Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A *Alternate* Gospel

“Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Law. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself.

“You’re familiar with the command ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot’ or a sister ‘stupid’ and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.

“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters: If an old enemy accosts you, don’t lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him.

“You know the next commandment too: ‘Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.’ But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.

“Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. You want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.

“And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.”