The Problem w/ Thinking

Matthew 5:27-32, The Message – “You know the next commandment pretty well, too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those ogling looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.

“Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.

“Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure.

This is a tough passage; there’s no getting around it.  This business of cutting off the hand or poking out the eye that causes you to sin is pretty severe.  Jesus often used hyperbole to make a deeper point.  I quoted Peterson’s The Message version above because I believe Peterson does a good job of rendering the point Jesus is trying to make; what happens in your heart when you sin is even more important to realize than what happens with your physical body.  To coin a popular phrase, just because you can do something (or more accurately, get away with something) doesn’t mean you should do it.  You can become corrupted from the inside out all the while not doing anything outwardly that seems that bad.  What you do and what you intentionally think about has an effect on what you are becoming.

Jesus uses a couple of examples from the law to make emphasize the point more dramatically.  There is nothing explicit in the law about looking at a woman lustfully.  The law simply forbids adultery.  Jesus is trying to point out the deeper intention of that prohibition.  The obvious reason that adultery is off limits is that it destroys families, but the deeper intention of the law is to not just avoid that destruction, but to build up healthy relations between spouses. 

The other example Jesus uses is divorce.  Divorce was legal in first century Judaism just as it is in twenty-first century America.  It was not as common then as it is now, but it was still an option for men to divorce their wives with relatively minor consequences for him.  It generally was devastating for the woman as she was often stigmatized in the community for having been rejected.  Jesus is not only drawing attention to this harm that was caused to the woman, but he stresses that the man has caused himself harm as well.  It is a moral failure for him that he has not lived up to the ideals of marriage which was created by God.  He has damaged himself though he may not suffer any legal or social consequences.  His reputation may be intact, but his soul is in danger of crumbling.  Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

One of the things Jesus is doing here (and in the whole of the Sermon on the Mount) is exposing the problems with the Pharisaical interpretation of the law, but that’s not the only thing he’s doing.  Even more importantly, Jesus is building the foundation for the good news that is for all of us who are all too aware that simply following the letter of the law doesn’t deal with the inner corruption of our hearts.  Something more is needed to rescue from that mess and Jesus IS that something.  The Divine Love that is incarnate in Jesus can heal our hearts and souls as well as our bodies.  But we must be aware that we need that inner healing in order to receive it. 

Question:  Are you aware of damage to your soul caused by sin that no one can see?  Would you accept the healing that Jesus offers?

Prayer:  God, give me a desire for a righteousness that goes deeper than a good reputation and not breaking any rules.  Heal the brokenness of my heart caused by the “hidden sins” of my heart.  Amen,

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the thousands of victims of natural disasters this year (earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, etc).

Song: Give Us Clean Hands – Mark Schultz