Such was the cry heard from many a young person in the Children’s Homes I worked in way back before I was ordained. Now, looking back on the last eighteen years as a dad, my response to that would be: “You really think that dads have that kind of power!”

Who can tell us what to do? Who has the authority to dictate how we should behave? Who has the power to compel us to behave? And do we only do what ‘they’ want us to do when ‘they’ have both authority and power?

Today’s readings are all about getting people to behave in certain ways; getting people to do certain things and to refrain from doing other things; to act in a manner fitting of their place or station or situation. And one thing comes through loud and clear … how we are to behave is not to determined by an individual personal moral code; it is not decided by reference to our feelings; rather it is measured by how that behaviour impacts on others.

And there are three distinct ways that the authors use to try to get people to behave in a certain way: there is the directive approach; the suggestive approach; and the comparative approach.

According to the writer of the book Leviticus, God tells Moses to tell the Jewish nation:

•   you shall not reap to the edge of the field; strip your vineyard bare; gather the fallen grapes; steal; deal falsely; lie to one another; defraud; steal (twice in three verses … just how much of a problem was stealing); keep your labourer’s wages til morning; revile the deaf; put a stumbling block in front of the blind; slander; profit by the blood of your neighbour; hate anyone; take vengeance; or bear a grudge

•   however, you shall leave the edges of the field and the fallen grapes for the poor and the stranger; you shall reprove your neighbour; and you shall love your neighbour as yourself

And that’s just ten verses of the laws and codes of the Jewish people.

There is a clear sense that there is no wriggle room. You know what you must do and what you must not do. And, it could be argued, that the vast majority of our judicial system is based upon this way of making rules: do this, don’t do that. Do fill in your tax return; don’t jump red lights. Or if you do expect to suffer the consequences. There’s no suggestion or expectation that we need to have any sense of moral ownership of these rules and laws. They are dictated to us, and we are expected to obey. This is the directive approach to our behaviour.

Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, appeals to a higher understanding. Some scholars argue that this was not so much because Paul truly believed that the Corinthians were of a higher moral order, rather that the Corinthians were not behaving in ways that they were supposed to be and that telling them off hadn’t worked, so Paul was using a different approach, the suggestive approach, to achieve the same end … that of getting people who professed a Christian faith to behave in ways that other people would recognise as being Christian.

The behaviour of the church members in Corinth was awful. They held to a naïve understanding of the faith: that because they were Christians, they were forgiven; that because they were forgiven, they were free to do whatever they wanted without worrying about the consequences; and that because they could do whatever they wanted, they did do whatever they wanted. Corinth was a place of licentiousness, debauchery and shameless immorality … and the followers of Jesus were indivisible from the masses.

And so to our gospel reading. Jesus is teaching a great crowd of people, gathered from Galilee, the Decapolis (a federation of ten cities in eastern Palestine … a bit like The Potteries), from Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan. They have gathered together into this great multitude. And Jesus, seeing such a throng of people, goes up the mountain and begins to teach them. He starts with what we call the Beatitudes: ways of living and behaving that are not taught through either a directive approach or a suggestive approach. Jesus teaches in a different style, in a way that is attractive and yet demanding.

And then he comes to the passage that we have just heard: You have heard it said this, but I say that. He compares one behaviour with another. He compares one style of behaviour with another. He compares our attitude towards how we behave with a very different attitude.

This comparative approach to teaching us how to behave is challenging: no longer are we told “Do this” and “Don’t do that”; no longer are we offered half veiled suggestions of a higher moral plane. No. Jesus compares the attitude of “Do this because I tell you” and “Do this because you ought to” with what someone has called “The Third Mile”.

“If anyone forces you to go one mile (as Roman soldiers could in those days), go also a second mile” is the instruction that Jesus gives in this passage.

But just imagine that after twenty years of rigorously following this instruction, a group of Jesus’ followers were delighted to welcome him back into their group for one more visit. They were eager to share with their risen Lord that they followed his rule to the letter; that every time a Roman soldier made this demand, they walked alongside for precisely two miles and then put down the pack that they had been carrying for the soldier and went their way. Two miles. And not a step less. The group looked for approval from Jesus; they waited to hear those words of affirmation “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”. But instead of that, Jesus turned to them and said “Now walk a third mile”.

This fictional group failed to grasp that Jesus wasn’t being directive, nor even suggestive, but comparative.

It is a style of teaching about how to behave which leaves us in no doubt that there are higher expectations on us than on those around us; that the better we behave, the higher the expectation gets; that there is no place that we can claim to have made it, when it comes to our Christian behaviour.

For when we’ve walked the third mile, there’s always a fourth and fifth to walk as well.