Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. I think about the Sermon on the Mount a lot. It's such a famous passage that everyone can reference tidbits from, and many times it's a passage that is worn and overly familiar it seems. But at the same time, it's also a passage that, when awakened to its deep meaning, has transformed the lives of many great minds, like those of Tolstoy and Bonhoeffer, and many others that we've referenced on the show. It's also one of the passages that when my cultural baggage was stripped away and my community and my life were exposed for what they truly were, a cesspool of stagnation and hypocrisy, it's it's a passage that showed me Jesus for what felt like the first time, even though I had supposedly known him for thirty years.

It showed me not just the safe Jesus, though it did show me that, but it also showed me the terrifyingly radical Jesus, the Jesus who had a claim on my life and called me to be radical as well. People who've had their lives transformed by Jesus, and especially those who adhere to non violence, will reference the Sermon on the Mount over and over and over again. It is the main component for the biblical case for non violence. But as I've wrestled with the biblical case for non violence over the years, one of the charges against the position that has kept me awake at night sometimes was that the non violent position was simply cherry picking. Jesus says some pretty radical things in the Sermon on the Mount, things that even the non violent often don't seem to take very seriously.

A case in point is the part of the sermon where Jesus says in Matthew five twenty nine through 30, If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Gouge out your eye, cut off your hand, or if you're origin, castrate yourself.

Obviously, Jesus was being hyperbolic. And if Jesus could be hyperbolic and metaphorical there, what hermeneutic causes me to think that he wasn't being a little extreme for effect when he tells us to turn the other cheek? Of course, I have a number of responses to that. Jesus says that the peacemakers are sons of God, and he grounds enemy love and mercy in the nature of who God is. But then, one day, after news of Ravi Zacharias' reign of sexual terror came out, something clicked in my mind.

I had been wrong about enemy love being hyperbolic, so what if I was wrong about gouging out my eyes being hyperbolic as well? As I saw the wake of evil and suffering left by Ravi, as well as the wake of so many other churches and institutions and their sexual abuse, I thought to myself, what if Ravi would have plucked out his eyes or cut off his hands after his first major bout of lust or after his first victim? Sure, there would be a lot to work through there. There would be repentance required and evil and suffering to deal with, but Ravi would have stopped his exploitation there and began the process for getting help and accountability there, producing less victims as well. I imagine the dread Ravi must have had as he stood before God and as he gave an account of all that he'd done to him.

I don't think he'll be thankful that he kept his eyes or hands at that point. I think of all the Christians Ravi is likely responsible for apostatizing or all the atheists who became hardened in their unbelief due to the example of Ravi, how many millstones has Ravi tied around the necks of others, especially his victims? I understand that Ravi is an extreme case, yet we're coming to find that extreme and normal or common are more synonymous than many of us who have been woefully and willfully ignorant have wanted to admit. Evil in its extreme is commonplace, especially when it comes to the abuse and exploitation of minorities, the oppressed, the vulnerable, women, etcetera. So I don't know how many of us should be gouging out our eyes or cutting off our hands.

The point isn't for me to decide where that line is or how one should pursue such a thing. Rather, the point is that sin is serious and it is pervasive and it is destructive. In light of that, I have begun to take Jesus seriously here. It would be better for me to lose one part of my body than for all of it to enter hell. That is a true statement.

That's all for now. So peace and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it. This podcast is a part of the Kingdom Outpost Network. Please check out the links below to find other great podcasts and content related to non violence and Kingdom Living.