URC Daily Devotion Wednesday, 29 October 2025
Wednesday, 29 October 2025
St Matthew 5: 27 – 30
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
Reflection
This feels like one of those passages where reading very solemnly in a church voice is inappropriate – somehow I doubt that Jesus actually wanted his followers to maim themselves, but rather exaggerated grotesquely for rhetorical effect. And it worked, in that Matthew thought it was memorable enough to record!
Jesus is warning us against looking narrowly at, for example, then ten commandments, and letting ourselves off the hook because we don’t think we’ve technically been in breach of any of them. Rather, we need to reflect on whether we have benefited from, or connived at, sin when we should have stood firm. These days, we are alive to the fact that someone who looks at, for example, child pornography has contributed to abuse, even if they never themselves touched the victim. But what are the things that we may ourselves may be doing that contribute to the exploitation of others? Patronising a pub chain known for its cheap food even though it has a history of abusing workers on zero hours contracts? Buying cheap clothes of dubious provenance, at the risk of benefiting from slavery and sweatshop conditions? Not asking too many questions about how those builders disposed of the rubbish from a job they did for us?
Perhaps. But I am also challenged by something the economist Joan Robinson once said: “The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all”. And I am wary about well-off people criticising how poorer people spend their money without questioning why we have such inequality in the first place. Perhaps greed and self-interest run more deeply through our acceptance of the state of the world than we would like to admit.
Prayer
Lord,
We confess that we can wear blinkers when we reflect on our lives.
Too ready to conclude we have little to confess.
Too complacent to commit to changing our lives.
Sometimes we feel that our actions will make little difference to others.
That our sacrifice would be disproportionate to the effect.
But we ignore the cancerous effect on our souls.
We pray for strength to resist the temptation to apathy.
For courage to hear your promptings.
And determination to live faithful lives.
Amen.