The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today offer an opportunity to contemplate the role of work and Scripture scholarship in building our life in accord with Jesus' example.
Fruitful Work
The reading from the Second Letter to the Thessalonians contains a warning against idleness.
* [3:1–18] The final chapter urges the Thessalonians to pray for Paul and his colleagues (2 Thes 3:1–2) and reiterates confidence in the Thessalonians (2 Thes 3:3–5), while admonishing them about a specific problem in their community that has grown out of the intense eschatological speculation, namely, not to work but to become instead disorderly busybodies (2 Thes 3:6–15). A benediction (2 Thes 3:16) and postscript in Paul’s own hand round out the letter. On 2 Thes 3:17–18, cf. note on 2 Thes 2:2.1
Psalm 128 notes the role of work in the happy home of the faithful.
* [Psalm 128] A statement that the ever-reliable God will bless the reverent (Ps 128:1). God’s blessing is concrete: satisfaction and prosperity, a fertile spouse and abundant children (Ps 128:2–4). The perspective is that of the adult male, ordinarily the ruler and representative of the household to the community. The last verses extend the blessing to all the people for generations to come (Ps 128:5–6).2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus continues to declare ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!’
* [23:29–32] In spite of honoring the slain dead by building their tombs and adorning their memorials, and claiming that they would not have joined in their ancestors’ crimes if they had lived in their days, the scribes and Pharisees are true children of their ancestors and are defiantly ordered by Jesus to fill up what those ancestors measured out. This order reflects the Jewish notion that there was an allotted measure of suffering that had to be completed before God’s final judgment would take place.3
Barbara Dilly asks “How are we to behave in times such as this?”
As I reflect on the readings for today, I find good insights. Paul says, “Let us greet each other with encouragement and good hope through his grace. Let’s encourage each other’s hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.” This was said in the spirit of waiting for the coming of the Lord at the last days, but we are told that this coming is probably a long way off. In the meantime, can’t these words serve us well for our daily struggles with the pandemic? We can’t just sit still and do nothing, waiting for it to end. Even if we are sheltering in place, we can still encourage each other’s hearts. We can still strengthen each other in good deeds and words even if just over the phone, through letters, sending donations, and on the internet. We can do much to encourage others.4
Don Schwager quotes “Good deeds done for God,” by an author unknown, from the 5th century A.D.
"Every good deed that is done for God is universally good for everything and everyone. Deeds that are not seen to benefit everything and everyone, however, are done on account of man, as the present matter itself demonstrates. For example, those who build reliquaries and adorn churches seem to be doing good. If they imitate the justice of God, if the poor benefit from their goods and if they do not acquire their goods through violence against others, it is clear that they are building for the glory of God. If they fail to observe God's justice... and if the poor never benefit from their goods and if they acquire their goods from others by means of violence or fraud, who is so foolish not to understand that they are building for human respect rather than for the glory of God? Those who build reliquaries in a just manner ensure that the poor do not suffer as a result of it. For the martyrs do not rejoice when they are honored by gifts for which the poor paid with their tears. What kind of justice is it to give gifts to the dead and to despoil the living or to drain blood from the poor and offer it to God? To do such things is not to offer sacrifice to God but to attempt to make God an accomplice in violence, since whoever knowingly accepts a gift which was acquired by sinful means participates in the sin." (excerpt from an incomplete Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, HOMILY 45)5
Nicholas King SJ comments that it must be admitted that Matthew is sometimes regarded as the ‘most anti-Jewish’ of the gospels. The evidence for this perception is found in the very sharp, almost brutal chapter 23 with its seven-fold repetition of ‘woe to you, scribes and Pharisees’. The language here is alarmingly polemic; it probably owes something to what is nowadays called the ‘parting of the ways’ between Matthew’s church and the ‘synagogue across the road’.
In short, I conclude that every word of the 27 documents that this extraordinary library that is the New Testament contains was written by good Jews, and that it is unfounded, even perverse, to call it ‘anti-Jewish’. We must however confess, to our shame, that Christians, as well as Jews, have often read the New Testament in this way, with catastrophic results. No religion that peddles hatred and killing can be of God.6
The Word Among Us Meditation on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10, 16-18 asks If you knew the world was going to end tomorrow, would you bother working today? Scholars think this may have been the issue that the Christians in Thessalonica were struggling with.
Of course not everyone can work at a job. But that doesn’t mean we should give up. There’s plenty to do! Volunteering at our church or local community center can help us make a difference. Committing to keep in touch with family and friends can make us a voice of encouragement and blessing. And there’s always the necessary and fruitful work of interceding, not just for loved ones, but for everyone!7
Peter Edmonds SJ, a member of the Jesuit community in Stamford Hill, uses the two letters that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians to introduce us to these early Christians who ‘received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit’. As well as being much shorter than the First Letter to the Thessalonians, the Second Letter is less personal. The writer is a more distant figure; the style is more formal, the tone more authoritarian. Most Pauline experts date the letter much later, perhaps of similar vintage to the Letters to Timothy and Titus. They recognise a writer appealing to the authority of Paul years later.
The letter deals with three major topics. The first chapter concentrates on the persecution that the community was enduring. The second chapter instructs about the Second Coming of Christ. This is nothing to be excited about; certain events must occur before it happens, and these things have not happened. The third chapter concentrates on moral behaviour, warning in particular against the dangers of idleness.8
Friar Jude Winkler explores the reasons for exclusion by the author of 2 Thessalonians and rejection of the religiosity of the Scribes and Pharisees by the converted Pharisee who completed Matthew’s Gospel. Jewish tradition would not allow touching anything dealing with the dead. Friar Jude advises on condemnation of those who shield darker motives by their false piety.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, cites the work of Jim Antal, “Climate Church, Climate World: How People of Faith Must Work for Change.”
We can’t accept God’s invitation to help create a new story unless we are willing to take action. We become partners with God when we act in unfamiliar, untested ways. Those new actions will be guided by a preferred future that embraces:
resilience in place of growth
collaboration in place of consumption
wisdom in place of progress
balance in place of addiction
moderation in place of excess
vision in place of convenience
accountability in place of disregard
self-giving love in place of self-centered fear . . .
As broken-hearted as God must be over what we have done to the gift of creation, God still has a dream. . . . God dreams that humans seek spiritual rather than material progress. God’s dream envisions a just world at peace because gratitude has dissolved anxiety and generosity has eclipsed greed.9
Our work is to bring about change that realigns the actions of people with the Will of God for Creation.
References
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