with the Suggs brothers and their gang heading up to Nebraska to rob banks. Jake reasons that little harm is done because nobody gets killed robbing banks. But, as they ride north, Jake learns that he has hooked up with a band of brutal horse thieves and murderers.
Sadly, it falls to his best friends, Call, Gus, Deets, and Newt, also all former Texas Rangers, to track down the gang, not a difficult task because all they have to do is follow the carnage left behind by the gang. When they catch up with the gang, they pronounce “the judgement of the West,” meaning hanging, the usual punishment for horse thievery and murder.
Not unexpectedly, Jake begs his friends for mercy. As he explains, he really didn’t mean any harm, but instead was only looking for safe company to get across Indian territory. But Gus says to Jake, “Sorry, Jake, you crossed the line.” Jake pleads with Gus, answering him, “But Gus, I didn’t see no line.” His excuse does not move Gus, who feels compelled to hang Jake along with the Suggs brothers.
Sadly, as many of us know, there is something very true in Jake’s words, who crosses the line and defends his actions by saying he never saw the line. It is a common experience, the vanishing line between good and bad behavior that, much like a mirage, disappears the closer we get to it, moving further into the distance, until, one day, we realize we have crossed well beyond the great divide.
Surrounded by and immersed in humanity, Rabbi Jesus knew the human heart, a fickle and freelancing agent that, confronted with a choice, too often chooses the wrong way, following the path of evil rather than choosing the path of righteousness. Aware as he was of the human propensity for pushing the line, Rabbi Jesus today draws a clear line in the sand for those who would walk in the way he walked in the world.
Startling and unsettling, the Rabbi from Galilean, sounding like one of the ancient prophets, declares that, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” Even if maimed and crippled, a person is better off, Rabbi Jesus assures his followers, if they take a knife and cut out the cause of their sinning.
Listening to the Rabbi speak, we are confronted with a bloody mess, almost like watching a Freddy Krueger movie. Yet, knowing well our courtship with sin, and, looking around, and seeing very few one-handed and one-footed and one-eyed persons limping blindly through the world, we are left with the uneasy proposition that few of us take the Rabbi’s radical words to heart.
Perhaps Rabbi Jesus is trying to make a point, using bold imagery as the prophets did, one of whom walked naked through the streets to make his point, another who married a prostitute just to prove his point. Still, shock-value aside, the words that Rabbi Jesus speaks cannot be dismissed, not in their entirety, not if we want to follow him.
Working our way through his words, one word stands out, a word that draws our attention to the intent of the Rabbi’s message. That word is cause, used four times in this brief discourse. For example, he uses it when he says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” We’re familiar with the word, but less familiar with its Greek counterpart, which has been loosely translated as cause.
The Greek word that the evangelist uses is skandalize, which, at first glance, looks remarkably like our word scandal. And we would be right to draw the association because scandal does indeed come from skandalize. But, it is not enough to know the origin. We also need to know the meaning as expressed in the Greek word.
Skandalize means to entrap, to trip up, to entice, a word rich in meaning when properly understood. In fact, Rabbi Jesus uses the same word in Matthew’s gospel when he reprimands Simon Peter for his efforts to detour the Rabbi from his mission in Jerusalem. “Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus says to him, “you are a stumbling block,” a skandelon.
In other words, those things that tempt us to fall away from the path of righteousness are stumbling blocks, things that trip us up, causing us to stumble and fall on our face. Wise in the ways of the world, Rabbi Jesus wants us to remove these stumbling blocks, wherever and whenever they present themselves, eradicating them from our lives so that we can walk uprightly, not stumble.
Listening to the Rabbi speak, we can’t help but be reminded of a scene in Homer’s Odyssey, as Ulysses and his sailors approach the Island of Sirens, an island of temptation occupied by beautiful and seductive women. Whenever a ship went by the island, these inhabitants, called the sirens, would begin to sing, luring the sailors to shore, where both ship and men would be destroyed.
