Jesus was asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
He goes on to speak of the innocence of the child.
He then moves to the way there.
'If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire. 'Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven. Matthew 18: 8-10
It sounds such a brutal process, so self mutilating. Jesus means it to. He means to shock us into thought. He is clear that our earthly life can draw us away from a deeper intended way of living well, healthy, whole lives. What Jesus speaks of only seems brutal if we desire to hold onto what indeed hurts us, what stands between ourselves as we find ourselves and ourselves as we desire to be, our best self, our child of God self, the self we were created to be in the mind of God. Jesus is not alone in this teaching, for many if not all faiths speak of a kind of purification of the self. Beyond that, we trip on it in the work of psychology.
St. Paul describes this as the laying aside of the old self to put on Christ or the new self, the likeness of God in Ephesians 4:22-24. When we are baptized and/or accept the merits of Christ work in some confirming moment, we accept that we will participate in the process of removal of those aspects of self that alienate us from God and the good in each other. In church language this is the work of sanctification, opening to the Spirit to show us our faults, our patterns and aid in their removal. We set ourselves on this road of discovery of this deeper, better self. It is the road of purgation, illumination, and union with God.
Evelyn Underhill, the 20th century mystic of our tradition, in her book The Mystic Way, called it the road from Nay to Yea. Her picture is that our Yea to God lies through our Nay to what is not of God. We must separate in order to again unite, and must depart from our ordinary state in order to again return to it. As we learn what needs to be a nay for us, we open the space for a deeper yes to the way of Christ. The way involves a subtracting from our lives what hurts this sought after union. There is struggle, pain and doubt as we follow this road of purgation, purging our life by meditation, reflection and action. Giving ourselves to good is a useful occupation of our time, but we also need time to stop and reflect and clarify as we go. As we separate from 'vices' we feel it. A habit released, a way of begrudging abandoned, a charity given, insight that requires better action are not always or necessarily easy. Rather purgation is like a plucking out, a cutting off.
Illumination is the insight moment and is like a healing antiseptic applied, an exercise engaged in. There are moments when we neglect to apply what heals us, this better way. A pattern returns. Yet we can and do awaken and reapply the insight. This is the work of returning to our world in a improving state. Some traditions focus the believer on ever present sin. Yet as we grow we balance this, even overshadow this with focusing on possibility, the image of God reclaimed, the purity seen from afar and followed.
Jesus concludes his teaching this day with the story of the one lost sheep sought, the rejoicing in God as it is found. We each are that very sheep and found oddly as we are willing to seek.
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