6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
It's critical to see this in light of what seems to be the central section of this chapter. Davies and Alison emphasize this, and I think they're right. Matthew seems to surround verses 15-20 (or really, verses 15-17: dealing with a brother's sin, with the possibility of ultimately having no fellowship with him) with teaching to guard and protect a potentially divisive and hurtful process.
With that in mind, here we have extreme language (very similar to what we heard in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5:29-30) with regard causing others to sin - which may include undermining their faith or leading them to forsake the Lord, and with regard to dealing severely with sin in our own lives. It is almost like he's saying, "Don't you dare even think about calling your brother on his sin unless and until you deal with yours." Sounds like the "log in your eye, speck in your brother's eye" teaching (again in the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 7:1-5).
>I think it was Davies and Alison who commented that salvation (“the kingdom”) is in part a social process or project. Just as we hear the word preached by a sent one (Romans 10) and are saved; so it seems we can be scandalized, by another, and so potentially even lose “life.”
As we have often said, this new thing that is begun in Jesus is a new humanity, a new community. It is about so much more than me not going to hell; it is about so much more than individualism. Our lives are interconnected, we are to be interdependent on one another.
[It has also been suggested that perhaps Matthew is implying that this "cut off your hand or foot" section may be a more positive introduction to the concept of dealing with sin in the "body of Christ." While in a sense it could be applied in that way, this would be a very harsh way for Jesus to refer to members of his movement, his kingdom - especially when in the next sentence he will refer to straying sheep very compassionately.]
In discussing the "Aims and Purposes" of the ministry of the Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality, Dorothy Day wrote in 1940,
"Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing, and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate. We must 'give the reason for the faith that is in us.' Otherwise we are scattered members of the Body of Christ, we are not 'all members one of another.' Otherwise our religion is an opiate, for ourselves alone, for our comfort or for our individual safety or indifferent custom.
"We cannot live alone. We cannot go to heaven alone. Otherwise, as Peguy said, God will say to us, 'Where are the others?'"
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