"IF YOUR HAND CAUSES YOU TO SIN, CUT IT OFF."

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48.

AIM:   To explain the total dedication Jesus asks of us. 

How much of the Bible is true? All of it! The Catechism says: AThe inspired books teach the truth. ... we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach the truth [which] God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.@ The Catechism then adds this important statement: AIf the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures.@ [Nos. 107-108] 

To understand the Scriptures we must know that the truth they contain comes in many different forms. The Bible contains poetry, prophecy, history, and many other literary forms as well. All are true. But they must be read in different ways. Poetry, for example, must be read quite differently from prose. Take the well known lines from the eighteenth century Scottish poet, Robert Burns: AO, my Luv=s like a red red rose / That=s newly sprung in June: / O my Luv=s like the melodie / That=s sweetly play=d in tune.@ A person reading that literally would conclude that the lady in question had petals and thorns; and that people near her could hear a musical tune. That would be absurd. The description is true, but not literally true. It is poetry, not prose.

These distinctions are important if we are to to understand the gospel we have just heard. AIf your hand causes you to sin,@ Jesus says, cut it off. ... And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. ...  And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.@ Jesus is not encouraging us to maim ourselves. He is using something called hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration for the sake of effect. We use hyperbole all the time. In my early childhood a dearly loved aunt used to say to me, when she thought I was over-eating: AJay, if you eat any more, you=ll burst.@ At age five I had never heard of hyperbole and couldn’t have told you what the word meant. I knew I wouldn=t burst. But I had no difficulty understanding what my aunt was telling me. 

Many common, everyday expressions are ridiculous if taken literally, yet immediately understood. We say, for instance: AI felt as if I=d been hit like a ton of bricks.@ If you were hit by a ton of bricks you wouldn’t feel anything. You=d be dead. We speak about someone being Aall bent out of shape.@ We say: AYou could have knocked me down with a feather.@ Such expressions are deliberate exaggerations in order to make a point.

What is Jesus= point when he speaks about cutting off hands and feet and plucking out eyes? He is telling us that if we are serious about being his followers, our commitment to him must be total. We must be willing to sacrifice even things as dear to us as hands, feet, and eyes. Taking Jesus= language literally would make God into some kind of sadistic monster. The God whom Jesus reveals is a God of love.

But this raises a further difficulty. How could a loving God condemn people to the eternal punishment indicated by Jesus= words about going Ainto Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire@? Gehenna was well known to all Jesus= hearers. It was a deep ravine outside Jerusalem, previously the site of idolatrous rites in which children were made to pass through fire. It thus became a symbol for hellfire.  Hence the difficulty B

How can a loving God condemn anyone to eternal punishment B to hell? The answer may surprise you. God does not condemn anyone to hell. If there is anyone in hell B and the Church does not tell us whether there is, while firmly insisting, with the Bible, that hell is a possibility and a reality B then it is because they have freely chosen hell for themselves. The Catechism is clear on this point: ATo die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God=s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called >hell.= ... God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.@ (Nos. 1033 & 1037, emphasis supplied.) The judgment that God will pronounce on each one of us at the end of our lives is not the adding up of the pluses and minuses in some heavenly account book. It is simply God=s ratification of the judgment we ourselves have pronounced by the fundamental choice we have made throughout our lives. 

In his book, The Great Divorce, the English writer C.S. Lewis explains this in a vivid allegory. The book tells about a group of people in Hell B  fighting, complaining, all bitterly unhappy. One day they are invited to board a bus that will take them on a visit to heaven. Many refuse even to get into the bus. Those who do embark start complaining and quarreling as soon as they have taken their seats. When they get to heaven, they are still dissatisfied B and demand to be taken back where they came from. The point of the story is clear. If there are people in hell, it is only because they have chosen it for themselves. If we choose to shut out of our lives all goodness, love, and light, then God will respect our choice.    

What is hell anyway? Hell is when everyone else has gone to the party, and you’re not there; not because you weren=t invited, but because you were invited time and time again, and refused every invitation. What this tells us is simply this. The choices we make every day, and every hour, are determining, right now, where, how, and with whom we shall spent eternity.

AThe kingdom of God,@ by contrast B also mentioned by Jesus at the end of our gospel reading B is the place of fulfillment, of joy, of total love; where there is no more disappointment, no more sickness, no more injustice, no more suffering; where (as we read twice over the final book on the Bible) AGod will wipe away all tears from [our] eyes@ (Rev. 7:17 & 21:4). And to attain that state of blessed fulfillment, Jesus tells us, no sacrifice is too great.

Let me conclude by telling you of some followers of Jesus Christ who made such a sacrifice. They stand for countless others, many of them known only to God. In 1995 six Sisters of the Poor from Bergamo, in northern Italy, died in the Ebola epidemic in the African Congo. Despite the danger of infection, these Sisters stayed behind in order to take care of the sick. Others arrived to help them. They all died. One of them, a Sister Dinarosa, was asked: AAren=t you afraid, being always in the midst of people with this deadly, highly infectious disease?@ She responded: AMy mission is to serve the poor. What did my Founder do? I am here to follow in his footsteps ... the Eternal Father will help me.@ Were she and her fellow Sisters martyrs? Most assuredly. AMartyr@ means Awitnesses.@ Those Sisters were witnesses, martyrs, of love. 

For the follower of Jesus Christ one=s own life is not the absolute value. Love for the poor and suffering counts more than saving self. A high standard? Undoubtedly. Is it too high? For unaided human nature, it is too high, impossible even. That is why we are here B and why we come repeatedly, week by week, some of us every day: to receive at these twin tables of God=s word and sacrament the help and strength of Him for whom Aall things are possible@ (Mark 10:27); to be embraced, held fast, strengthened, and uplifted by the love that will never let us go.

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The story of the Sisters in Africa is in F. X. Nguyen Van Thuan, Testimony of Hope (Pauline Books, Boston: 2000) p. 112f.