A Practical Guide to Self-amputation
Mark 10:42-50
I once read an article by actor Kirk Douglas, who was talking about his father, a poor Russian immigrant. Later in life, the man was told that he had to quit smoking or he wouldn’t live much longer. So he made up his mind to do just that. He decided one day just to up and quit that addictive habit. Whenever he had a fierce craving for a smoke, he would work himself into a rage. He would pull out a pack of cigarettes and shout at it, “You are not going to beat me! I am stronger than you are.”
According to Douglas, that’s how the old man kicked his smoking habit.
I find that a very depressing story.
The reason I find it depressing has to do with caramel corn. I have a problem with a homemade recipe for caramel corn that is in Linda’s family. I have come to the recognition over the years that this stuff is stronger than I am. I know it isn’t good for me. And yet, if it is in our house, I can’t stop eating it. I wish I had a quarter for every time I’ve said to myself, “That’s it. This is the last handful for tonight,” and then returned just seconds later for more. Once, twice, five times, a dozen. I will eat that stuff until I get a little bit sick.
The Douglas story is depressing because it makes me feel like a wimp. The old man had the discipline, the self-control, the strength of character to resist temptation; what’s wrong with me? Why do I have such weak character? How come I am absolutely powerless to prevent myself from doing something that I know to be harmful?
I know I’m not alone in this. Most of us struggle with some form of temptation. In many cases, this issue is a far more serious matter than eating junk and putting on a few pounds. When temptation controls us, our lives are cheapened, eroded, and even destroyed because of our inability to resist doing things that we know to be harmful. We are ruled by addictions of all kinds. Sometimes they are chemical addictions; many times they are behavioral or emotional ones. We find ourselves again and again wanting things we know we shouldn’t want, doing things we know we shouldn’t do, saying things we shouldn’t say.
Family systems analysts tell us that almost all of what is dysfunctional in our relationships has to do with falling into harmful patterns of behavior, patterns that begin within our family units. We react again and again to situations in exactly the same way.
We get stuck into patterns of behavior that we cannot shake, even though we know them to be harmful. We yield to temptation so often and with such regularity that it becomes almost a reflex; we do it without even realizing we are doing so. We become trapped in a web of behavioral addiction that diminishes our lives and the lives of those around us.
The Gospel story for today is about temptation, one of the oldest themes in the Bible. The very first story about humankind in the Bible is a story of temptation in the garden of Eden—a story about the powerful desire to do or obtain things that we know to be harmful. The Bible never seems to solve that problem for us. In the New Testament, Paul admits to being caught in that same web of addiction. In utter frustration, he writes to the Romans, “What I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
We can all identify with Paul. We try. Lord knows, we try. We just can’t help it, and it is exasperating. The problem is that the odds are stacked against us. You can beat temptation 1,000 times in a row but if it gets you the next time, you lose the war.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus prescribes a remedy for temptation. He recommends a rather aggressive and invasion medical approach. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye yields to temptation, pluck it out.
The story today is one that almost no one takes literally. Jesus’ followers were certainly sinners who gave in to all sorts of temptations. Taken literally, their instructions from Jesus were clear; get out the knives and go to work.
And yet there is no mention anywhere that any of them actually performed the necessary surgery according to Jesus’ directions. If we were to follow Jesus’ command as given, this congregation, and every congregation, would look like a scene out of The Night of the Living Dead. The only people who have ever taken Jesus literally on this are certain groups in the Middle East, whose actions are universally deplored as barbaric. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind.
So if Jesus was not prescribing self-amputation as a useful spiritual discipline for those too weak to resist temptation, what was he saying? What was he saying about temptation and how we are to deal with it?
Temptation is such a strong Biblical theme because it deals with the most basic foundation of our faith. It deals with the first commandment: the one that says you shall have no other gods. We generally think of this as the easiest and most straightforward of the commandments. It seems to be one rule that we are not tempted to disobey.
If it simply means that we are to restrict our worship to God as opposed to worshipping idols or Baal, or the various gods of other religions, that’s a snap. Over 95% of Americans, including many who have nothing to do with any church, say they believe in God. They apparently have no problem obeying this simple commandment.
Martin Luther, however, argued that there was a whole lot more to this commandment than that; in fact, it is the most difficult of all the commandments to keep. Because whatever you depend upon the most in your life is your god. Whatever is most important in your life is your god. Health, wealth, security; if that’s most important to you, that is your god.
Given this definition, addiction is a powerful god. An addiction is something you have to do, have to obey even when it opposes God’s will. Even when it commands you to do something you know is not right. It is something you obey in defiance of God, it is more important than God, and therefore it is a god that you place higher than the Lord God of Christianity.
That being the case, you can see the stakes are enormously high. We have to beat temptations in order to obey the most basic commandment. If we cannot defeat our addictions to sin, every one of them, we don’t get to first base in our relationship with God.
How do we deal with temptation? One way is to take the approach of Kirk Douglas’s father. Simply stand up to it. Defy it, beat it all by yourself with discipline and willpower. Just say no.
We urge people to work on their character, to cultivate their self-discipline. There are many people who think that is the main business of the church. To urge people to summon the inner strength to stand up and resist all the things we should not be doing.
Well, that works occasionally. But those victories are few and far between.
