2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
6Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you,8and 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. 9This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.13Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
In every Indiana Jones movie, it seems like Indy has to dig, fight, scratch and wade
through some difficult, dangerous and sometimes really disgusting stuff in order to get to finally uncover the treasure. For us today, we are going to have to do some digging, scratching and wading through some nasty, smelly and just plain rotten biblical interpretation that’s been piled on top of this lesson over the years in order to get to the real treasure that lies inside.
Just like Indiana Jones, the first step in uncovering the treasure is to have a good understanding of history. The apostle Paul came to the city of Thessaloniki somewhere
around 50 A.D. He settled into the life of the town and began his work starting a new church. Once the church was up and going, Paul left to continue his mission. One of the things Paul believed very strongly and obviously instilled in the people of Thessaloniki was that Jesus was going to return. We believe that too, but Paul assumed it was going to happen, literally ANY day.
Understanding this is a really important clue to finding the treasure in this lesson. Paul fully expected when he woke up every day to see Jesus smiling down on him with a cup of coffee in his hand. OK, I added the coffee part, but the rest of it is exactly what Paul taught and the people believed him.
After Paul left town, the new Christians tried to be faithful. But the reality is that they were new to the faith; there was a lot they didn’t know. They tried their best, but without Paul around and with the extremely limited cell service in Northern Greece at the time, they couldn't quickly get ahold of him so differences of opinion among the members of the church cropped up. One of the things that they disagreed on was how exactly they were to wait for Jesus to return.
Without good cell service the Thessalonians were forced to send Paul a letter asking for help. We don’t have that letter, but we do have the letter Paul sent in reply. Going on Paul’s reply we can figure out that apparently one group thought the faithful way to wait for Jesus was to keep doing the normal things they had done before. Of course, now as Christians, they were to do those things in ways that intentionally showed their love of God and neighbor to the world. The other group felt that the faithful way to wait was to stop doing what they had done before in order to show how much they fully trusted in Jesus’ immanent return (which remember, according to what Paul told them, was going to happen later today or tomorrow at the latest).
Over the years, Paul's really helpful response to their honest question about the most
faithful way to wait for Jesus' return has been buried under some horribly bad, stinky biblical interpretation worse than any Indiana Jones style snake filled Egyptian tomb, spider filled cave or rat filled Italian sewer. What they have done, especially with verse 10, is to horribly contort this passage so that they can try to convince the world that God wants us to allow or even force people who don’t or even can’t work to go hungry.
In seemingly every Harrison Ford movie, at some point, the character's anger comes to a head and as he confronts that person he points at them with what is known as "the
Ford Finger of Doom." If you've seen a Harrison Form film, you know that look and THAT is the look I have for the folks who use this lesson in that horribly wrong, horribly cruel way. Simply put, this passage does NOT, NOT, NOT say anything of the sort! Paul did NOT tell the Thessalonians to let children, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, the unemployed or underemployed go hungry if they didn’t put in a full day’s work. Throughout all of scripture; through the Law, the wisdom literature, the prophets, the psalms, the Gospels and the letters, both individuals and governments are called by God explicitly over and over again to feed the hungry, care for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the disabled. To twist this passage to say otherwise is just really bad Biblical interpretation at best and deserves the Ford Finger of Doom at the very least!
The real treasure of this lesson that gets hidden by that kind of bad biblical interpretation is that Paul did actually give us clear direction in how to live our lives while we wait for God to wrap everything up. Specifically, we are to do our normal everyday stuff, in the normal everyday places life takes us, but NOW, as followers of Jesus, we are called to do those regular things in a way that allows our love of God and and our love of neighbor to shine through our regular lives in a way that God promises will transform the ordinary into something extraordinary! Martin Luther said, “A dairy maid can milk cows to the glory of God. If your job is shoveling manure, then do your best and shovel that manure for the glory of God.” I’ll let you decide who today shovels the greatest tonnage of manure for a living, but if they are indeed followers of Jesus, then they too are called to do their job in a way that allows the Christian unconditional love of God and neighbor to shine through in all that they do!
Faithful waiting turns out to mean living fully in the gift that is each and every present moment we are given. Most of us probably won't just sit down on the lawn waiting for Jesus to return, but most of us will spend some or maybe even a bunch of the precious time that is our present, overanalyzing the things in our past and worrying about things that might happen in the future. I know I’ve done it a lot in my life. But worrying about the past or fretting about the future isn’t what faithful waiting looks like and it isn’t at all what gives us life. Henry Nouwen, a Catholic Priest and all around smart guy writes,
“The real enemies of our lives are the “oughts” and the “ifs.” They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and the now. God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful or painful…. That’s why Jesus came to wipe away the burden of the past and the worries for the future. He wants us to discover God right where we are, here and now.”
The real treasure in this lesson is the truth that God’s deepest desire is for us to really and actively live! By living our lives, not in the unalterable past or in the unpredictable future but by loving God and loving our neighbor in every moment of the present, we will discover the abundant life God created for us all to live. Then, in living that abundant life, which is so different than the way so much of the world lives... by putting the needs of others before our own needs, we will not only experience the joy God created for us to have in our present, but we will join with God in transforming the whole world into the place of joy, love, compassion, grace and justice God is determined creation will become. Amen.
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