Radical Choices of Spiritual and Material Wellbeing
There is a battle going on in the lives of each of us, a battle going on for the lives of each of us, a battle between good and evil. At the end of that battle in the next life we will either hear Jesus say, “you are mine” or hear Satan say, “you are mine.” Through his cross Jesus has won the battle but it is up to us now to accept his grace and live as those redeemed by Jesus. There are manifestations of grace and manifestations of evil all around us, but we can take the side of Jesus in the battle for our lives by overcoming sin and temptation.
William Barclay a noted Biblical scholar says that the Jewish rabbis had sayings based on the way in which some part of the body can lend themselves to sin. They said that the eye and the heart are two brokers of sin, the two handmaids of sin. And there are instincts in man and certain parts of man’s physical constitution which minister to sin. We do not have to live ‘paranoid lives’ but apply Biblical wisdom to daily living and embrace wholeness and holiness. Our hands become instruments of sin according to what we touch and how we touch, in lust or greed or violence. Our feet are used for sin according to the places we have them take us. Our eyes become doorways for sins according to what we choose to look at or refuse to look at. However, it is important to understand that, in these passages about “plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand,” Jesus is not speaking literally. Jesus is using a figure of speech here, one very common in the Semitic world of first century Palestine — hyperbole, that isexaggeration – to make a special point. We have more sins than we have bodily parts. Besides, even if all offending parts were removed, our hearts and minds — the source of all sins, as Jesus points out elsewhere — would still be intact. Hence, these sayings are about our attitudes, dispositions, and inclinations. Jesus is inviting us to integrate our bodies into our following of Christ, so that our hands become instruments of compassion, healing and comfort, our feet help us to bring the Gospel to the world, and our eyes learn to see, and our mouth to speak the Truth, Goodness and Beauty all around us.
Jesus is asking us to reflect on our lives to see if anything is leading us in the wrong direction and if so to take steps to remedy it. Perhaps for some people alcohol is an occasion of sin because it leads on to committing sin. Many years ago, Paul Achtemeier suggested some modern parallels to the radical actions proposed by Jesus back in his time. “If your TV causes you to sin turn it off! If your computer causes you to sin disconnect it! If your magazine subscription causes you to sin, cancel it! If your job position or power causes you to sin, resign! If your bank account causes you to sin, give it away.” In other words, absolutely nothing is worth jeopardizing your eternal life with Jesus Christ! Jesus is setting before all disciples the one supreme goal in life that is worth any sacrifice. That goal is everlasting union with God Himself beginning here, with our fidelity to following His will for our lives. God alone leads us to everlasting peace and happiness. Apart from avoiding occasions of sin we can also strengthen ourselves against evil in many ways. We can pray to overcome evil. The greatest prayer is the Mass. Many spiritual masters encourage us to move from ‘resisting temptations’ to ‘practicing virtue.’ Holy Mass and other spiritual devotions must be seen in this rule of life as Jesus told us, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all the rest will be added to you.”