More Than Fair                                                                                  9/28/41

 

Scripture:  Matthew 5: 38-48;  I Peter 2: 19-24

 

I have read the scripture lesson this morning with less than ordinary confidence.  These are not what might be called popular passages.

 

Today, in our time, we are witnessing a resurgence of the use of brutal and cruel force.  Men and women are being compelled to go an unwilling mile; some not long ago to surrender their woolen blankets at the beginning of winter to a foreign army’s soldiers; many to go without food; to forswear freedom; to bow the neck, and fall in line with prescribed thoughts and actions.

 

Our anger rises at it.  We determine to give no consent to it ourselves.  We become militant in our alertness and indignation.  “If cheeks are to be slapped and freedoms trampled, we will resist!”  That is the temper of our time.  A fighter’s glove has more appeal than an olive branch.

 

Mankind has long had an ideal of justice.  Savage tribes have demanded the forfeit of a life for another life taken.  Civilized people have demanded an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  That is elemental justice.

 

Laws are devised to enforce the group’s sense of justice.  Guilt is punished.  Especially when smarting under the sense of injustice to ourselves or those for whom we have sympathy, we bend our efforts toward enacting or revising laws that will keep things fair. 

 

And this is well.  Until Christ’s spirit rules the lives of all people, there will always be those who are headstrong, selfish, over-aggressive, ruthless, who for the good of all must be held in check.  But elemental justice has its limitations in human experience.  And there is danger in the very process of legal enforcement.

 

Jesus and his apostles became terribly impatient with those who had become lost in legal enforcement.  There must have been scorn in the Master’s voice when he spoke of those who, observing the ancient Jewish laws, tithed the mint and cumin and other kitchen spices, while leaving untouched the weightier problems of human existence.

 

And as for those who hoped to make their oaths seem binding through swearing by the gold on the temple, Jesus would have none of it.  Let your “yes” be yes, and your “no”, no.  This was his admonition to those whom he taught.  After all, that which is exactly fair is one of life’s minima!  Justice itself is better served when it is allowed to roll down like the waters of a mighty stream than when measured out a pint at a time.  [Amos 5: 24; “But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”]  As a matter of fact, Jesus set a standard that is far in advance of simple justice.  Justice is a minimum.  Christians ought to be prepared to live beyond justice.

 

The first mile is a compulsion.  The second mile is a voluntary triumph.  Living is full of compulsions.  We are surrounded with many “oughts” and “musts.”  They are like the order that sends a boy’s unwilling feet toward the blackberry patch to pick two quarts of berries for the family dinner.  The feet can slowly and unwillingly drive the hands to the briers and the berries.  Or that strange capacity for the second unrequired mile can enable the boy to say, “What fun!  I’ll pick four quarts and then the family will have plenty!”

 

Let there be no glossing over of the facts to which Jesus addressed himself.  Proud Jewish men were pressed into service to carry the baggage of the hated Roman soldiers.  A Hebrew might have to go a mile at this task - or many miles - with no reward, or pay, for the task.  Then some other luckless chap would be pressed into service.  There is nothing pleasant about such compulsion.  In this context, to talk about a second mile may sound like generosity gone to seed.  Either Jesus was talking cynical and cruel nonsense to people who hated the injustice of impressed labor, or he was talking something so sublime that most of us miss it altogether, most of the time.  I think it was the latter.

 

Our living is full of compulsions that are not to be escaped.  The “oughts” and “musts” of every day must be heeded or life has a way of punishing.  And sometimes unjust compulsions descend upon us, duties which are not fair, but cannot be avoided.

 

How else can one triumph over them than by Jesus’ method?  Does not the boy who picks the extra blackberries have the best answer to the heat and thorns?

 

The proud Jews lived under oppression and injustice.  They hated it and plotted at every opportunity to thwart it.  A revolt had already been crushed, but they plotted others and continued to hope against hope, in the midst of their misery.  Jesus knew that this made living sour.  And he offered them a course to the freedom of their souls that cut right through the knotted problem of what is fair.  Don’t be overconcerned with what is fair; your rights; your humiliation.  Justice is important - especially when you seek it for the other fellow.  But it isn’t worth the ruin of your soul.  If some “shark” sues you for your coat, give it to him - and your cloak also.  If a Roman makes you go a mile with him, doing coolie service, go two miles.  Let your willingness conquer your rebellious resentment.  At least you may have tranquillity of heart in the midst of bitter unfairness!

 

I do not think that Jesus meant to recommend passive submission or cowardice in this lesson.  No one was ever less a coward than he!  What he meant to teach, I think, was that willingness can take the sting out of compulsion.

 

- And it makes its impression on others.  Have you heard the simple little story of how an office boy was hired?  He stood in a long line of boys who were being interviewed and who all wanted the job.  As he waited his turn, he noticed a book lying on the office floor, pushed off (perhaps purposely, I suspect) by the employer.  Quietly the boy stepped out of line, picked up the book, smoothed out a crumpled page, closed it and laid it neatly on the table.  The employer noticed it instantly, dismissed the rest, and immediately hired that boy who had willingly done what he didn’t have to do.

 

When Jesus hung in agony on a cross, victim of rankest injustice from the leaders of his own race and nation and from the government of the tyrant, deserted by his most faithful followers, in unspeakable agony, and with life ebbing from his body, he was heard to say audibly and sincerely, “Father, forgive them.”  And a Roman centurion used only to cursing and reviling from other poor wretches done to death, utterly surprised by such an unheard-of utterance, exclaimed, “Surely this was the Son of God!”

 

Fairness, justice, is a minimum for Christian people.  Christians ought to be willing to go a second mile.  The second mile is the voluntary action which takes the sting from unfairness and brings peace to the soul.

 

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Dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, September 28, 1941

            World Fellowship Council of Wisconsin Women, Green Bay,

                        April 22, 1942

 

Delivered earlier from outline notes, and titled,

                        “More than Required”:

 

            Pilgrim Church, April 23, 1939  AM