Physical Mutilation Before Sin?

The passage from St. Mark's Gospel which we read at Eucharist today presents us with the difficult words about chopping off hands and feet or plucking out eyes if these bodily parts lead us to sin. Because the words are difficult, I suspect that there are some who simply ignore these words. How are they to be read?

We have to consider the audience which first heard these words. We find clues as to how they would have interpreted these words in the notion of ritual impurity. You will remember that physical imperfections such as blotches on the skin or oozing sores or uncontrolled issues of blood or deformed limbs would have rendered these people "unclean." Their physical condition would have made it impossible for them to participate in the ordinary activity of society. They would be refused entrance to the Temple or the synagogue. They would have been forced to live outside the family confines. They would be ostracized completely from human contact of any kind. A solitary lifestyle for a man or woman of this culture would have been unthinkable. These people did not see themselves as individuals. Rather they saw themselves as members of various groups. They found their meaning in the communal settings of their culture. Such isolation, while difficult for people of any culture, would have been unbearable for them. The Gospels record the misery which these people endured in stories such as the woman with a hemorrhage, the man at the pool of Bethesda, the man born blind, etc. Self mutilation such as Jesus suggests here would have been unthinkable.

Yet Jesus proclaims that such isolation would be preferable to a life of sin. While physical deformity would have separated them from human intercourse and commerce, sin imposes a separation from God. Life without God was, for this people, a life without meaning.

Jesus does not intend for his audience to take this suggestion literally. Rather, he insists that they put the issue of isolation from human society second to the issue of isolation from God. It is a matter of priority rather than literal adherence. From that viewpoint, this Gospel passage has much to say to us as well. While I daresay none of us would pluck out an eye if we find ourselves sinning through the things we look upon, we might want to ask ourselves whether we are willing to consider the possibility of never seeing the face of God because of sin!

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator