NOTES for Mar 9:42-50

The Saviour's words about the hand, the foot, and the eye that cause a person to stumble may seem too harsh, especially if they are understood literally. Christians, however, have never understood them literally, otherwise most sincere believers would be one-legged, one-handed, or one-eyed, or all three at once. This is an obvious and quite transparent allegory: there must be no place for sin in a Christian's life, and everything connected with it must be excluded from that life. Indeed, genuine repentance can only be like this.

The hand, the foot, and the eye merely symbolize one or another kind of human activity: they represent what we do, where we go, and what we look at. The sins that poison our lives are usually connected with these activities. Of course, a person's thoughts and imagination can also be sinful, but both thought and imagination need to be constantly fed by external impressions, and here the same eye plays a decisive role for us. Naturally, this does not mean that we should become blind, even figuratively, any more than it means a complete renunciation of all outward activity. What matters is that these impressions and this activity should not be infected by sin.

In a fallen world, one can certainly encounter sin anywhere; the only question is whether we remain where we encountered it. Do we keep looking where we saw it, going where it was found, and doing what proved to be connected with it? Here the temptation of ambiguity often arises: yes, sin is present, but there is something useful there too. Jesus has precisely such situations in mind when He speaks of the hand, the foot, and the eye: if sin is present, if temptation is evident, then we must give up whatever contains it, however useful or pleasant it may seem. Unfortunately, this is the very case in which a spoonful of tar can spoil even a whole barrel of the finest honey. Such honey, alas, has to be thrown away, however tasty and wholesome it may be in itself, as Jesus reminds His disciples.