Kirk Douglas’s father may have seemed like such a tough, disciplined old bird that he could beat temptation all by himself. But no one ever claimed he was perfect. He could be a difficult man. He hurt people. He missed opportunities to make the world a better place. He was as addicted as anyone to careless, thoughtless, selfish behavior. And that means he lost many more battles than he won. Tough as he thought he was, he got rolled by temptation every day.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a group that deals with a particularly severe and devastating form of temptation. Their experience shows that people rarely beat temptation on their own. Your only realistic hope of dealing with it is to admit that you need help.
Once we do that, there are some new options opened to us. We can fight temptation by appealing to God to strengthen us in our battles. Again, we in the church often take this approach. Put on the whole armor of God, we say. With God on my side, I can overcome any difficulty, any problem, any temptation. God will keep me from stumbling.
Again, that works occasionally. God is a powerful force in our world. We can gain strength from God to block out some of those temptations that get in our way. With God’s help, many people achieve inspiring victories over temptation. But again, the track record is spotty.
Who prayed more fervently for God’s help against temptation than Paul? And yet, as he freely admitted, he couldn’t beat it. Who has prayed more fervently for God’s help against temptation than the church? If trust in God could keep us from temptation, then the history of the church would be an inspiring tale of peace and harmony and purity. I won’t elaborate, but let’s just say that it’s not. And it never will be. All churches, from the most ancient and traditional to the newest and most contemporary fall victim to the temptations of pride, selfishness, and anger in spite of their intense devotion to God.
Devout, loving, solid Christians fail every day. One of my professors at seminary demonstrated the problem when he said, that despite a lifetime of earnest effort, “People, I have to face the fact that I’m just not getting any better!”
No matter how devout we are, there are addictions to self, to pleasure, to physical welfare that we cannot escape. It doesn’t mean we are bad Christians or evil people. It means we are human.
Notice that in this Bible passage, Jesus does not prescribe the pious approach to dealing with temptation. He does not say, if your hand causes you to sin, pray a little harder. He does not say, if your eye causes you to sin, study your Bible more intensely or give a bigger offering. There are certainly good reasons for doing those things, but they are not a surefire cure for beating temptation, for overcoming our addictions, from having priorities that don’t include God.
Look again at what Jesus does recommend. “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”
I don’t mean to trivialize the serious issue of addiction with my caramel corn craze, but it does serve as an illustration. I have reluctantly come to face the fact that there is only one way for me to stay clear of the temptation of pigging out on caramel corn. And that is not to have it in the house. If it’s there, it controls me; if it’s not there, it can’t control me.
Jesus says that’s the only sure way to break an addiction, to avoid temptation. Avoid situations where you will be tempted. Recognize your weakness. Don’t put yourself in a position where that weakness can get you in trouble.
Many people over years from medieval monks to the modern day Amish, to home schoolers, have taken this to mean we must pull away totally from the world and society.
They’re not all wrong. If your weakness is material comforts, how do you steer clear of it when you are surrounded by it in a nation of extreme affluence? If your weakness is sex, how do you escape the culture sells it everywhere. If your weakness is pride, how do you avoid it in a land that worships the individual?
On the other hand, can we possibly avoid everything that tempts us to be selfish? No, we couldn’t do that and live any kind of a life.
So none of these strategies is totally effective. That’s why Paul said what he did about doing bad when he wants to do good and doing the very things that he knows are wrong.
Does that mean Jesus gave ineffective advice or a flawed commandment?
I invite you to look at this reading from different perspective. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Does a hand ever cause you to sin? Try that as a legal defense. Officer, I didn’t steal those diamonds, my hand did. Can’t blame me for what my hand did. Always had trouble with that hand.
Body parts don’t fall victim to temptation. Temptation attacks the will, and will is all in the mind. It’s in the head. Jesus says whatever causes you to sin, cut it off. To avoid temptation, I’ll have to cut off my head. In order to perfectly obey the command to have no other gods, I would have to die.
That’s how things stand without Jesus. The only way for us to stay clear of addiction to the world is to die. We cannot by our own effort get to that world of perfect justice that God desires for us.
When realize that we can’t get there, we are left with only one hope. We cling to the promise of God, that God will get us there. That Jesus has paid an astounding price to rearrange the scales of justice so that even when we fall into temptation, we can get there. We can be there with God.
What are the habits, the addictions that are killing you? That are hurting others? That are destroying your relationships with others? That keep you from drawing near to God? God has given us a three-part strategy for fighting those addictions, and that strategy is found in the Lord’s Prayer.
I’m not going to push it, because there are other battles to fight, but some day this congregation will use the modern version of the Lord’s prayer. Part of the reason is because the King James version contains a confusing translation concerning temptation, that is cleared up in the newer version.
The newer version says, “Save us from the time of trial.” That prayer is how we fight temptation. In those six words, we ask God for three things:
1) Save us from having to undergo times of trial. We ask God’s help in avoiding situations in which our weakness can be exploited.
2) Save us from the time of trial that we cannot avoid. We recognize that there are temptations we must face and that we are poorly equipped to fight them ourselves. We ask God to be with us to help us fight against temptation, against our addictions.
3) Save us from the times of trial that end in defeat. For we confess that we are not perfect, that we will fail, and that in the end, we need God to save us from ourselves.
We trust in God’s promise to do all three things, and that empowers us to go back and take up the fight against temptation each day. And we continue that fight in the firm belief that one day we shall come to a place where temptations are no more, where there are no other Gods, and we can live with that God in peace.