Gouge Out Your Eye

And if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, than that your whole body should be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, than that your whole body should be cast into hell. - Matthew 5:29-30

When Jesus said, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out" he was - I've heard - speaking metaphorically. Well... maybe. But maybe not. Perhaps instead he was giving a literal reply to a bad excuse he'd heard once too often.

I think Jesus was responding to the whine - probably as prevalent then as it is now - that goes like this: "Well, I just can't help it, I've got a wandering eye." Or, in the case of the hand, "I can't help it. I just have sticky fingers."

Okay, Jesus says, sighing a bit, I imagine, if it is really your eye that is dragging you into sin, then you really better gouge it out.

I can hear the whiner responding, "Uhhh, well, um, okay. I didn't literally mean my eye causes me to sin. My eye only does what I tell it to do."

Precisely!

And this, I think, is just what Jesus is trying to communicate. Don't blame your hand or eye. The sin comes from your heart, and you know it, and that is what needs to change.