Using some very graphic Jewish hyperbole, Jesus tells us to cut off our hand or foot and pluck out our eye if it causes us to sin.

It's funny he didn't say something about the mouth.

It's been my experience that nothing gets me into more trouble than my mouth. Perhaps because Jesus was a preacher, that particular metaphor is just a little too close to home.

But the times when religion is at its best isn't when it is using its mouth. Indeed anything but. Mother Teresa didn't convince the world of the beauty of her faith by her clever rhetoric or witty speech. Nor can we. Such a witness comes not with words but with our very lives...in every act of kindness, in every gesture of grace.