Mind Your Own Business – Twenty Third Sunday After Pentecost (2 Thessalonians 3:6-13)

As we approach this text from 2 Thessalonians this morning, I will remind you all of something that one of my ministry mentors reminded me of often.  Reading and preaching the Bible is all about context, context, context. The powerful words in scripture cannot be separated from the people and places they came from. That is an especially important reminder when we engage with a scripture like this one that has some difficult things to say. It is a letter that deals with the work and responsibilities that are expected of those of us in a community (specifically a Christian community), but it also has a scolding quality to it when it talks about idleness. Or maybe I just perceive it and read it that way because I am someone who battles the occasional bout of procrastination, which might look to some people as idleness. I also approached this text apprehensively because I see that it is one that could easily be used against people, such as the homeless, the working poor, or the otherwise struggling. People that I believe God calls us to give our care and our concern, but who we might be tempted to put in the category of people this text calls, “the idle.” Also, the words “If a man does not work, a man shall not eat” may sound like common sense to some, but it is not particularly uplifting or compassionate, which is a quality I appreciate in a sermon.

Issues like that remind us that not only should we not try and separate a scripture from the context in which it was written, but also, we cannot separate it from our context as the ones reading the Bible in the present day. We cannot forget that we have a context as well. We are individuals, living in a particular time and place, possessing particular knowledge and experiences. This context will have a great effect on what we take away from the stories and letters we see in the Bible. For instance, I found it hard to read this text and not think about the ongoing political fight over the funding of social services in this country. The most recent example being the current administration refusing to pay out SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. That is not the only example, however. Over the last year there have been disputes about Medicaid, social security and Medicare, as well as various overseas aid services.

In these debates about the social services provided by our government, one of the sticking points that often comes up is the idea of work requirements. That means, that some believe that for people to receive assistance from programs like SNAP or Medicaid they should have to prove that they are employed for a certain number of hours each week. For instance, some states require a person to have a 20-hour a week job to receive government assistance. Church folks will often back these policies up with Bible texts like 2 Thessalonians 3 and quotes like “if a man does not work, a man shall not eat.” Then they’ll extrapolate that out to include women and children as well. Nevermind the fact that most recipients of these services like SNAP are employed or actively seeking work. That’s the context we find ourselves in currently, and so that is how verses like this are too often used today. But, is that what the author of this letter was writing about? Was the big issue facing the church in Thessalonica that too many people were receiving government assistance?

Let’s look at the context. This passage comes from the second letter written to the church at Thessalonica. The author of the first letter was the Apostle Paul. The author of this letter could also be Paul, but it is speculated by scholars that the author could also be another concerned party writing in the style of Paul in order to barrow a bit of his authority. That would put the writing of this letter a few decades later. The concern for the church is that they have let their foot off the gas, so to speak. The letter in 1 Thessalonians was written to assure the church that the Second Coming of Christ could be imminent. The second letter is written because the church has begun to behave in a disorderly manner. Disorderly is an alternate translation for the word interpreted here as idleness. The second coming had not happened yet, but the church still had work to do, yet people were losing focus. The letter is written to remind the church to stay vigilant.

It was as if the church at Thessalonica had a bad case of “senior-itis” in their ranks.  Senior-itis being the disease contracted by high school or college seniors during the last semester before they graduate.  They may begin to slack off or take it easy in their classes because they can see graduation coming, the pressure is off, and they are looking forward to what comes next.  Perhaps the recipients of this letter were feeling proud of what they had built, and they were comfortable in that knowledge and those accomplishments.  Perhaps they truly believed that Christ had returned already, and graduation day was here, so they could forget about all those rules and disciplines they had to maintain while they were preparing for the Second Coming.  Maybe, they were just tired of waiting. In any case, the author of 2 Thessalonians felt that the church had taken their eye off the ball. They were not focusing on the things that were important.

With that in mind, maybe we can say that this letter was not aimed at people who did not work and required assistance with life’s necessities. I think, maybe, this letter was not directed at the unemployed or even the unmotivated. Not in a general sense anyway. Paul’s letters are written, primarily, to show us how to be in Christian community together. In other words, how to build and be the Church in the world. So, that is the audience for this letter. That is its context. The idle people it is talking about are people who are part of that community. People who made a decision to live a certain way, and chose to enter into relationship with the other members of the community. Yet they do not live up to those commitments. Instead, they have become distracted busy bodies and they are not taking care of their responsibilities. This idleness holds back the church in its ability to fully carry out its purpose, which is to share its time, talent, and treasure with the world around them.

So, when Paul refers to people in the church being idle busybodies, it is because they are concerning themselves with the affairs of other people’s lives, which is keeping them from sharing their own gifts for the good of the church. When we concern ourselves with the idleness of others we are distracted, and unable to focus on what God has called us to do, which is to spread the love of God and the light of Christ to others. Doubt creeps in, and our fear leads us to focus too much on ourselves, or we become busy bodies and focus on what is wrong with someone else, but in both cases, we idle because we have lost sight of the present moment, in which God is here with us now.

With that in mind, when I then think about this text and how I read it now, it seems to me that this text is not scolding the unemployed, the homeless, or any recipient of government help. I think this text points the finger at those who are doing the scolding and shaming of people for needing such assistance. It is not calling out and shaming those who are unable to work. Those who are unable to work are exactly the people that the church is called to serve. The letter is pointing a finger back at the people who are neglecting that work, the Church’s work. And when I think about people like that I don’t think about the unemployed or the homeless. I think about podcasters, and TV pundits, and yes, even some politicians. I think of people who have made it their work to judge the choices and circumstances of other people’s lives rather than concerning themselves with how they can help. This is especially true for those who claim to be Christian, because if we commit to following Jesus Christ than it is our business to serve. For a Christian it is idleness to judge the outsider or those in need. For a Christian it is idleness to gatekeep our institutions instead of making them places of welcome. For the Christian it is idleness to worry about if a person “deserves” help rather than doing what we can to make someone’s existence easier. For a Christian it is idleness to squander our gifts by looking to the future, when they are needed in the here and now. For a Christian, it is idleness to seek to have power and control over others. None of that is our business. None of that is the work Christ calls us to.

And as we approach the holiday season, I am reminded of a quote from the classic story, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and the many movie adaptations. We meet Ebeneezer Scrooge, a man who would probably say that because of his wealth and status he is a hard worker. Not an idle person. He even demands his business be open on Christmas. So, early in the story, we have seen him mistreat his employees and family, and we have seen him refuse to help the poor. Saying that if people are homeless and can’t work maybe they belong in prison, or worse should die, because the world is overpopulated anyway. He then returns home Christmas Eve night, and there he is visited by his old business partner Jacob Marley. The ghost of Marley is shackled by chains. Seemingly a punishment for being selfish and mistreating people when he was alive. He has come to warn Scrooge that the same thing will happen to him if he doesn’t change his ways. Then he offers the lament, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business: charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”

So, isn’t it also our business, as Christians, to look out for the common welfare? If so then we cannot pass judgement or put up barriers to that welfare. Such things are not our business. They are not even in the comprehensive ocean of our business. So, we must mind our own business. Which is the work of the church, to make the realm of God knowable in the here and now. Or as the Apostle Paul puts it in the first letter to the Thessalonians -and you may recognize some of the them, because I have paraphrased them in my benediction each week- Paul tells us to “encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them.”  Church, the world needs encouragement, help, and patience, not scolding, judgement, or contempt. Let us not be idle. Let us bring that help and that hope to the world. Let’s mind our business. Amen.