Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“If your hand causes you to sin, chop it off …. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off … If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” Mk. 9: 42

Today’s Gospel, to put it mildly, is difficult to read.

It is filled with dark and startling images: chopping off feet, plucking out eyes, and cutting off hands.

Why such harsh words? Why such radical, violent imagery?

I would like to suggest that Jesus spoke these startling words and used these offensive images for a specific purpose:

To get people’s full attention.

Jesus wanted them to be shocked, even appalled, so they would sit up and listen. To do this, he used imagery that could not be easily forgotten.

Clearly, Jesus was not promoting self-mutilation. Instead, he wanted people to begin understanding what his life and mission was truly all about. And he wanted to begin this process of education by helping them see clearly that he was not dedicated to making people feel more self-righteous and capable of lording it over others and increasingly susceptible to becoming more powerful and self-sufficient.

Instead, his life mission was about revealing, in an unmistakable way, a radically different understanding of who God is and what God wants from each of us.

To put it bluntly, Jesus was interested in helping people do one thing:

Decide.

Decide to embrace a new set of values.

Decide to welcome a whole new world view.

To do this, Jesus became very practical. First, he began by emphasizing how some of the most essential elements of life can be made new.

To do this, Jesus asked each person to look at their own hands and feet and eyes – some of the most primary essentials of being human, and embrace the possibility of each being involved in making the most radical of all decisions:

The decision to follow his way of living – an admittedly unique and demanding way – a way contrary to that of the rest of the world.

For example, a person’s “hand” conjures up images of one’s own handiwork – what we do or produce, how we make a living. This admonition from Jesus addresses the ethical issues regarding our work world.

Do we live justly and compassionately in how we approach our jobs? Are we adequately concerned about improving working conditions? Are we sensitive to the issues surrounding suitable pay and sufficient health care? Are we concerned with everyone having the means to find work?

“Feet” summons up images of moving toward a destination, particularly of being citizens of God’s universe. This image can involve parents grappling with how to help their children make healthy life choices. It can involve issues of career change, retirees considering how to spend leisure hours, issues concerning the loving care of the universe we’ve been given. All these and more can involve issues about whether our feet are stumbling, rather than carrying us steadily in the direction  Jesus wants to lead us.

The “eye” that Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel implies what attracts our attention. Internet sites are replete with advertisements and attractions that can easily draw our attention. Wandering eyes can include far more than sexual attraction. Decisions about how one uses time, spends money, and establishes priorities are all based on where the eye is focused.

Taken together, our hands, feet, and eyes are all involved in the way we live our lives. And in our present-day culture, each is tempted to move in a direction that opposes everything Jesus calls us to.

Admittedly, his demands are not convenient, cozy, self-affirming add-ons to whatever else we may hold dear.

Jesus does not offer a happy, feel-good prosperity gospel. Jesus is not trying to lure us away by promising great wealth and achievement. Instead, his offer involves an ultimate, all-or-nothing commitment to values such as charity, forgiveness, compassion, and empathy.

What Jesus asks us to do is singular:

Cut. Pluck. Chop.

Decide. Choose.

Stark and uncomfortable though the words may be, Jesus challenges us to ask ourselves:

What’s really going on in my life right now?

What must be cut off?

What needs to be plucked out?

What’s in the way?

What has to be re-examined and re-viewed? Thoroughly.

What must be cut out for me to achieve a real sense of peace and wholeness?

These questions tell us why Jesus uses such stark and, even violent, language in today’s Gospel. Because he wants us to do one thing:

Decide.

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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