II
Thessalonians 3:6-13
Even though Paul faced a totally different
world, his words to the Thessalonians became partly responsible for the successful
settlement of North America by the English.
When the Virginia Company of London set out to plan what would become
the Jamestown colony, they recruited settlers from among what they considered “the
best people”, by which they meant the gentry.
Unfortunately, English squires and the younger sons of the nobility were
unfamiliar with the work that needed to be done when they landed over here, or
any other real work, for that matter.
They knew nothing about farming and looked down on it as beneath their
station in life. That misplaced pride
contributed to what the colonists who survived the years 1609-1610 called “The
Starving Time”. John Smith saw it coming
and had warned them:
“Countrymen, the long
experience of our late miseries I hope is sufficient to persuade everyone to a
present correction of himself, And think not that either my pains nor the
adventurers' purses will ever maintain you in idleness and sloth... the greater
part must be more industrious, or starve... You must obey this now for a law,
that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled).
For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be
consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers.”[1]
Unfortunately, instead of
learning to grow corn they went hunting for gold. Guess how much gold you’ll find in Tidewater
Virginia. Even if they had discovered El
Dorado, they would not have been able to buy bread where no bakery had been
built and no firewood had been cut.
The
situation Paul faced was serious in a different way but was also one that put
the community at risk. Paul had taught
the new Christians in Thessalonica of Jesus’ promise to return from heaven to
usher in God’s kingdom and the Thessalonians had really latched onto this part
of the message. It was to this group
that Paul had to write to reassure them that the believers who had died before
Jesus’ return would not be left out.
Some of them were quite worried about that. Others, though, started thinking about
themselves instead of others, which is always the beginning of trouble. If Jesus were to return quickly, they asked,
then why should they be putting a lot of effort into the future? For that matter, why should they be paying
attention at all to the transitory things of earth? Work?
What for?
Colonial
Virginia or ancient Greece, the fact is that when people think only of what’s
in it for themselves, everybody gets hurt.
If somebody is part of a community, whether the kind of political and
economic experiment that was colonial America or the kind of spiritual venture
that is the Christian life, then they don’t have the option to be a mere
spectator or to just go along for the ride.
That is the nature of a community.
If you are in, you are in, and you matter. You matter to the people around you, and they
should matter to you.
Even the
exceptions to the rule Paul laid down and John Smith picked up are based on
mutual care and understanding. John
Smith mentioned that no heavy lifting was expected of somebody who was sick. The same way, nobody who is suffering from,
for instance, the loss of a spouse should ever be expected to be putting
together someone else’s wedding reception.
To ask that would be cruel. You
don’t ask somebody who has had a series of miscarriages to stay in the
nursery. If someone has lost a job or
has had a pile of medical bills, that is not the time to ask them to consider
increasing their pledge for next year. There
are times when it is totally justified for someone to step back and let
somebody else carry the load, and there are even some times when the community
that cares about its people really should say to someone (hopefully in a gentle
way), “Don’t you think you should take a little time off?”
Paul is not
speaking about those times. Instead, he’s
pointing out that putting oneself first all the time cannot be a way of life, and
that when someone does that habitually it harms the community in a very
insidious way by introducing a kind of poisonous resentment. He had to tell the Thessalonians,
“Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is
right.” [II Thessalonians 3:13]
You shouldn’t have to say
that but quite honestly, people do get weary of even worthwhile work. When they see others not pitching in, it
becomes even harder because they feel like others are taking advantage of their
good will. Then they also feel like
throwing in the towel.
I would go
back to an incident in the gospels where Jesus is visiting at the house of
Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha.
Jesus is in the front room, teaching about the kingdom of God and
Lazarus and his sister Mary are right there, listening and learning. Meanwhile, Martha is in the kitchen making
supper or doing dishes all on her own, to the point where her temper begins to boil
over like a pot of soup and she steps out of the kitchen long enough to say –
not to her sister directly, but to Jesus, which tells you something –
“Lord,
do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell
her then to help me.”
[Luke 10:40]
Have you never felt that
way? I’m feeling that way, and I’ll tell
you why.
We have been listening for months to politicians and
pundits, talking heads and facebook friends, going on and on about what’s wrong
with the world. We have been listening
to folks, and one person in particular, encouraging division and hatred and
trying to match one group up against another.
We have been hearing the ugly comments and the cheap shots and the
outright lies flying fast and furious, and there are those who have been getting
some really sick gratification out of it and some who have been making money
off of it and some who will continue to do that as long as they can get away
with it. And then they turn around at
the last minute and ask, “Who is going to bring us together again as a nation?”
or, “Who will help us to heal?” Some of
them even have the nerve to expect that the healing of Tuesday’s bloodbath is
supposed to be provided from the pulpit on Sunday. “Why can’t we all just get along?” is what I
and thousands of others are supposed to ask today.
Well, it isn’t that easy.
To say so would mean being what the Bible calls “a false prophet”, that
is someone whom a real prophet, Jeremiah, criticizes, saying,
“They have treated the wound of my
people carelessly,
saying, ‘Peace, peace’,
when there is no peace.” [Jeremiah 6:14]
saying, ‘Peace, peace’,
when there is no peace.” [Jeremiah 6:14]
If you really want to heal the wounds that
these months have either inflicted or exposed, then realize that those wounds are
not the kind that a band-aid or a one-time treatment will help.
The
role of the community of faith, the Church, the Body of Christ is to do the
thankless work and the impossible job that nobody else wants to do, work that
requires us to put our own needs or wants aside for the greater good. In a childish society, we have to be the
adults. We have to be the ones to look
at the underlying problems that led to the melee of 2016 and not only ask, “What
is wrong with us (‘us’, not ‘you people’ and not ‘them’)?” but also ask, “What
are we going to do about it?” Unless we
work, we don’t get to see the good that comes to those who do, and if we do not
declare a better way of life and follow it, no one else will do it for us.
It
was as the Civil War was ending and not long before President Lincoln was shot
and killed that he spoke to this country and laid out the problem clearly. The desire of people not to do their own
honest work had led to the introduction of slavery and people had tried to
justify slavery by pointing to the scriptures.
He said,
“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let
us judge not, that we be not judged.”[2]
That was in 1865, and the same racism, the
class-division, the sectional jealousies that were present then are still with
us. They caused a terrible war and they
have persisted as a tool for the cynical to this day, all so that some can eat
at others’ expense. If we go back and
pretend that hasn’t just happened, then our national disease will return with a
vengeance, like a virus that lies dormant, just waiting for an opportunity to
flare up.
We did away with formal slavery, but we have
found informal ways to keep people down.
Build more prisons. Threaten to
deport them. Keep the fear level high
among the least powerful. But if, just
if, we acknowledge what is going on, then there is hope to get past this after –
what? – four hundred years of saying some people are born better than others.
Let those who would sit down at the table also
be willing to bring something to it and, as is only right, to be willing to
share. Peace and reconciliation does not
begin with brushing things aside, but by taking one another seriously,
listening before we speak, apologizing where we have been wrong, holding on
where we have been right; by trusting God and not letting go of one another nor
of him.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we
are in, to bind up the nation's wounds … to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”[3]
That is the only way forward, and it will not
happen overnight, or even by Inauguration Day.
But it must be done, and no one can be exempt.
[1] John Thompson, The Journals of
Captain John Smith: A Jamestown Biography, ISBN 1426200552, 2007, p. 139
[2] Abraham
Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address.
[3] Ibid.
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