0711 TAKING CARE OF BUSYNESS

JULY 11 = 2 THESSALONIANS 3

TAKING CARE OF BUSYNESS

How do you fill your time? Do you like to stay busy? What do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies, or habits, or addictions? What do you do for recreation? What do you do for amusement? Do you think you are too busy? Would your great-grandparent think that you have way too much spare time? How do you feel about your schedule? That’s our interesting topic of the day, and it is very important. It is important to have spare time. But it is dangerous to have too much of it.

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” It once was a well-known saying, hinting that when we have nothing to occupy us, we tend to fill that space with something that we should not be doing. Have you found it to be true in your own life?

“Don’t be such a busybody.” This also used to be the way someone would be chided for involving themselves in gossip, or meddling in the affairs of others, or interfering with someone else’s business. A busybody is an odd term, but we find it here in this passage today. The root word in Greek (peri-ergos) actually has to do with witchcraft (peri=supernatural, ergos=work), but its meaning is that you are doing what is forbidden.

How do you spend your free time? Have you ever thought about the difference between recreation and amusement? They may seem similar, but their roots are very different. “Re-creation” refers to creating again. “A-muse-ment” refers to not thinking. Is that the difference between a recreation center and an amusement park? How many of our activities involve not thinking? How many involve not being discerning between right and wrong? Should we ever turn off our moral radars?

The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy, then commanded us to observe it. But note this: God never sleeps nor slumbers. But he rested from his work of creating on the seventh day. Yet Jesus said that his father never stops working since the beginning. How do we reconcile all this? One day a week–note that it is AFTER we have worked for six days–we are to cease from our work of creating. Jewish law goes into great detail about this, and it is an important distinction. We can eat. We can walk, and talk, and pray, and sustain our lives in many ways. But on the Sabbath we rest from creating things. We don’t write. We don’t build, or plant, or harvest, or cook, or invent, and so forth. We cease from creating. And so, we build our strength for the work before us in the next six days.

But what happens if we take too much idle time, and we cross over from re-creation to a-musement?

Here is what Paul wrote:

“But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. 

Life is a battle. We get to choose sides. But if we choose the Lord’s side, our battle involves things like strength and protection. Because the evil one, remember, seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.

For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” 

Literally, Paul says, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” If he is a baby, he shall eat. Even if he is but a boy, he eats for free, with no requirement. But by the time he is a man, he has a responsibility to at least take care of his own needs. Proverbs talks about the sluggard, the lazy person. It says that the sluggard is so lazy he doesn’t even bother to lift the food from his plate to his mouth. That’s a way of saying, some of us don’t care enough about the connection between nourishment and responsibility.

Everyone is either a taker or a giver. Meaning we consciously give more than we consciously take. (The measurements are too complex to make it an on/off kind of thing.) Or we sit back and receive, and just let others carry our fair share. Paul’s saying could be worded, be a giver, not a taker.

We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 

Here’s a truth of life: Everyone is doing something all the time. You are either taking or giving, either working or being idle, either contributing or opposing. Paul is talking about people who perhaps have heard that Jesus has already come and set up his kingdom, and we are now in the Jubilee, so just take it easy and soak in the kingdom life. God is the giver of all good gifts, after all, right? So receive the gifts and relax. 

But the thing about life is there is no such thing as doing nothing. If you are not a giver, then you are being a taker. Because something has to happen in order for food to go into your mouth to keep you alive. So you let others do that work for you. But, as I say, there is no such thing as doing nothing. So you fill your time with conversations, and your undisciplined life gets into bickering and arguing about needless things, and you get to poking into the affairs of others and interfering with the relationships of those who are around you. 

Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good. Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.”

They may be takers. They may be busybodies. But they are also fellow believers. So warn them. Discipline them. Withhold food from them, even. But do not regard them as an enemy. 

All of us have blindspots. All of us have weaknesses. We are all hypocrites. But that doesn’t mean we should not be corrected.

May you and I find the right balance of work and rest, and may we know how to keep out of, or get into, the affairs of others. Amen.