Good Morning Friends,
In a world that worships money and power and fame, it is very difficult to take seriously a doctrine that identifies God not with society’s affluent and its power structures, but as a child in a manger that grows up to be a poor, wandering, homeless man of sorrows. Still the reality is that God’s love is so vast that it has to spill out of the heavens and into the lives of prostitutes and tax collectors as well as religious leaders and soldiers. Friends, there is unfinished work when it comes to sharing in the work of the Holy Spirit…forgiving so we might be forgiven…loving because we have been loved. Are You Willing to Walk the Second Mile With an Outcast?
Scripture: ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.
Matthew 21:28-31 (NRSV)
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (NRSV)
Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV)
and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 (NRSV)
Message: Philosophers got it wrong when they wrote,” I think therefore I am.” It is and always will be, “I love, and therefore I am.” In the mystery of life, the very act of love for the outcast conveys the possibility of repentance for one’s sins and the perpetual chance of salvation. When we walk the second mile, we see this reality. It is imbedded in the redemption stories in the Bible and in literature. Dostoevsky’s shrewd metaphors for the structure of human consciousness in the character of Sonya, whose name means wisdom, portrays what I am considering this morning. She was a fallen woman with a golden heart. She is an amalgamation of three Biblical characters to form something saintly…. something redeemed. The first is Mary Magdalen, and though there is no explicit mention in the Gospels of Mary Magdalen being a prostitute, it is mentioned that she was a female follower of Jesus who had seven devils expelled by Christ…presumably the seven deadly sins. She was at Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Through the course of time, Mary Magdalen’s life has been associated with at least two other women appearing in the New Testament…Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’ sister and the unnamed sinner who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. The stories of these three women coalesce to form the Mary Magdalen with whom Dostoevsky was culturally familiar. She becomes this prostitute who repents her sinful ways, bathes Jesus Christ’s feet with her tears, and as Lazarus, who is resurrected by Christ, witnesses the crucifixion and resurrection, and who brings the Word of Christianity and salvation to the world. Sonya copes with her life, she accepts suffering; she repents her sins and spreads this message, just as Mary Magdalen did. She is the symbol of rebirth and faith…an example of going the extra mile. Still, we are double minded when it comes to embracing this kind of love. On the one hand we desire to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth and as a choice to love and on the other to feel what we want rather than what is really there.
And So, in today’s scripture, Jesus uses our natural response to this situation of being willing to go the extra mile to teach us an important lesson. Jesus knows that no one likes to do someone else work. He knows that being compelled can be demeaning and unjust, but Jesus tells us to take the sting out of the situation by being willing to carry the burden with a cheerful attitude. On our walk with Jesus, He teaches us to go the second mile…to swallow pride and abandon self-interest… to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. On the journey He compels us to live by grace in the face of the unfair. He requires us to be cheerfully generous when compelled by others to help them on the way to redemption.
Pray we rise above our instinctive desire to strike back…to get even…to settle the score. Pray we witness in the second mile. Pray we cheerfully sacrifice in the second mile. Pray we grow stronger in the second mile. Pray that in the second mile we experience a breakthrough. Pray we sow seeds in the second mile. Pray the second mile births in us a deliverance and healing that sets us free. Pray we experience love as joy in the birth of a child. Pray
we experience love as peace when we rest in found purpose. Pray we experience enduring love when we face periods of long-suffering. Pray we experience love’s touch through kindness both given and received. Pray we experience goodness through love’s character as we serve the poor. Pray we experience love’s nature though faithfulness as we strive to grow. Pray we experience the gentleness of love in a soap bubble that exists for a time in the tension of world and then pops into forgetfulness taking away our sins as if to another world. Pray that love binds us all together in sufficiently complex ways to glorify our maker. Pray that no matter what happens to us, Christ’s love is allowed to shine in and through us. Pray we realize that life itself is pointless without love. Pray we realize that our efforts and gifts are fruitless without love. Pray Christ’s love overflow with victory, patients, kindness, generosity, humility, and respect in us each day. Pray the truth of love overflow in our lives and surrounds, protects, and preserves us with the hope of new life. Pray in the love of Christ we discover something more powerful than knowledge… more powerful than life. Pray in the love of Christ that we discover something more powerful than creation itself. Pray we learn not to stand between the overflow of love from God and our needs. Pray we choose to live in the overflow of His divine creation and enduring love. Pray we discover the gift of Jesus in the second mile.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 