Faithfulness No matter What!
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off … And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off …
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out …” These are stark words that make us cringe. Jesus spent three years curing the sick, giving sight to the blind and making the lame walk. This teaching seems to go diametrically against His actions. Interpreters are inclined toward giving these verses figurative rather than literal meaning. Surely, Jesus did not intend to gather a band of lame and blind followers around Himself. Though this view has merit, we must not forget even today in some Middle Eastern countries maiming punishments are meted out by courts to blasphemers and convicted criminals.
Even in the world of modern medicine this principle of ‘cutting off’ to preserve the rest is carried out when a doctor advises that it is better to amputate the gangrenous member than to mortally infect the whole body.
So, what was Jesus aiming at when He spoke in this frightening language? In first-century Judaism, faithfulness to God was understood primarily through the lens of covenant loyalty. The people of Israel saw themselves as bound to God through the covenants He had made with their ancestors, particularly Abraham, Moses, and David. This covenant relationship demanded exclusive devotion to Yahweh and obedience to His commandments. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, the Hebrews viewed human beings as consisting of three interlocking zones symbolized by parts of the body. Hands and feet symbolize purposeful activity. If one’s activity (hand or foot) causes one to stumble during tests of loyalty to God, one must put an end to such behavior.
Eyes are invariably paired with the heart in the Bible to symbolize the zone of emotion-fused thought, reflective consideration of proper courses of action. Remember the teaching of Jesus which spoke about the evil that comes from the heart (Mark 7:21-23). If the eye, the organ that feeds information to the heart, is unreliable in tests of loyalty, one must take serious action to halt the damage. Jesus’ teaching is that no matter how painful, any effort to ensure loyalty to Him in this life is far less painful than the punishment for disloyalty to be administered in the world to come.
But how does this principle apply to the life of discipleship? This is a workable principle: be decisive, even radical, in your choices, when it comes to your life of grace and the establishment of the reign of God. For example, in the context of the Christian covenant, commitment to a spouse means you need to cut off any other sexual relationship. If alcohol is addictive for you, drop it entirely. If the television threatens to vitiate normal family communication, put it out of the living room. If your job compromises your conscience, enlightened by the teaching of Christ, and the boss will not hear of any changes of policy, maybe you need to quit.
In the Gospel ‘Faithfulness’ (the Greek word ‘pistis’) doesn’t just refer to us feeling loyal devotion to God. Faithfulness in the Bible is far deeper than ‘loyalty’. It implies intense, devoted, true covenant commitment. Faithfulness is used to describe God’s actions and feelings towards us and to the cosmos, as well as the quality that is expected from God’s followers. Faithfulness should lead us to face whatever inevitable challenges, questions and doubts arise, as they will in most of us, and work through them because we believe that there is truth at the heart of faith. In our efforts at being faithful we are not alone. The Irish proverb that “the help of God is nearer than the door” applies first of all here, in our encounter with Jesus, our Savior. Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.