Sermon:  “Go the Second Mile”

Prayer:   “May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts and minds here together be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.”

You know, sometimes we get a bad rap, we Christians.  People think we’re overly moralistic, judgmental, holier-than-thou – you know, like Dana Carvey’s “church lady” on Saturday Night Live.  But the truth is, some of the Christians I have known have been just the best people in the world – “salt of the earth,” as Jesus said in a recent Bible text from this part of Matthew’s Gospel, the famous “sermon on the mount.”  We are a hard-working bunch – we go out of our way to do good things for other people, and for our church.  Most of us try our best to do what Jesus says here – we often “go the second mile” without even giving it a second thought.

Do you know our Director of Music Toni Sullivan typically gets up at 4:30 every morning so she can get here to practice before going across the street to teach a full day of kindergarten at Center School?  Robin Murphy chaired another great Stewardship campaign this season even though she had to work right through the final illness and death of her mother, Barbara Harris.  And poor Laurie Matson, our church treasurer, came in to the office this week to pay the bills for us – even though she was unbelievably sick with a stomach virus.  So many of you “go the second mile” for us, as a matter of routine. 

Sometimes other people look on, and see what we do, and must think the Lord is an awfully hard taskmaster.  And Jesus does sound a lot like that, at least according to Matthew’s Gospel. Brother Dan likes to tease me about my long sermons, but give me a break!  Jesus just keeps on preaching his famous “sermon on the mount” through chapter 5, chapter 6, and chapter 7.  Jesus finally gets to the end of this long sermon with the passage the Girl Scouts dramatized on March 6, with the parable of the wise and foolish builders and these ending words:  “²⁸Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching.”  No kidding, they were astounded! 

So are most of us in our church, because this Jesus is not meek and mild, pouring out unconditional love and amazing grace.  This is a cranky Jesus, a pulpit-pounding Jesus, laying out some very demanding rules for us to follow.  Remember our first sermon on this section, on the famous “beatitudes” – “blessed are the poor in spirit... blessed are the peacemakers” – remember how that lesson ends?  Jesus says, ¹⁷“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill..... ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  That’s where today’s lesson begins, a lesson that ends with this “be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”  Talk about “go the second mile.”  The way Jesus describes it, the Way of Christ sounds like an exhausting, impossible road to walk! 

Just look at this one idea, “to the second mile,” which has become almost a cliché in everyday speech.  We all have been known to “go the second mile,” even outside of church.  We might stay late at the office to help coworkers finish a project.  We might not only write a neighbor a sympathy card, but we bring over a hot casserole – the real Holy Communion of the Protestant churches.  But in Jesus’s day, under Roman occupation, going the second mile was a much more literal suggestion.  Caesar’s soldiers could do just about anything to the Jews.  But there were a few rules.

Under their law, if they wanted, they could command a local peasant to carry their heavy armor and pack for one mile, no more.  It was a way to put these conquered people in their place without going so far as to inspire a full-out revolt – which would require messy and inconvenient military retribution.  Historians record one time, when Jesus would have been about 10, when a few men in village near Nazareth tried to stage a revolt.  So in came the Roman troops to round up and crucify every man or boy 13 or older.  They lined the roads in Galilee with thousands of crosses.  You see when Jesus commanded his people to “love your enemy,” he was not talking about trying to get along at church with someone who you find a little annoying.  He was talking about loving and forgiving mass murderers who would torture and kill like that. 

To “go the second mile” would be to willingly walk, as the native Americans might say, in the moccasins of the enemy.  And this second mile of Jesus is NOT out of the way in the OTHER direction.  This “second mile” on the road drew two enemies together – they had to share the journey.  What in the world did they talk about along the way for one mile, much less two?  Did sharing the journey begin to change either one of them?

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus has just said in the beatitudes, before this passage Walt read today.  Today’s lesson includes some very clear-cut and practical suggestions about how exactly we are to go about making peace.  Jesus offers some simple spiritual steps that most Christians do our best to put into practice.  We practice confession and forgiveness with one another, we pray for our enemies and those who persecute us, we turn the other cheek, we try our best to tune our hearts to love and faithfulness, not hate or lust.  We give to those in need, to those who ask for our help.

Now of course there are some exceptions – we go to war in defense of the innocent, sometimes we might withhold money from a beggar who’s clearly under the influence of drugs, and domestic violence victims would be ill-advised to keep turning the other cheek.  That is a dangerous thing to do in private.  Turning the other cheek to a Roman soldier in public, like carrying the load the extra mile, was a public witness, a show of strength – a show of God’s strength, as when little David picked up his slingshot.

So here we are in the face of this command:  “Be perfect.” It puts such pressure on us. It seems impossible.  How do we do it?  I love the way the First Letter of John explains it, in chapter 4, verse 12, “No one has ever seen God,” he writes, “if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”  God’s love is perfected in us.

I think we saw God’s love perfected here last night at our church talent show.  Such a beautiful “climate of grace” Dan McKee creates for us, with his awful jokes.  From the youngest child on stage for the first time to the most gifted and talented among us – the audience last night loved them all.  Our congregation here exuded love for everyone, which drew people out and made it possible for us to really share our talents without fear of ridicule.  We have an amazing church here where we love our children into speech, into song, into finding where they fit in the body of Christ.  What amazing acts: from a 3-act opera about a lost hairbrush to a song about a llama kissing her mama, we are a church of many gifts –we even have Vice Moderator who does a mean Johnny Cash.  But none of us is perfect.  None of us can do it all alone.

We need to remember always that only God is perfect, and we are loved just as we are, just as God made us – “Just As I Am,” as the old hymn says.  It is through the love of God, and the embrace of Christ’s Church, that we are saved from our own sinfulness and imperfection.  That’s why we are called to help one another carry those burdens as we come together as the Body of Christ, in the church.  We are each so broken and flawed, we need each other to be whole.  As Paul writes in the 12^th chapter of First Corinthians, “⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit ...⁶To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

This is Good News for us:  Like the disciples who had gone the extra mile to climb to that mountaintop to listen to Jesus preach “the sermon on the mount,” we know how impossible it is for any one human being to get it all right all of the time.  We know deeply, most of us, our own faults.  That's why we turn the other cheek; we forgive one another.  And we hold to this hope that somehow, as we share the journey together, we can be better than we are alone. 

Thanks be to God for this Good News.  Amen.

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Matthew 5:21-24, 27-28, 38-48

²¹“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. ²³So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

²⁷“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

³⁸“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; ⁴⁰and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; ⁴¹and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. ⁴²Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

⁴³“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.