The Second Mile
Ne of our Lord’s remarkable exhortations is, “Whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two.” That is, do more than you are expected to do, be better than you are expected to be, go farther in love and service and self-denial than you are required to go. The immediate reference is to the old hard days when most men had to serve despotic masters and often do compulsory service. For example, men would be required to go with invading soldiers to guide them through the country and carry their burdens. “If such forced service is demanded of you,” said Jesus, “do not resist; go cheerfully; go even farther than you are compelled to go.”
Of course, this is only an illustration of a
principle. The Christian is to accept hardness Cle iLCjSiSon of tou
patiently. He is not to watch the clock lest he may work a few minutes over time. He is not to keep account of all the things he does for others, lest he may do more than he is required to do. Rather, when he is serving, he is to do more than strict duty demands. He is to go two miles instead of one. The religion of his day was not satisfactory to our Master. So he said to his disciples, “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” We are Christ’s true followers, not when we do no murder — that is going one mile — but when we keep our hearts free from all bitterness, all unkind feelings, all desire for revenge — that is going the second mile. The religion of the Pharisees said they must love their friends but hate their enemies, giving as they had received — going only one short mile. But the friends of Jesus must go the second mile and love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. “What do ye more than others .?” is the question which tests Christian life. Any- [86]
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body can love those who love him and be kind to those who are kind to him. You must do more — you must go two miles. The principle applies to everything in life. A good many people want to go only one mile in consecration, in praying, in loving others, in doing God’s will. But mere one-mile following of Christ is pitifully inadequate. What kind of a friend do you like — one who will go just the easy one mile with you, while the path is flowery, and the air full of sweet odors, and then drop off when the road gets steep and rough, and the winter winds begin to blow? Or do you like the friend who stays by you when it costs to be your friend, when he has to carry burdens for you, has almost to carry you, sometimes? Do you like best the friend who goes only one short, easy mile with you and then drops off, or the friend who goes the second mile? Was Orpah or Ruth the better friend to Naomi?
What kind of friends do you suppose Jesus
Christ likes to have — those who go with him a
little way while it is easy, and then drop out Cic iLejSjson of totie
when the pinch comes, or those who go with him through pain, tears, and cost? those who go one mile or those who go two? Some Christian people never have learned the deep joy of the Christian life because they never have gone beneath the surface in loving Christ and in consecration to him. Our religion is too easy-going. We think we are fulfilling our duty if we attend church once a Sunday when the weather is clear, if we give a few cents a week to God’s cause, if we kneel morning and evening and say a little prayer. Yet these are only one-mile excursions in religion, and the blessing does not lie at the end of the little conventional mile — it lies farther on, at the end of the second ‘mile.
Everything about Christian life is infinite. It has no marked boundary lines beyond which it may not reach, no Tie flus ultra, beyond which its conquests may not extend. There is no limit to the measure of Christian joy and peace. We should never be satisfied with any attainments we have already reached. Whatever we have achieved to-day we should set our [88]
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standard higher for to-morrow. An artist when asked which he considered his best picture, would answer: “My next.”
“No ma7i can say at night — His goal is readied; the hunger for the light Moms witJi the star; our thirst will not depart However we drink. ‘Tis what before us goes Keeps us aweary, will not let us lay Our heads in dreamland, though the enchanted
palm Rise from our desert, though the fountain grow Up in our path, with slumber’ s flowing halm; The soul is o’er the horizon far away.’’
We should always look well to that quality of Christian life which our Lord himself said is the unfailing hall-mark of discipleship. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” The measure of this love is given in the same paragraph — “even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” “As I have loved you” — that is the second mile in loving others. The first mile is loving pleasant, agreeable people, in a conventional way, so long as they love you, flatter [89]
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you, and pamper your vanity. The second-mile Christian loves people he does not like — loves the unloveliest, and does good without measure, hoping for nothing again. One-mile loving asks, “How often must I forgive my fellow-Christian when he has been unkind to me.^^ Seven times?” Second-mile loving never asks any such question. It is patient, forbearing, forgiving seventy times seven, even unto the uttermost. It keeps no account of how much or how often.
Think what patience Jesus had with his disciples, and then read, “As I have loved you.” Think how he bore with their faults and failings, with their dulness and slowness, with their unbelief and unfaithfulness, with their denials and betrayals. “As I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” How it shames our touchiness, our quick firing up when a brother seems to fail a little in courtesy, or speaks a little quickly! Was that the way Jesus loved his friends .^ Is that the way he loves us now.^ If it were, we never could be saved, we never could learn the lesson of [90] d)e ^econD jttile
loving; and if we never learn to love as Jesus loves, we cannot enter heaven, for heaven is only for those who have learned to love. Shall we not set as our standard this love that goes the second mile?
We should go a second mile also in the submitting of our lives to the will and the Spirit of God. We say we take Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master. We do not begin to be Christians until we do. First, he is our Saviour. Then comes surrender. “Follow me” is his word. Martin Luther’s seal was a rose; in the rose a heart; in the heart a cross. The rose suggested fragrance and beauty. A Christian’s life should be winning. It should be sweet, pouring forth the perfume of love. The heart in the rose told that all true life is love-inspired. Then at the centre of all was the cross. That is the inspiration of it all. Until we have the cross of Christ in us, in our very heart, we can have neither fragrance nor beauty. We should never forget that only the self-sacrificing love of Christ in our hearts can transform our lives. And we can have Christ in us [91] ‘€^t Lejssion of Lote
only by yielding our lives to him. To resist the Spirit of Christ is to cut ourselves off from blessing.
“Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem
he bo7m, If he’s not horn in thee, thy soul is all forlorn. Gods Spirit falls on me as dewdrops on a rose If I hut, like a rose, my heart to him disclose. In all eternity no tone can he so sweet As when man’s heait with God’’s in unison doth
heat. Whatever thou lomst, man, that too become thou
must — God, if thou lovest God; dust, if thou lovest dust.”
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O the bitter shame and sorrow
That a time could ever be, When I let the Saviour’s pity Plead in vain, and proudly answer ed,
“All of self, and none oftheeV
Yet he found m,e; I beheld him,
Bleeding on the accursed tree; Heard him pray, ‘’’’ Forgive them. Father And my wistful heart said faintly,
“Some of self, and some of thee.”
Day by day his tender mercy.
Healing, helping, full and free, Sweet and strong, and, ah! so patient, Brought me lower while 1 whispered,
‘’ Less of self, and more of thee.’’
Higher than the highest heavens.
Deeper than the deepest sea. Lord, thy love at last hath conquered; Grant me now my soul’s desire,
“None of self, and all of thee.”
—Theodore Monod.