Hyperbole
In today’s Gospel Jesus is portrayed as speaking in hyperboles – engaging in exaggerated, extravagant ways of speech. If anyone causes one of those who believe in me to stumble, toss him into the sea with a millstone round his neck. Or: If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna (the name for Jerusalem’s city dump) where the fire never goes out. And so on.
I don’t know why it is that believers tend to take these sayings literally and are shocked by them. Indeed I have heard of instances where some poor souls have actually amputated a hand or foot because it was used to commit some sin – and then we hear of religions that actually legislate amputation as punishment for some crimes. We seem to forget that we constantly speak hyperboles without taking them literally. Like Her brain is the size of a pea; Everybody knows Joe is stupid; Her eyes were as wide as saucers; He’s got tons of money; I’ve told you a million times. Why do we do this? To emphasize a point! For instance I could just say I’m hungry but to attract notice to just how hungry I am I might say I’m starving or I could eat a horse. That triggers attention, even action.
That could be the reason the Gospel is so full of hyperbole. There are the positive kinds as when Jesus would have us go beyond a mere literal observance of the commandments. For instance he says, You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your shirt, hand him your coat as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. . . .You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In other words do the extremely generous thing, live hyperbolically.
Think also of all those parables where a woman sweeps and sweeps until she finds the one coin she had lost or the Good Samaritan who goes to extremes to care for a beaten Jew or the shepherd who risks the loss of ninety nine sheep to save the one that was lost or the rich young man whom Jesus tells to give all his wealth to the poor and come follow him. Even his disciples wonder, if one has to go to those extremes Who then can be saved?
It’s as though the Gospel can’t settle for mediocrity. It advocates our living generously, genuinely, beyond the norm, discarding whatever weighs us down, living wholeheartedly, not just liking people but loving them – living and loving the way God lives and loves. And so like St. Paul I want to say yes, in my own inmost being I delight in this challenge but there is this resistance within me keeping my love bridled, fettered, tentative . . . so that I can only cry out Miserable creature that I am, who is there to rescue me out of this mortal body – this half-baked way of life?
Yet despite our complaints, our self pity, Jesus assaults us with hyperboles. For him it is not just a matter of choice that we excel in goodness. It’s a matter of urgency that we absolutely live a life of faith, hope and love – for the sake of our globe, of humanity, for the sake of the universe. Live big, live grand.