If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off….
And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off….
And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out….
—Mark 9.43-47
Jesus is not just talking to individuals,
but to all of us, to the body politic:
Cut off the social structures
that cause us to hurt one another.
Root out the structures that cause us to stumble,
that give us excuses to demean and abuse people,
that make it easy to treat others
unlike how we would treat Christ.
Cut off the hand of greed and “getting ahead,”
the worship of profit and the enshrining of the rich,
the inviolability of large corporations,
the placing of our comfort over the well-being of others.
Cut off the foot of militarism, violence, and domination
that excuses our murder of children,
and the continual preparation to do so,
that harms others to keep us “safe.”
Tear out the eye of racism and sexism,
of xenophobia and the disparaging of the poor
that sees some people as less worthy,
so we may ignore, imprison, exploit, or eliminate them.
We don’t sin because we want to;
we sin because certain “body parts” of our society
make sin seem right and good.
We haven’t begun to repent until we tear them out.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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