There are a couple of Sundays I'd just as soon not preach. One is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday immediately following Pentecost. I've heard more than one priest say that the reason most of us want an assistant or a deacon is so that we can assign them the task of trying to explain how it is we believe in one God, in three persons, and so on. Clergy dislike of preaching on Trinity Sunday is pretty widespread. So-called, Stewardship Sunday is another. It feels to me like I'm singing for my supper. After all, besides the mortgage what costs a church the most? Clergy salaries. Plus, I can guarantee you that regardless of how many guests a church has had in the weeks leading up to Stewardship Sunday, there will be several that day and it will be the greeter's job to assure them that we don't talk about money every Sunday. So I tread carefully on those Sundays. By the way, that Sunday is coming up in a couple of weeks. Beware!

There are others but let me get right to the point. The most dreaded Sunday, for me is today, the day that one of our parishioners so pointedly calls: Gouge-Your-Eye-Out Sunday. The other day we were discussing which Sunday would be best for a kind of invite-a-friend-to-church Sunday, and she said, any Sunday except Gouge-Your-Eye-Out Sunday. She understood why I'd prefer not to preach today. But, as I've said many times before when difficult readings come up, I don't pick them. Some bunches of people many years ago arranged the series of Sunday readings we call the lectionary and this just happens to be the day they picked for cut-your-hand-off, cut-your-foot-off, gouge-your-eye-out Sunday. So, these are the cards we've been dealt, let's see where they take us this morning.

I think it's safe to say that Jesus is serious about sin. To put it mildly, he stressed that sin was a bad idea. To put it bluntly, he thought that it would be better for us to go through life without one or more appendages than to sin, and especially, to cause someone who believes in him to sin. That, I believe, is a given. Jesus hated sin. I also think it's safe to say that most and maybe all those who have read and studied this passage understand that Jesus was not expecting anyone to take it literally. Even the most literal of scriptural interpreters, those whose bumper sticker might read, “God said it, I believe it, that's the end of it”; have yet to pluck out an eye or amputate an arm or a leg. And it's not because their eyes or arms or legs have not caused them to sin, for as Saint Paul says, "[Since] all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:23-24).

Jesus was trying to make a point. He often spoke in vivid terms like these. In Luke's gospel it is recorded that he said, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sister, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). Certainly Jesus knew that there was quite enough hatred in the world already and did not intend for his followers to add to it, yet he spoke in such a striking way so as to help us realize that sometime down the line we may be forced to make very difficult decisions about who or what to follow.

Or when Jesus told the rich young man to sell everything he has and give it to the poor if he wanted to have treasure in heaven, or when he told his disciples regarding this man, that it is hard for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus was trying to make a point. A point we'll be exploring in two weeks, by the way.

To be sure, we need to be on guard and not dilute these sayings of Jesus, and turn eye gouging and limb amputation into a hand slap and don't do that again or give all we have to the poor and then follow Jesus to mean, give whatever is left over at the end of the month to God and God's work.

Jesus spoke the way he did, I believe, to get our attention, to wake us up, to force us to examine our behavior and not take the easy way out.

He spoke this way so that perhaps we might catch ourselves when we too casually dismiss his statements about sin and discipleship as simply the way Middle Easterners talked back then.

He spoke this way, I believe, so that these words of his might stick to us, not easily be forgotten, but instead cause us to carefully look at the life we are living to judge for ourselves whether or not we stack up; whether we can legitimately count ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ.

How might Jesus speak today? What kinds of images might he use? I wonder. Perhaps it would be something like this: If your use of the internet caused you to surf where you know you had no business going, unplug your computer, smash it with a sledge hammer, and toss it in the city dump.

If in your use of Facebook you find yourself searching for long-lost boyfriends or girlfriends, drawing you further away from your spouse or partner, stop using the service and never go back again.

If your love of possessions causes you to judge those who have less than you or to be envious of others who have more than you, or put things before people, get rid of what you own; your beautiful house, your fancy car, your membership at the country club, and give the money to the poor and follow Jesus. You get the idea. Actually, I think Jesus would use far more colorful images than these but it's the best I could do.

Some time ago I was having a discussion with a pastor from a different franchise and he was asking why I was so rigid about following the lectionary. My response was simple: If I didn't, if I picked and chose passages myself based on the ones I liked, or the ones I thought my congregation needed to hear and pay attention to, my tendency would be to skip over the tough ones, the ones that called my lifestyle into question, or the ones that might cause my congregation not to like me because of something I felt compelled to preach based on the scripture. I told him, I feel it is best to take my chances, let the pericopes fall where they may, and then preach the gospel as best I can, with, as Saint Paul says in his letter to the church in Philipi, "to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12c paraphrased).

So what are we to do with all of this? How are we to respond to Jesus who is speaking so harshly and so loudly to us about sin and the need to avoid sin and especially not to lead others into sin? I think we should not take his words lightly. We should not dismiss them out-of-hand. Hear them as, in the best sense, a cry for attention, and as a message across the ages that is saying to us that there are ways to behave that bring us closer to God and God's promises, and ways to live that take us further away. There is a way to live in community so that everyone can thrive and grow closer to each other and to God and hear Jesus' words as a call to live a holy and wholesome life.

Let's face it; we all know what sin is. We all know when we stray, when we fall short, when we begin to rationalize our behavior. We know, don't we? May these words of Jesus remind us every day of the path he expects us to take, the path he bids us to walk, this day and always, forever and ever. Amen.