Leave your leg behind in the trap

 This week's verses are Matthew 5:27-30:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell.

These are some rather gruesome verses, but they illustrate how seriously we should take sin and temptation. I was reminded of them this week when I had to block wikipedia on my laptop after one too many late nights and several less than efficient workdays. I am a wikipedia fiend. I wish I had a dollar for all of the times I have told myself "I'll just look this one thing up that I am curious about" and then found myself three hours later in the dark, reading about some obscure and unrelated subject. 

Jesus describes adultery the same way. You're just going to take a quick look. But then it's more than a look. And then it's a different thing entirely. We know the things in our lives that have a domino effect, but we don't ever put enough distance between those things and us to keep us from stumbling into them by accident.

So Jesus is confronting us on what we all know, but don't really openly admit that we know: Sometimes a look is more than a look. Sometimes stopping by the bar for one drink is not just one drink. Sometimes window shopping doesn't stop at the window. When we reassure ourselves that we're just going to do it a little, just this once, just for five minutes, we're that man taking his first steps down the path to adultery.

And not starting down that path is the part that's easy. The next phase is more sinister: "If your right eye causes you to sin, rip it out and throw it away! If your right hand causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it away!" Is there anyone who would be cool with not having an eye or a hand? And if you had to lose an eye or a hand, would you want it to be the good one? These are not small remedies!

I've heard of people who were involved in gangs or drugs or were recovering alcoholics quitting everything and moving to another city so that they wouldn't be in the midst of the scene they were trying to get out of. It is a great example of what Jesus is talking about here, and one of the truest acts of obedience if it is spirit-led. If something is causing you to sin, and you can't control it, no matter how valuable it is, you should get rid of it, and get as far away from it as you can.

Jesus doesn't say to put a patch over your eye for a little bit, or to put a sock over your evil hand. He doesn't say to have them cleanly removed, stored on ice, and reattached when you get to the hospital and have second thoughts. His command to us is violent and extreme: Cut it out while you still can. Better to be crippled for life than damned for eternity!

But what if you're not a drug addict or an adulterer or anything like that? Can you ignore these verses as just another funny story Jesus is telling for people worse than you? Not at all! Sin is sin, and anything that controls you is a hindrance to your Christian well-being. It could be cookies or sports or even your career.

If every time you walk past that store you find yourself buying cigarettes, stop walking past that store. If every time you go to work, you come home stressed and are mean to your family, quit and find something else. If every time you go over to Johnny's house he ends up getting you to smoke pot, stop going over to Johnny's house and maybe stop hanging out with Johnny.

If every time you buy a bag of cookies you eat a whole bag of cookies, maybe stop buying cookies. If you can't stop buying cookies, stop going down the cookie aisle in the store. If you can't stop going down the cookie aisle in the store, stop shopping at that store that has the enchanted cookie aisle that is full of the world's most delicious cookies. Do you see what Jesus is saying?

We shouldn't be taking a passive attitude towards sin, and we shouldn't be complacent about things in our lives that enable us to become our worst selves. I think most people would agree with that on principle, but we forget about it quickly when the things we have to give up are valuable to us. Abusive relationships with people we are really attracted to, exploitive work situations that are huge career opportunities, fun friends who become bad drunks, the motorcycle we've crashed three times that the doctor tells us we're too old to ride.

Jesus says that it is better to lose something that is an integral part of your life than to end up in hell. Just like with adulteresses and cookies and wikipedia benders, we don't always have the self-awareness to quit once we've started down the path to sin and damnation.

His advice is solid. I used to watch hours of TV every night when I would come home from work. From 6 or 7 till 11pm every single night. Nothing would dislodge me from it until I finally bought a cabinet and put my TV in it and would not let myself watch it except for on weekends. Now I don't even watch it on weekends because it broke and I didn't buy another. I removed the chance to take that first look, and I cut it out of my routine and finally my life.

I have never bought a deep fryer for the same reason. I know that sin, in all of its crispy manifestations, lurks inside of it, and I will not go down that path.

If you are lucky enough to know where you often fail, take measures to wall yourself off from going there. It doesn't have to be one of the seven deadly sins. It could be scratch-off cards or that road that has all the traffic and those lousy drivers. If you know sin is lurking behind that door, don't check the doorknob to make sure it's locked, right?

So read through these verses again with Jesus and see if there's anything you should avoid starting, or having around, places you should not go, and so on. Yes, it will hurt to remove that chunk of spoiled flesh, but you will feel a lot better afterwards. Better to suffer a little now than to suffer a lot later on.