2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
6 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. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, 8 and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it,w but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. 9 This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13 Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat.
This verse has been misused to justify doing the very opposite of what Jesus taught for centuries.
Jesus taught us to feed the hungry and care for the least of these, so where did the author of 2 Thessalonians come up with “anyone unwilling to work should not eat”?
First Thessalonians, that is, the authentic Paul’s first letter to the Christ Community in Thessalonica in northern Greece is one of the oldest documents in the New Testament.
2 Thessalonians is fan fiction, written about 30 or 40 years after Paul was executed by Rome in the 60’s.
But it’s good fan fiction. Somebody who really studied Paul’s style of writing, Paul’s word use, Paul’s typical letter format.
But the issues discussed in 2 Thessalonians are the issues of the second generation of Christians, not the first generation.
There’s 2 main topics in 2 Thessalonians:
- Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet? The original disciples really thought Jesus would return during their lifetime, so it was kind of a big deal when all the Apostles were dead and Jesus hadn’t returned.
- If Jesus isn’t coming right back, then how do we find a sustainable way to Be The Church?
The early church practiced a share economy. If you were a member of the Way and your fellow member needed a loan you were required to lend them money. If your fellow member was hungry you were expected to share your food. The authentic Paul advised people to not get married or have children, because Jesus was coming really soon and he didn’t think it would be fun to have kids during the apocalypse.
The early church wasn’t worried about tomorrow, because tomorrow, Jesus could come!
But here they were, the Church in Thessalonica around 90 or 100 AD and Jesus hadn’t come yet.
So maybe there was a letter written to the early church leaders by the folks in Thessalonica, asking something along the lines of: Jesus hasn’t come yet and the working folks are getting upset with the folks just sitting around and waiting for Jesus to come. Please advise?
So maybe this Pauline fan fiction was written to respond to a letter from the Christ Community in Thessalonica.
Or maybe 2 Thessalonians is a sermon written by the leader of the Church in Thessalonica in the form of a letter from Paul?
We don’t know.
A fairly common 19th and 20th century interpretation of this passage is based on the idea that since Jesus hadn’t come back yet, the share economy of the Church wasn’t working very well. Even progressive Christians like Marcus Borg describes the situation as, freeloaders within the Church who were taking advantage of the share economy of the Church, but not contributing. (Borg, Evolution of the Word) The idea being that some folks were just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come, while others did all the work and provided all the food.
And that interpretation got twisted into the popular phrase:
“he that will not work shall not eat.”
2 Thessalonians verse 10 does not read: “he that will not work shall not eat.”
That’s not anywhere in the Bible, that’s part of the rules of the James Town Colony delivered to the colonists by Captain John Smith in 1609. Here’s the full quote:
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.
The problem in James Town was that there were some folks who felt that manual labor was beneath them, but the colony would literally not survive without everyone pitching in!
There are those who try to use Captain Smith’s version of verse 10 to justify a compassionless world where only those who are gainfully employed deserve to eat.
But not even Captain Smith advocated for that!
At least Captain Smith made an exception for those who are disabled!
Another interpretation is grounded in the writings of other early church apostles.
This interpretation proposes that the rich church members were the busybodies mentioned in verse 11 of our reading, telling everyone else what to do, but not doing anything themselves. The rich were unwilling to work and expected the poor to serve them in the Church, just as the poor served them in everyday life.
1 Corinthians chapter 11, an authentic letter of Paul, recounts a story where the rich people were coming early to the church potluck and eating all the good food they brought before the poor people were able to get off work. Paul gives them a talking to about sharing the Lord’s Table by waiting for everyone to arrive before anyone eats.
James, chapter 2 also addresses this kind of dishonoring of the poor (James 2:6) by expecting those who are poor to do all the work of serving at Church because the rich donated the food. James reminds the people that the Kingdom of God is not the Roman Empire and that the poor of the church do not need to show extra honor to the rich, because, after all, the rich treat them badly during everyday life!
Jesus also speaks to the reversal of privilege in the Kingdom of Heaven in the parable of Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. A story that Jesus made up on the spot to challenge some rich religious leaders who were mocking Jesus for his economic views.
Jesus tells this story:
There was a poor man named Lazarus, who lay outside the gate of a very rich man’s mansion. Lazarus was so hungry he couldn’t even get up and the rich man’s dogs would lick the sores on Lazarus’ body. (I know, eww Jesus, that’s gross)
So Lazarus dies and is carried away by angels to be with Abraham.
The rich man also dies and is tortured with flames in Hades because… he didn’t get rich by being nice!
So the rich man looks up and sees Lazarus sitting beside Abraham in the good place, and the rich man calls out to Abraham and says,
Hey Abe – send Lazarus down here to drip water into my mouth with his fingers, because I’m kinda tied up.
And Abraham says, “Child….”
And when I read this I hear it in the tone of voice of a Black Preacher where that one word “Child,” just drips with, “you have got some nerve to be asking me to tell Lazarus, whom you didn’t lift a finger to help, to be commuting to hell and using his literal fingers to help you, now that you are experiencing the consequences of your actions!”
But in Jesus’ story Abraham says in Luke 16:25, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.”
Which brings us back to this second interpretation that the writer of 2 Thessalonians was not telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or starve.
Perhaps the writer of 2 Thessalonians was telling those busybodies who were unwilling to lift a finger to help those in need by at least doing their share of the work of the church, were not worthy of a seat at the Lord’s Table?
I kinda think that maybe it was a little bit of both.
Both folks who needed to stop just waiting around for Jesus to come.
And folks who needed to stop being irresponsible busybodies thinking the poor should be waiting on them inside the church, just like it was out in the Roman Empire.
But I lean more towards the second one because Jesus and the Hebrew Prophets talked a lot about how it is unjust for the rich and the powerful to store up more treasures on earth than they could ever use, while they fail to pay a living wage to the workers who are the source of their wealth.
Which brings us to today.
Because we’re going to share in the Lord’s Table – communion – in just a moment.
The early church was really strict about who got to receive communion – only baptized members in good standing were allowed — because communion was not just a sacrament, or a reenactment of the last supper to them.
Communion was a pre-enactment of the Kingdom of Heaven.
They believed that when Jesus’ reign would come and God’s will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven, that everyone would eat.
That ideas like wealth and status would no longer matter in the Reign of Jesus.
When Jesus’s Reign comes it won’t matter if you’re Jewish or Greek, man or woman, young or old, gay or straight, Cis gender or Trans, dog or cat lover.
Everybody belongs in the Kingdom of Heaven.
So the Communion Table – the community potluck that the Baptized would share together was a Table where Christians would recommit themselves to working towards cooperating with God to bring God’s reign to earth.
A table where divisions like Wealth, Race, and Gender did not belong.
But what we have learned in the centuries since then, is that we are not better than the Pharisees, who mocked Jesus’ radical economic ideas.
Systems of hierarchy, economic injustice and bigotry are how the world works.
And it’s hard to take seriously what Jesus said about helping the stranger, when we live in a world that teaches us to fear one another.
But Jesus welcomed Judas to the Table, knowing that Judas was going to get Jesus brutally executed.
So this table is a Table where everybody eats.
Because we change hearts and minds not by excluding them,
but by actively inviting people to the table where everybody eats.
Actively inviting people to be a part of a sharing and caring community.
Actively teaching people who serve too much to learn holy boundaries and do less.
And actively teaching those who do too little to care for their neighbors to experience the joy that comes from helping others.
In our Methodist Tradition, all are welcome at this table…