Ulysses, well aware of the dangers presented to him and to his men, fills the sailors’ ears with wax so that they cannot hear the singing of the sirens and he commands them to tie him to the mast of the ship as they circle the island, under no condition letting him loose. Sweat pouring down his face, his muscles stretching against the ropes, Ulysses experiences great agony as he listens to the beautiful music, desperately wanting to break free to follow the sound of the sirens.
That story provides an equally good image of skandalize, something that entraps us, that trips us up, that entices us. And Ulysses, the hero of Homer’s works, takes drastic steps to prevent his men and himself from being entrapped and tripped up, in this way continuing on his way, not succumbing to the temptation in front of him.
Temptation, as we all know, is everywhere, not just on the Island of the Sirens. It is on the mainland, its song floating through the air we breathe, enticing us and, often enough, entrapping us. Once in its clutches, we are prisoners, unable to muster the strength to break free, our willpower weakened over time until we can only whimper in protest, if at all.
Habits, psychologists tell us, take six weeks of repetitive action to form, a frighteningly short time for us to find ourselves entrapped. Conversely, breaking free of bad habits requires far more time, our brain now accustomed to the treats that we have fed it over six weeks and beyond, resisting our efforts to put it back on a diet of things good for it.
That fact allows us to understand the urgency in Rabbi Jesus’s words, speaking to our own best interest, urging us to steer clear of temptation, knowing it is easier just to stay away than it is for us to get away. Once ensnared, it is not easy to break free. The one who dances with the devil leaves with the devil. This is why he tells his followers to cut off the hand, foot or to pluck out the eye, whatever it takes to protect oneself from the slippery slope of sin.
Steeped in the Hebrew scriptures, Rabbi Jesus also knew well the story of the Garden of Eden where all things were good until they weren’t. And he understood rightly that the downfall came when Adam and Eve crossed the line that the Lord God had drawn for them, telling them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Brash and bold, the couple crossed the line, invited to do so by the serpent who trapped them with a lie.
Little had changed between those times and the times of the Galilean, men and women still crossing the line, lured by the same serpent now dressed in silk finery, stumbling on the path of righteousness, too many unable or unwilling to right themselves after their fall. Hence, his call to excise evil before it has a chance to grow, to amputate wrongdoing before the gangrene spreads.
Sadly, his times and our times still show the same pattern of our falling flat on our faces, enticed by the promise of sin like a lion lured by the promise of meat, only to find ourselves–like the lion–staring out from a cage, learning too late that the allure of sin is always a scam perpetrated by a scam artist who has been using the same trick book since the beginning of time.
Some four decades ago, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, along with some friends, went on a skiing trip to Switzerland. While there one afternoon, a terrible accident caused by an avalanche took one of the prince’s longtime friends, another friend seriously injured. It was a near miss for the prince himself. People wondered what in the world had happened that brought them in harm’s way.
Later, it was learned that the prince and his group had chosen to ski out on the slopes that were closed to the public. Avalanche warnings had been posted, but they had chosen to go beyond the fence because, as one of them admitted, that’s where the greatest fun was to be found. Attracted to these closed off slopes, they went beyond the line considered safe and wise, the result being a loss of life.
Consider it a parable, a message found in that tragic incident much like the one that Rabbi Jesus is offering us when telling us that crossing the line between good and bad is something we want to avoid at all costs, our lives depending on not falling for the sweet sounds from the other side, temptations meant to have us stumble and crash.
Perhaps another parable works better. Today, as we know, one way to deal with a mouse problem is to set up glue strips that, once stepped on, will trap the mouse on the sticky surface. It has been found that sometimes mice that have been lured onto a glue strip will chew off one of their legs in order to escape from the sticky surface, sacrificing a leg to save their life, learning a lesson in the process.
Had mice glue pads existed in the Rabbi’s time, he may have used them as an example. As it is, he simply told his followers to cut off their hand if it caused them to sin. All things considered, his point is the same.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 