“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell.”
I don’t know about you, but if I had to pluck off every part of my body that was sinful, I think the only thing I’d have left is my hair. I cannot recall a time my hair caused me to sin, but I’m positive the rest of me has. What is Jesus talking about when he tells us that if a part of our body causes us to sin, we are to cut it off. Does he actually want His followers to mutilate themselves?
To understand what Jesus is saying we have to take some time and talk about sin. Sin is an infection, Saint Paul defines it this way, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” We have all experienced this emotion, we have all done something, or said something, reacted in such a way, that either right away, or a while later, we were morbidly ashamed of our actions. It is that shame that we feel that often pushes us away from God because we feel so unworthy to go to him.
When we feel unworthy sin becomes part of us, so part of us it becomes like our eyes, our hands, or our feet. Some sin can become so part of us we think we cannot live without it. Jesus is calling us to cut sin out of our lives like a skilled surgeon cuts disease out of his patient. But, there is a difference between sin and illness. Illness, kills its host, when the host dies so does the disease. Sin is more dangerous because even if it destroys us, we can and do pass it on to the next generation. That is why Jesus prefaces his statement by saying, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”
Think about how much sin was passed on to us from the generation before, and then we to the next generation, and so on. Sin is the epidemic humanity will not confront because we are either too ashamed to name it out loud and confess it, or because we enjoy it so much that it has become a part of us. Jesus Christ is the cure for this condition, and we can access the medicine he has left for us through the church. “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” God has given us a great tool to cut away those things we want to get rid of, it is self-examination, and the Sacrament of confession. That is the tool God wants us to use to cut out our sins.
What stops us from examining our loves and going to a priest to make a confession is shame. What is it that you are ashamed of, is it your drinking habit, is it the gluttony you have for food, is it the way you treated your children, is it the way you treated your parents, is it an affair you had, is it hatred of someone else, is it jealousy?
God wants to you stop committing those sins, but they don’t make God cry. The things that we do that make God cry for us are the sins of omission we are guilty of. Not praying daily, not setting aside just a few mins each day to reflect on scripture, not being in church every Sunday. These are the sins that make God cry for us, and not because he won’t forgive them, but because his crying for us isn’t a shedding of tears, but a crying out to us because he loves us. He is crying to us, come unto me all ye that travail and I will refresh you!
Yet we sit idly by ashamed by our sins of commission, so ashamed that we can’t hear the king of kings and lord of lords calling out to us, screaming at us, I LOVE YOU! Do you want to cast off the sins of commission that you are ashamed of, that you don’t want the person sitting next to you in church to know about? Then confess that you have not put God first in your life and take the steps you need to make him first. When God is first in our lives, we take the medicine that will begin to kill off the infection of sin that grips us all, we can’t do it alone we need God.
I sing a song to my daughter Martha every night, and it is profoundly simple, and profoundly true.”Jesus love me this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to him belong we are weak, but He is strong.”
He loves all of us, do you hear him calling out to you? My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth take the steps to come back to God. Come to see a priest, take counsel in the church, if you are weak, allow Jesus to be your strength, and He will make you new. Don’t try to walk away from what you are ashamed of until you walk towards God, in walking towards God, your sin and shame will be burned away by his light and love.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
19th Sunday after Pentecost
30 September 2018