I doubt you’ll ever find this in a “how-to” guide for doing youth ministry, but it’s worked pretty well for me for over a decade. I have two rules. I announce the two rules at every single event and refer back to them often. Here are my two rules. 1. No making out. 2. Don’t be an idiot.

I do this because I know the way we tend to respond to rules—especially a long and detailed list of rules. The more detailed the rule the more inclined we are to try to find exceptions. It’s our human nature to see how close the line of disobedience we can get. We look for loopholes. We try to be the exception. We put more energy into figuring out how to get around a command instead of actually obeying it*. 

My intention here isn’t to discuss the merits of my two rules, but rather to introduce my main point; namely, our tendency to use philosophical reasoning to keep ourselves from very simple obedience.

You see this in the guy in Luke 10:29. Jesus talks about love for neighbor and the dude wants to have a theological debate about what constitutes his neighbor. He’s not looking for reasons to obey, he wants to “justify himself” and he’s going to make himself feel better by hiding behind a theological argument about what constitutes a neighbor. We do the same. I appreciate these words from Tony Merida:

Jesus wanted him to embrace his neighbor. Christ’s message in the parable serves as a warning that we must avoid following the pharisaical pattern of talking philosophically about topics like kindness and giving and sharing without practically applying what we say we believe about them. Frankly, we sometimes like to make things more complicated than they are not because we lack understanding but because we don’t want to obey. Our talk is often a smoke screen for our lack of willingness to do what we know we can and should do. So let’s pause and ask God to make us a generous people. (Merida, Acts, 70)

I’ll be specific here. I see this playing out in two particular areas. One, I see this type of reasoning often in the abortion debate. When someone makes a salient point about the value of human life or perhaps the perversity of elective abortion, you can almost guarantee follow comments will delve into the “what ifs” and the “whatabouts”. This is the same thing the dude was doing in Luke 10 when he wanted a definition for ‘neighbor’ instead of loving as many people as he possibly could. In an effort to justify our position we bring out rare test cases or talk about incest or rape or legitimately horrendous experiences. Why not focus on the hundreds of thousands of elective abortion cases that fit none of those situations? I’ll tell you why. Many don’t actually want to end these types of abortions and want to preserve “freedom”. It’s a smokescreen.

But here is where I get punched in the teeth from the “other side”. I see us doing about the same thing when talking about social justice. I realize there truly are complexities to some of these issues. Just as it’s a heart-wrenching and difficult thing when you are dealt with counseling a young mother who has been raped and is considering abortion. That’s tough stuff. But those complex “whatabouts” shouldn’t be what is driving the discussion. And that’s what I see. Everyone has an exception. Everyone has a what-if and a slipper slope. Why don’t we focus on where our minority brothers and sisters in Christ are expressing real actual hurt? Why can’t we have a reasoned conversation where we sit and listen and pursue loving our neighbor?

The gospel calls both the offender and the one offended to interact a certain way. That is what should drive our discourse, not political correctness or political preservation. We don’t really need debates and documents as much as we need obedience. I suppose there is a place for reasoned discussion about what constitutes social justice. We need to work through our terms and not be talking past one another. But we’re showing our hand if at the same time we aren’t also and predominately asking “What can I do today to love my neighbor in this area?”

My guess is that if we are really pursuing neighbor love and gracious interaction and fairness in the marketplace and having ears to hear, then we’ll be in a much better position to have healthy debates and helpful documents. And I say this as one who far too often hides behind theological discussion. I’m the guy of whom a wise teacher once said, “if you put as much energy into doing the homework as you did in trying to get out of it, you’d have been done thirty minutes ago.”

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