Today's reading from 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 contains a clobber passage. A clobber passage is a verse from the Bible taken out of context and used to push a harsh agenda. The clobber verse in this passage comes in the second half of verse 10: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. This passage has been used by a variety of people to punish people who are struggling. I've also seen this passage internalized, making people doubt their value and worth before God. If what we do defines who we are, we struggle to love ourselves when we can no longer do the work we once (or never) did. When we see a clobber passage, we need to recognize what it truly is: a sentence that's part of a wider story. So let's put this passage back into its context to see what is truly being addressed.

According to the author of 2 Thessalonians, a kind of "idleness" erupted within the small church in Thessaloniki. Yet, this idleness wasn't that people had stopped working. Instead, as we see in verse 11, this kind of idleness is related to being a busybody. A busybody is anything but inactive. They are super busy working in ways that are disruptive to the community. In the words of Yvette Schock, "the problem was members expending their energy and giving effort to the wrong kind of 'work' in the community." And, the work being done by these busybodies made the community feel anxious and worried. Some, I think, were feeling resentful of each other. Based on our reading from last week, I imagine some in the community were putting all their energy in speculating about the end of the world. They were so focused about what was to come that they stopped caring about their commitments to one another. Instead of using the promise God gives us in baptism and in fact that we have another chapter in our lives, these people were running towards the end of the world. They ignored the needs of the people around them. They stopped praying for each other. They disrupted the community by refusing to work to build each other up. Instead, they spent their energy tearing each other down.

Today's reading should not be used to target people who are poor, needy or unable to work a job. The passage should, instead, be read in its context. The community in Thessaloniki had turned away from their responsibility to care for one another. They were focusing too much on the life to come while ignoring the life right in front of them. The "living" mentioned in this passage isn't about having a job. This "living" is focused on being part of Christ's church in the world. We have a responsibility and a duty to be like Jesus to one another. That's a calling that takes work. That work is sometimes difficult, hard, and might make us uncomfortable. But that kind of work is also a work that is holy, loving and full of grace. When we do the work of the church, we discover a divine truth: we are connected, we are fed, and Jesus will help us to never grow weary of doing what's right.