Dr. Dwight Zscheile—Year C Proper 29

Anthony: Let’s transition to our next pericope of the month. It’s 2 Thessalonians 3:6–13. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 28 in Ordinary Time, November 16.

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, 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.

So, what’s Paul doing here? Is he inviting us to condemn brothers and sisters who are not living as we are living? He gives an imperative in verse 6, to keep away from people living irresponsibly and according to tradition. Easy for me to say. What’s going on here, Dwight?

Dwight: Yeah. So, this is a very interesting text for us to wrestle with in today’s church because we, of course, become very uncomfortable often when we think about, we’re supposed to keep away from our sisters and brothers in Christ. And often a lot of churches for good reasons, really want to have a generous spirit of inclusion and not shame or exclude people. But I think part of what we need to get back to is what does it mean to live faithfully in this in-between time as a community, again, justified and sanctified by Christ in the Spirit for a particular purpose of witness and faithfulness in the world? And I wonder to me if Paul in this isn’t saying, look, there are people who are bringing discredit to the gospel in the ways that they are living again, living irresponsibly. Maybe it’s just that they’re like, hey, we don’t need to do any work because we’re expecting Jesus, to come back and take care of the mess. We’re not going contribute to our own livelihood, to loving our neighbor, to serving our neighbor, to being productive kind of citizens of the community

Paul’s saying, “Hey, wait a minute, you’re really missing out on what it means to live in this in-between time and to be the Body of Christ.” And so, I think what’s at stake in this is something really bigger than simply shunning someone. It is about, what is the integrity of our vocation as the church in this time, right? So, when he talks about people living irresponsibly, not doing any work: if to follow Jesus to be a Christian means that we just give up on loving and serving our neighbors, Paul has no patience with that. I think he’s saying, no, no, no. Our witness to our neighbors is going to be not in us withdrawing in that way, but in us actually loving them and serving sacrificially and as Jesus did, and being able to name a reason for the hope that is within us as to why we do that.

I think there’s, of course, lots of different moments in church history. We can look and say people withdrew and gave up everything waiting for Jesus to come back. And then were disappointed in some way and I think God doesn’t really want that. God wants us to be engaged with our neighbors in a way that is, you know, generous and fruitful, because that’s where the witness takes place.

Anthony: I love how you talk about vocation in the in-between times and this inaugurated eschatology and this vocation, this calling can feel like work, right? At the end of the day, it can feel like work, a heaviness to it.

And Paul gives the statement to not be weary in doing what is right. And so, I’m going invite you to maybe make this personal. Have you experienced weariness in doing good and or witnessed it in others who are close to you? And if so, what would you suggest is underneath that lived experience? And how do we address it?

Dwight: And yeah. Absolutely. I absolutely have experienced weariness like I think so many of us have, right, in trying to both to follow Jesus and to love others in the context of that. And I think underneath that so often is, what’s our relationship with God? How goes your walk with Jesus, in the sense of, are you grounded in the practices of spiritual presence in which God’s grace is made known to you daily in which you can sink into that embrace?

I think often when I’ve grown weary, it’s when I have fallen into a pattern of self-justification, when I think it’s all up to me, and I’ve got to just work harder, and my own spiritual rhythms and practices have gotten out of whack. And I’m not keeping a Sabbath or I’m not doing the kind of practices of prayer and scripture reading each day or whatever that would ground me in God’s presence.

And I see this sometimes with leaders. It’s very easy as a leader, it can be heady to be at the center of everything and to be the one who’s bringing the energy and really trying to fix everything for everyone and do it all. And I think when we fall into that trap, we very easily grow weary as a way of just missing, I think again, this basic premise that central to faith, a life of faith is trusting that God’s ultimate. And it’s just hard to remember that and practice out of that kind of place. And when we don’t, we really do very easily grow weary and, gosh, we think of a lot of leaders of various sorts, not just pastors, but other kinds of leaders who end up falling into all kinds of misconduct and things like that because they’re just not grounded in that way.

And so, I think it’s important when we think about the importance of spiritual practices in our lives not to think of those as justifying activities on a list of many things to do, we’ve got to tick those boxes, but rather as the spaces through which we are rooted in the vine as branches as in the John 15 kind of way of Jesus and his love. And if we’re living out of some other kind of rootedness, some other kind of soil, if you will, ultimately, we’re not going to bear fruit. We’re going end up burning out.

Anthony: Yeah, that’s a good word. And I agree with everything you said and you just were speaking about rootedness. I have also found in my own personal walk that when I isolate from community in any way, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that’s where weariness sets in. I just firmly believe healing happens in community. And should we be surprised by that we’re made in the image and likeness of a triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, a community of other-centeredness. That’s where the good stuff happens. And if we isolate in any way, it’s just not good. It’s unhealthy and, at least for me, that’s where weariness and burnout can set in. A word for all of us. Yeah.