2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

Sermon Text

I am guilty of being a busy body. I constantly search out things that I can get involved with. Sometimes this is a helpful impulse but sometimes it is to my great detriment. I’ve shared before how my wife and I had one of our few true arguments over me, deciding to put together a play pen instead of just playing with our kid like I had said I would. However, beyond that one particular problem there is a larger one that looms in the background of many people’s lives. Many of us will engage in the wrong kind of work to get out of doing the work that needs to be done.

When people come to your house for a visit, it is a good time to clean and get things ready for their time with you. However, sometimes we see them coming to our house differently. “If I do not do this other project before they get here, I will have to wait till they leave, so I should do that now instead of clean.” In households of two or more people, this mindset leads to one person doing all the prep for the incoming guests, and another suddenly disappearing to hang shelves or trim hedges. They are still working, but the work that they are doing is not necessarily the work that needs to be done, it is work for the sake of being busy.

Sometimes it is important to note that there is an actual hierarchy to work that gets done in the world. That hierarchy is not based on the amount of money you make for it, the time it takes to do it, or any other temporal metric. The hierarchy of importance in the work we do comes down to whether the work we are doing is relevant to the moment in which we are doing it. Is this the time to do what we are doing? Is this the best use of my time? Am I really working to an end, or so I can say that I did some amount of work?

In the early Church, there were several problems that largely came from the sudden influx of people from different cultures and social groups into one untied community. The rich who had never worked a day in their life were now sitting next to day laborers who did backbreaking work for pennies. At their combined gatherings they would share meals, distribute food to those in need, and worship together. The differences in class and background caused friction between folks in the group.

The Corinthian church had more definite problems surrounding abuse of the Lord’s Supper by wealthy members. Here in Thessalonica, we are not told what the exact transgression is that has angered the apostle. What is clear is that it revolves around taking from the communal meal without having contributed in some way toward it. We know this because Paul uses himself and his companions as a counter example. Specifically, he says that he worked to fund his own stay in the city rather than depending on the generosity of the community. Whether this was by contributing to the common pot or paying his own way is unclear, but Paul is clearly setting up his point. “… anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”

This verse is a Rorschach test for anyone reading it. Some readers will see this and have their minds flooded with visions of unemployed folk in welfare programs. Others will read it and envision the wealthy CEOs who profit off of other people’s work without doing anything themselves. As challenging as this verse is, we usually choose to read it so that it challenges someone other than ourselves. Like much of scripture, we read the tone of judgment it takes and decide that it must, therefore, be for someone else. The people Paul is upset with; must be the people I also take issue with.

In truth, I’m not sure what the specific infraction in Thessalonica Paul is addressing might have been. I think that it is more likely that Paul is critiquing the wealthy in the congregation rather than the poor, but without the specific citation of the issue we cannot be sure. In truth, Paul may be addressing a situation which is not intrinsically tied to class, a more universal ethic may be being violated here.

The issue at hand in Thessalonica is that there are members of the community who are refusing to contribute to the common good, but doing their best to pretend otherwise. Some of them are doing this by wasting their resources, coming to the congregation and saying, “I have nothing!” When they’ve really just wasted what they had. Others have plenty but are contributing something else instead of what is needed. These folks are working hard to look busy, but when the time comes for something that really needs doing, they fall short. Going to our opening parable, these folks see that guests are coming and hang up shelves. They are “doing work,” but none of that work contributes to anyone’s actual good.

Once when I was working in a church, I once got a call from a fellow. “God put it on my heart to help the church that raised me. So, is there anything I can do for you all?” I was happy, because I actually had something we needed. “We have been working to raise money to fix up our building, and any amount toward that can make a difference.” The man sat quietly for a time… Then he replied… “Have you all tried having a fundraiser?” He was ready to help, so long as that help did not ask anything of him beyond prayer or advice.

There is no bad work in the Church. There are times things need cleaned or built, times that prayers need lifted up or dinners cooked, but there is timely work and there is busy work. Many a church has died because the folks in the pews were not concerned with doing the work they needed to get done, but the work they would rather be busy with. We are called to do our work “quietly,” not so that people notice it and praise us. We are to do it tirelessly, because the work we do should be “what is right.”

This verse, like all of scripture, is not the tool of ideology. It should not be used to berate the poor who depend on welfare. It is, likewise, not a very helpful tool to call the idle rich to repentance. Instead, I would invite us to read it as a personal challenge. Take this scripture in your hand and hold it close to your heart. What does it speak against you? Do you hear God calling to your idleness? To you busy work? Is there work that you know you should do for the good of God’s people that you’ve been putting off? Search your heart, find the work you have left undone, and go forth in silence to get it done. God has called us to change this world, not in appearance, but in reality. Do what is right, do not tire, and let your contribution to God’s work really matter. – Amen.