Second-Mile Service at Chick-fil-A

   Last summer I asked the teenager behind the counter at the local Chick-fil-A what it is that makes it possible for his restaurant to be so dang busy all the time.  Without even a second's hesitation the kid had his response:  "Second-Mile Service," he said.

    I admit I was a little ambivalent about the answer.  On one hand, I thought it was pretty cool that the company had taken a Biblical principle and successfully applied it in the business world.  Walking the second mile is a metaphor for doing more than you have to do.  And that's what it takes to succeed - going above and beyond what is required.  But another part of me thought taking a teaching from the Sermon on the Mount - where Jesus told his followers not to worry about food - and applying it to selling chicken nuggets might be stretching things.  Was something being lost in trying to make Jesus' teachings "work" in such a practical way?

   I suppose my main misgiving had to do with what I feared might be a cheapening of Jesus' radical social teachings.  When Jesus took his disciples up the mountain he preached a sermon that imagined a whole new ethic for a whole new stage in human history.  Before, the prevailing wisdom of the world was to "love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  Jesus said we must go beyond that.  "Love your neighbors and do good to your enemies," he said.  That was what was meant by going the second mile.  In those days, Jews could be conscripted to carry a Roman soldier's pack for one mile.  Jesus taught his disciples to carry it a second mile.  By teaching his followers to go above and beyond what was required of them, Jesus was teaching his disciples to respond to oppression with a nonviolent resistance which affirmed the ultimate dignity of both oppressor and oppressed.  It just seemed a little thin to turn such a radical and world-changing ethic into a customer service policy.

   But I am beginning to realize some Chick-fil-A employees have taken Second-Mile Service more deeply.  During the midst of so much protest and counter-protest over Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy's statements about the restaurant opposing same-sex marriage, I read about at least one Chick-fil-A franchise operator who is walking the second mile not only to serve chicken, but - more profoundly - to serve an adversary.

   Recently my friend Grace Rogers, who coordinates the local chapter of PFLAG - Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays - sent a coupon she received in the mail back to the new Chick-fil-A in town along with a note saying she and her husband would not be eating there after Cathy's statements.  She says she was pleasantly surprised when she received a personal letter back from franchise operator Tim Odom inviting Grace and her family to come and eat at his franchise.  Though Grace ultimately decided not to eat at Chick-fil-A and even chose to stand outside one of the franchises on Wednesday in protest, nevertheless during the midst of her protest she chose to tell our local paper about Tim's gesture as she saw it as one that was both gracious and kind and perhaps the way out of a cultural impasse.

   "He was inviting us to come and told us that gays are welcome at Chick-fil-A," Grace was quoted as saying.  "It was a whole different point of view and although I personally made the decision not to eat at Chick-fil-A, there is middle ground and I'm open to having a dialogue with him."

   Dialogue is what I think Jesus was hoping for when he told his followers to cover a second mile's worth of middle ground with the Roman soldiers.  I imagine it was quite surprising when those Jewish peasants offered to carry those soldiers' packs a second mile; I imagine it surprised the soldiers much in the same way Odom's letter surprised Grace.  And something profound happened along the way.  As Jesus' followers walked with the Roman soldiers, they also talked with them.  And after a couple of miles walking and talking perhaps those soldiers saw those Jews a little differently than they had before.  Perhaps for the first time they saw them as human beings.  And maybe it was the same for the Jews.  All their lives they had looked upon the Roman soldiers as one giant legion of occupation and brutality.  But somewhere along that second mile the soldiers began to wonder why these  Jews were doing what they were doing, and some even asked that these Jews tell them about their leader Jesus of Nazareth.  These questions put it into these Jews' minds that perhaps even these Roman soldiers could be God fearers.  In fact, some even began to realize the truth: these Gentiles were children of the same Heavenly Father that they as Jews were.
 
   It's been a pretty heated week with all the protest and counter-protest.  Sometimes the vitriol has been out and out toxic - especially on the radio and on Facebook.  But hidden beneath all that have been some real stories of kindness and compassion.  There was Grace and Tim story.  Then there was the story a gay friend of mine shared about being out front of Chick-fil-A picketing in the scorching sun when a man walked up with a cooler full of cold water.  The man said he was straight and didn't approve of gay marriage.  Nevertheless, he wanted to do something Christ-like.  "My savior tells me not to judge," he said.  I hear these stories and in spite of the vitriol my heart is gladdened because in spite of the vitriol common ground is being found dialogue is happening, and people with very different opinions are seeing each other as human beings and as fellow children of God.

   "What makes it possible?" I wonder.  And then, without a moment's hesitation the answer comes: Second-Mile Service.