Senior year of high school I was sent on the lovely task to interview the new Apathy Club. I think my advisor was laughing on the inside when she sent me on this wild goose chase. Pen and paper in hand, I walked across campus to investigate the kids who had banded together in a common cause – to not care. I interviewed: “What is the purpose of this club? What happens in a club meeting?” and so on. Most of my answers were shoulder shrugs and “I don’t know’s.” Try as they might, the kids couldn’t help but snicker when answering. So while they claimed to be apathetic, they were tickled to know they were getting attention for their cleverness to start a club for people who don’t care.
True apathy can be observed in a psychological phenomenon known as the Bystander Effect. Essentially, the more people present, the less likely someone will step in and help a person in need. For example, driving down the 395 you may nonchalantly drive past the backpacker in need of a ride reasoning that someone else behind you is bound to help them out. Biblically speaking, the story of the Good Samaritan is a prime example of the Bystander Effect. The priest and the Levite coolly walked around the half dead man while the Samaritan stopped and “showed mercy toward him” (Luke 10:37).
Jesus shared the story of the Good Samaritan to illustrate to the lawyer questioning Him what it means to love your neighbor. It is interesting that Christ illustrates loving your neighbor by contrasting love and apathy, instead of love and hate. Love truly is the antithesis of apathy. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: 7, love “…bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love requires action.
Being apathetic is easy because it does not require any expenditure of energy on our behalf. We remove ourselves from any feeling of responsibility when we see someone in need. Love is the more difficult choice. There is so much to be written about love (and so much that has already been said by people more competent than myself), but I wanted to hone in on this one point: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).
This is our standard, as believers in Christ, of love. Do not adopt the world’s standard of love which is primarily the love of self. This me-focused love is why the love of Jesus Christ is so uncomfortable and unusual. The world’s “love” breeds expectations which are guaranteed to disappoint, leading to divorce, depression, and the like. Instead, “set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3-4).” So set your mind on the love Christ poured out on your behalf and then love others with the same kind of sacrificial love. Do not be immobilized by fear (which perfect love casts out) or apathy; the Apathy Club has enough members as it is.