"I'd Rather Have My Hands Cut Off"

by Revd Bruce Waldron - 1st October 2006

Mark 9: 38-50
James 5: 13-20

There is a very old joke about an old miser who is held up at gunpoint one dark night and the thief says "What'll it be, your money or your life" And the old miser thinks for a moment and replies. "You'd better take my life. I just couldn't live without my money."

It is easy to imagine that something is so much a part of us that we simply couldn't live without it.

We can so easily carry grudges and hurts that are so old and familiar that they are like a part of us, and not realize that these are causing us to stumble.

We carry old ways of doing things, even when we know they are destructive and damage us, and others, but we sometimes don't stop to look and realise they are acquired habits, not really a part of who we are.

We carry old sins like chains around our hearts, in the illusion that we can never be free of them because they are a part of us.

That's the sort of allusion Jesus is making in Mark's gospel. Some things that cause us to stumble, we hang onto for dear life, like they are a part of us, like a hand or an eye, and we let them go on causing us pain and hurt for years. Cut them off, throw them away, Jesus says, even if they do feel like they are a part of you.

There is another side to this. The things that wound and damage us, often wound and damage the people around us.

What generated this little group of sayings from Jesus was an encounter between the disciples and a person who was doing healings in Jesus name, but he didn't want to be one of the disciples.

The disciples didn't want anyone else muscling in on their special relationship with Jesus. Some one else was working in Jesus name. The disciples thought they had exclusive rights to Jesus and didn't mind standing on someone else to hang onto their exclusive position.

It was their identity to be Jesus followers. It's in that context that Jesus says, if your hand, your eye, your foot causes you to stumble, get rid of it.

Jesus is pretty clear. Whatever the reason for their harshness to a vulnerable person of faith, the "little ones" of the passage, these things are to be dealt with decisively. Cut it off. Pluck it out. It will harm your relationship with God. It will harm you. It will harm other people.

It was Eric Hoffer, the author of "True Believer" who wrote "The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

Hoffer wrote that back in 1951. Rather poignant for today.

It is very important to divest ourselves of attitudes and self perceptions that deny for us, and for others, the Christian reality. We are forgiven. We are valuable and loved children of God. We can be recreated in Christ's likeness. The more we know this, the less likely we are to stand on and damage the little ones, the vulnerable people that Jesus refers to.

In James's letter to the church, he seems to want to set in place a way of behaving as church that will help people to remember this. He tells them, "Confess your sins to each other, pray for each other, so you can be healed."

Now, why does he hook those two up together like that? What have confession and healing got to do with each other?

It seems the early Christians always hooked the two together. At tonight's service we will be looking at the way Jesus is asked by a paralysed man for healing, and what he does is forgive his sins.

James knows that the grace of God can set us free, because when we know we are forgiven, healing can come to both body and mind.

James also knows that when we are constantly reminded, by each other, that we are forgiven and healed, then we become healing and forgiving people. He also knows that in this confessing to each other, the people will always keep themselves a bit humble, stop themselves from getting puffed up with pride, keep themselves honest with each other.

It's a lot harder to be proud and haughty when you know that everyone else knows you are a human being yourself. In James ideal Christian community, people put themselves on the line, put themselves in the position where they have to cut off the things that cause them stumble, because it's out in the open, and the Christians put themselves in the position where the grace of God is able to be represented by each other, constant reminders of the incarnations of God's grace in Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Christ alive in them.
If forgiveness and healing are as closely related to each other as James thinks they are, then you and I have a large contribution to make to the health of each other, and ourselves.

In both James letter about forgiveness and healing and Mark's story about Jesus teachings on throwing away the things that damage us, there is an assumption that in God's community, there is honesty, grace, and compassion, even for the least, and these qualities, in community, bring about healing.
May our relationship with God be such that, as Paul says, we lay aside every burden and the sin that clings so closely, and run with perseverance the race that is set before us.

As the healing Christ lives in us, may we, who know we are forgiven and healed, be healing for one another.

Amen