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I'm taking an ethics course. (Maybe that's where I went wrong).

We watched a video today in class of 12 people sitting around a table and discussing ethical concerns. These men and women are lawyers, priests and rabbis and pastors, philosophers, and medical doctors. Matters about cheating, lying, and a host of other matters all debated around the table in their ironed suits.

The issue that created the most heat and difference of opinion was whether to give a dollar to the man begging on the street. I feel like this is a slippery slope, and is certainly a tricky subject for the church.

On the one hand, you have no knowledge of how your dollar, should you offer it, will be spent. That is where the reservations for most people arise. There is of course the common view that the man you give the dollar to will use it to buy booze, but how do you know?

Our call as Christians is to love one another, certainly including those who are looked down on. I’ll be honest and say that I have a hard time giving to panhandlers, and largely do not. I would much rather serve at a soup kitchen, washing dishes, cooking, or otherwise. All the instances of doing that have been on a church mission trip where it seems safe to do so.

But somehow it does not feel very safe to give that dollar to the man on the street, and the resulting thoughts and emotions don't always feel safe either.

When we look outside church walls and to those who ask for our mercy, how should we respond? I want to challenge you by not giving an answer. It is all too easy to think we have all the answers, fill a binder with them, and leave it on the shelf. On that shelf is where it remains for years, never touched.

If we should seek an answer to this question and to any other number of problems that plague our society, it is important that the answers are not given once and for all. The answer must be embodied and we must seek it out daily to have any effectual power.

When we had fallen so far into our sin, it was not the laws on the shelf that saved us but the embodiment of God in Jesus. This daily challenge to live out and be the change we want to see in the world is the only way to change the world.

Robert