Gleanings from the Daily Office – Limbless by Choice
GLEANINGS (from the Daily Office) – Limbless by Choice – Year One, Proper 20, Tuesday, September 22, 2015, Matthew 5:27-37
“And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”
Brutal. And then some. But that is the point. Jesus says you have heard it said (place any tough law here) and then ups the standard. This sin thing is personal and grave.
It falls too often on deaf ears here in 21st century America. Personal? To the contrary my bad choices are the logical conclusion of the bad system in which I live. Grave? What’s that among consenting adults? To each his own!
Why the gulf between the two worlds? One is rooted in we and us and the other in I and me. The former assumes personal sacrifice to make the whole better. The latter assumes an entitlement to freedom from what the whole holds sacred.
When vying for freedom, we followers of Jesus need to remember we find our identity in the whole. We are part of vision greater than ourselves and more important than the individuals who inhabit it.
–Frodo: “I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”–
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