Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel tells us how serious a thing it is to offend against anyone in any way. Sin is always damaging, Jesus teaches us. Wrongdoing is never all right. Jesus speaks about a threefold way of sinning, with hand and foot and eye. These parts of our body are so precious and so vital in everything we do. His language is deliberately extreme, not meant to be interpreted in a literal fashion, for He is making the point that there are no half measures here. For example, different religious groups, different nationalities, difference of gender, none of these things should be an issue for us in the way we behave and treat one another. We are all human beings. What divides us, what has always divided us and always will divide us, unless we change our ways, is our inclination to sin and wrongdoing. It is then that we human beings create hell – a place where we have separated ourselves from God.
There are many places in this world that are truly a living hell. Wherever war breaks out, there is hell. Wherever persons persecute other people and make life hell for them, full of fear and threats and anger, such a place is a living Gehenna. Many people live in these conditions every day. God has nothing to do with sending people to hell. That is no part of Christian understanding. What we do understand is the ability of human beings to damn and to destroy; to destroy others and to damn themselves in the process. Jesus in His own life, would be a victim of this hellish behavior, when His opponents set out to destroy Him. Jesus knew what His suffering would be. That is why He had such a vivid realization if the seriousness of any kind of wrongdoing. Let us then rejoice in all good people everywhere, of any religion and of none. And let us remember that we, who are blessed to have faith in Christ Jesus, are called to follow His great example, and so be light to the world.