Danger of Idleness: A Meditation on 2nd Thessalonians 3

After having help set the church of Thessalonica straight on the second coming of Jesus, St. Paul begins in chapter three of his second letter, to warn them against idleness.  While Jesus hasn’t come back yet, and it’s possible He won’t be coming back for a while, St. Paul warns that this is no excuse to be “busybodies” and unproductive people.  To the contrary, he urges the people to faithful action, knowing that we will all be accountable to Christ when we meet Him—either at our death, or on the Day of His return.

To make the matter more severe, St. Paul tells the Christians at Thessalonica, not to associate with those who are disorderly among them—and specifically, with those who busy themselves with meaningless activities, and do not work to support themselves.  Rather than telling the Thessalonian Christians to give charitably to those who will not support themselves, he gives them the reminder of his earlier admonition:  “If a man will not work, neither shall he eat.”  In this, St. Paul makes a distinction between the poor who cannot feed themselves, and the poor who could work, but would rather live off the work of others.  To this second category of people, who are capable of working but choose not to, St. Paul preaches a word of Law that sounds brutal in our contemporary ears—if they choose not work and support their needs, then they are to be avoided in the Christian fellowship, and left to starve.

In our more “enlightened” age, I can see St. Paul’s admonishment roundly derided.  We have, in our nation and in many western nations, a system of public support for people who do not work, so that starvation does not generally occur in our land.  We build social safety nets with the primary intention of helping those in need, without much concern for the merit of those receiving the aid.  This system of social care is a political construct, and one that nations create or maintain according to social or political will.  And as with so many things, matters of state should not be confused with matters of the Church.  St. Paul is not communicating to the local Roman governor of Thessalonica, and is not attempting to here to move or motivate social and political policy.  St. Paul is speaking to the Church.

And if we remember this, we will be able more easily to see the recurring eternal truth that St. Paul writes about in all his letters:  while no one is saved by works of the Law, but rather by grace through faith in Christ alone, such saving faith in Christ is never apart from the good and holy works of the Law.  Our Lutheran Confessions make the same point in both the Augustana and the Apology, echoing what Jesus Himself taught us—good trees produce good fruit, and bad trees produce bad fruit, which causes us to know each other by our fruits.  Thus, within the community of the Church, if we observe a brother or sister who refuses to work, but rather desires to unjustly and presumptuously live off the work of another, what we observe through such selfish and lazy fruit, is a heart of unbelief.  Saving faith cannot coexist with mortal sin, and any sin—including laziness and sloth—which we refuse to repent and be forgiven of, is damnable.  St. Paul helps us to understand this, in light of the Lord’s Second Coming.

If we are honest with ourselves, we are pretty lazy people.  One doesn’t have to look far back into history, to find a generation that tended to work six days a week, rising before dawn till far after dusk, receiving far fewer benefits than we do today.  From the saints and the martyrs, to the craftsmen and the farmers, the people of just 70 or 80 years ago would put us to shame with their work ethic, sacrifice, and sense of duty.  But even they, if they were honest, knew they were not giving every thought, word, and deed the proper effort and effect that God calls for in His divine perfection.  We are a broken and sinful people, even at our best.  And if we for even a moment manage to do all that the Lord commands of us, both in avoiding evil and in doing His works of love and faith (a prospect I am not convinced we pull off, even for a moment,) the best we could say to our Lord, is that in that moment we have done only what was our duty to do.

Poor sinners that we are, what shall we do?  As in the light of every sin that the Law of God causes us to see in ourselves, we are called by God to repent and believe the Gospel.  For it is still faith that hears the Word of the Lord—the severity of the Law, and the sweetness of the Gospel—and keeps it by the power of the Holy Spirit given to us when we are born from above by Water and Spirit.  In ourselves, we have no hope to fight against our native laziness and sloth, and for it we would be condemned.  But the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ shines down upon us, for Our Lord has taken this sin of ours, and nailed it to His Cross, suffering in His very Body for the sins that should damn us to hell.  Now free from the condemnation of the Law, we approach it anew with eyes of faith, seeking to work out our faith in love of God and neighbor.  And we do this work of faith, not by compulsion nor out of fear of condemnation, but in response to the great love of God poured out upon us through His Only Begotten Son.

And so may the Lord find us believing and working, when He comes.  Amen.