Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're talking about government mandated service, and we're asking, is that our salvation, or is that just control? This is prompted by a Washington Post op ed I read by Rahm Emanuel, who at one time worked in the Obama White House, was the mayor of Chicago, and most recently, a US ambassador.

And mister Emanuel is arguing in his op ed for government mandated service for all Americans younger than 30. His argument is that increasingly, young people are disconnected from, America in any real meaningful way. They don't have a tie to the country. And as a result to that, it creates a kind of purposelessness in their civic engagement. They don't feel the need to engage.

They don't feel invested in the success of America. Mister Emmanuel argues that that kind of investment tends to come from actual participation in our country through military service or AmeriCorps, teach for America, those kinds of things. And what he argues is that if we mandated six months service to The United States in one of those capacities for everyone 30, they would learn to love their country, and they would learn to be invested in its success. He argues that you could tie this service to tuition incentives and other things so that there is a benefit for the citizen who's doing that. He thinks that it would raise not just civic awareness, but civic engagement so that after 30, they would continue to vote, continue to be involved, continue to be invested in the success of our country.

He even goes so far as to say that this alone will revitalize our democracy. So is that true? As Christians, how should we think about government mandated service? Well, let me say this, first of all. I wish we had more things like this in American political discourse, advancing an actual idea, defending that idea, whether I agree with the idea or not.

Politics shouldn't just be about telling me how awful the other candidate is or scaring me into what thinking what would happen if they got elected. It should be about advancing ideas and engaging those ideas. So I do appreciate mister Emmanuel's attempt to aim at this. I should also say this. One of the things we know the Bible overwhelmingly affirms is service.

Jesus said, he came to serve others. In Mark 10, service is a reflection of the heart of God, is a reflection of the character of Jesus. It's also forming of our character. See Proverbs twenty two six. Service shapes us into the people that God wants us to be.

So in general, if someone said, should I serve more, Zach? I would say yes. If someone said, do you think service would form in me other centeredness, neighbor love, character, integrity? I would tend to say yes because I think that's what the Bible says. Civic duty and community through service are part of what form us into biblical values.

See Hebrews 13. The problem with mister Emmanuel's idea is not service. Service is great. The problem is government mandated service. It's a problem for two reasons.

One is what you tend to force people into doing ultimately doesn't produce the results you hope that it produces. And here's what I mean. If I show up to serve, let's say, Teach for America, because if I don't, I'm going to go to prison, I'm not sure I'm looking for the kind of investment and whether or not that's producing the fruit in me of actually caring about the children I've signed up to help. The heart behind service does actually matter. It matters for those you're serving, and it matters for you doing the serving.

All of us have done perfunctory things that the government makes us do. We don't find them to be character forming. We don't find them to be enjoyable. Instead, we grumble and complain constantly through doing them. But the second reason I worry about mister Emanuel's idea of government mandated service is not just that that isn't actually service, but second, this is the government overstepping what it actually is responsible to do because teaching people the value of service, I think, is the work of the family.

Moms and dads should be raising children understanding that it is more valuable to give than to receive, that it is it is more fulfilling to serve rather than be served, especially in the church. Ephesians six four makes pretty clear that mothers and fathers are the primary formers of their children. And if my children don't value other people, if my children don't value service, if my children don't value their country, that's a flaw of parenting. And it's a flaw that if it took eighteen years to build, isn't gonna take six months to undo. So while I appreciate the idea, I'd rather be the one who teaches my kids the value of service than have the government require it of them.

But, of course, that begs the question, am I doing that? Well, are you? Are we seeing that as a primary tool, not just to get our kids into college, not just to keep them off drugs, to keep them from getting pregnant, the kind of fears that parents tend to live with, but as we raise teenagers into adulthood, are we raising children who have the heart of Christ in service? Let's make sure that we do it so the government doesn't start trying. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up.

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