"The Second Mile"

Matthew 5:38-48

“if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”

How much to give? How generous should we be? This text from Matthew offers Jesus’ well-known advice in these matters: If someone needs your coat, give your cloak as well. If someone needs you to walk one mile, walk a second one mile, too. Don’t just do what is required, go beyond that! Generosity goes beyond what is required and becomes extraordinary. I thought I’d be talking about the Second Mile when I came up with a sermon title earlier in the week, but I’m going to spend more time talking about that Second Coat.

I think that there are two ways to reflect on this teaching in Matthew’s Gospel. The first way is the way that most of us probably read the verse. This is how it works: you have several or more coats and cloaks in your house. As you hear these words of Jesus you begin to calculate how many of those coats you need to keep for yourself to stay warm and dry, and how many you could spare for someone else. You may even calculate that the newer coats you’ll keep, but the older ones, the one with the squirrely zipper or the one with the tear in the lining could still be used by someone else because it’s probably better than what they have.

But that way of calculating makes you feel a little guilty, because if you are really wanting to share like Jesus teaches, going beyond requirement to extraordinary generosity, it doesn’t seem completely comfortable to keep the best for yourself, when the person you might give it to may have a lot less than you.

I’m still talking about the first way of hearing this lesson; I’ll get to the second way in a moment. There are some other thoughts that enter into your calculation. You might be willing to give an extra coat to someone who is genuinely in need, but what if the person who needs a coat has been spending their money on beer, cigarettes, or lottery tickets instead of the essentials of food, shelter and clothing. If you give that coat you may be encouraging that other person’s bad choices.

And then the last thought comes to you: you begin to think that one coat won’t make any difference in a world that is filled with poverty. It’s like trying to stop a tidal wave with a spoon. One coat, ten coats, a hundred coats and still there will be poverty. Nothing changes, except you’ll have one less coat. Besides, times are tough for me, too. Why even try?

This first way of reading produces guilt that we aren’t giving enough, it produces shame that what we give is of much lesser quality than what we keep for ourselves, and, finally, this way of reading can even produce a suspicion that the poor are to blame for their own poverty. As long as we hold anything back, if we hold even one stained and torn windbreaker for ourselves, it seems like we will continually fall short of the extraordinary generosity Jesus teaches about. And that’s too bad, because the fruit of the Gospel is not meant to be guilt or shame or blame, but joy.

So now I hope you are wondering what the second way of reading this text might be. The first way of hearing Jesus assumes that you have extra coats, and it triggers all of that calculating. The second way of reading is from the perspective of the person who needs a coat. Instead of guilt or shame or blame, what feelings might you have upon hearing Jesus’ words if you are a person who badly needs a warm coat, or someone who badly needs that second mile assistance?

Instead of generating feeling of guilt, shame and blame, the second way of hearing Jesus generates anticipation, hope and joy. In a world of poverty and hopelessness, there are people willing to share! Maybe we are so focused on the guilt of not being able to give enough (the first way of reading the text) that we have failed to imagine what it is like to receive from others in hope and joy. I am not saying that either way of reading the story is right or wrong, only that we need to consider that second perspective along with the first to gain the fullest understanding.

OK, now communion. Is our celebration of the Lord’s Supper a time to immerse ourselves in guilt, shame and blame? No, it’s meant to be the gathering of those who have received the equivalent of an unexpected coat on a cold wet day. It’s more than the second coat or the second mile, it’s an awareness that God’s generosity is not meant to produce guilt, shame or blame, but to free us for joy.