In Which I Explain a Joke

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

What is Jesus getting at here? The most common approach amounts to a walking back of Jesus’ words. “Jesus isn’t pushing self-mutilation,” the experts tell us. “He is merely saying that we ought to take radical action to prevent sin. If your sin is lust, throw out your computer. If it’s greed, sell your car. If it’s envy, delete your Instagram account.” And all their modernist students applaud.

I once watched a documentary about the early Mormons and the narrator told a story that has stuck with me. Early Mormon women used to sew cloth covers for the legs of their kitchen tables. Why? Brace yourself. It was because the Mormon men were lusting after the wooden table legs. Ick.

Imagine one of our Bible experts talking to these Mormon men. What would he suggest? “The problem, chappie, is that you haven’t gone radical enough. What you ought to do is chop those table legs clean off. Then you will be free from the demon lust.” So the man saws off the table legs and quickly finds himself lusting after oil lamps.

Let’s read those verses again. This time we’ll throw in the previous verse.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

After this, Jesus tells a joke to prove his point: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” The problem of our Bible expert is that he just doesn’t get the joke.

If the problem is in your eyes, cut out your eyes! No more lusty lusty. If it’s in what you do with your hands, lob those suckers off. But the problem of sin is a problem of the heart. What you need is a new heart and this has to be a gift of God. The solution to your persistent sinning is not in something you do, but in something God does in you.

So listen to Jesus; listen closely. You just might here him snickering.