Matthew 5:23-30: a reflection

23“If therefore you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25Agree with your adversary quickly while you are with him on the way; lest perhaps the prosecutor deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. 26Most certainly I tell you, you shall by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny. 27“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery;’ 28but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna. 30If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.

Jesus goes beneath the surface of the commandments to the heart. If you come to worship and remember that someone has something against you, he says, leave your gift and go be reconciled first. God cares more about a mended relationship than a completed ritual. Worship offered while a broken bond festers is worship he asks us to interrupt for the sake of peace.

He then presses the command against adultery inward, to the desires we nurse in secret, and speaks in deliberately extreme terms about cutting off whatever leads us to stumble. He is not commanding us to harm our bodies. He is telling us to take sin seriously at its root, to deal decisively with the habits and inputs that pull us away from God, rather than treating them as harmless.

The thread through both teachings is the same: God is after the heart, not just the outward act. So look honestly at what needs mending and what needs cutting away. Is there a person you must seek out to make peace? Is there a habit you keep feeding that quietly corrodes you? Deal with it today, decisively and humbly, trusting that the Christ who sets this high standard also gives the mercy and strength to meet it.

Lord Jesus, you look beneath my actions to my heart, where both my grudges and my hidden desires live. Give me the humility to seek reconciliation where I have let a bond break, and the resolve to cut away whatever pulls me from you. Where your standard exposes my weakness, meet me with your mercy and your strength. Amen.