BUSYBODY OR BUSY BUILDING
A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Text: “mere busybodies, not doing any work.” (2 Thessalonians 3:11)
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The title for this sermon comes from the Greek, which literally reads “they aren’t busy with anything except being busybodies.” It all goes back to Paul’s correspondence with the Thessalonians church in which we find three examples of the importance Paul places on work as part of their Christian commitment. The first is in 1 Thessalonians 2:5, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy write, “You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.” Here we see Paul’s conception of his own work. He does not peddle his message for money and would not, in fact, accept even food and drink, as it would be an imposition on the material resources of his new converts.
The second example we find in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, where he encourages the Thessalonians “to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you.” Just in case they don’t get the importance Paul places on their work he tells them in 5:14 “to admonish the idlers.” Obviously the problem has grown worse by the time we get to our passage today. We begin with him saying, “Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.” That tradition we’ve already heard about, but just in case someone wasn’t listening he goes on to tell them how when he was with them “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.”
He then goes on to tell them what we’ve already mentioned and that is “we hear that some of you aren’t busy with anything but being mere busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.”
When Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York City he made some major advances in how New Yorkers viewed themselves. He started with the “squeegee guys,” those annoying people who would run up to your car when you were sitting at a traffic light, wash your window with filthy water and rags and then demand payment. He had them arrested for jaywalking. It turns out that many of those washing the windows were felons, and in so doing Giuliani reduced the crime rate at the same time. New York had a perennial problem with graffiti, even on garbage trucks. As a result he wouldn’t let a truck leave the lot until it was absolutely cleansed of any graffiti. The same was true with the subway cars. They, too, had to be absolutely clean before they ran the tracks.
There’s a theory called the “Broken Window” theory of urban decay. It was the insight of James Q. Wilson of the Harvard Government Department. His theory was a single broken window could trigger the downward spiral of a once proud urban structure. “Researchers in the field of crime and urban decay have discovered that one shattered pane, left unrepaired for a significant period of time, causes area residents and residents of the building to feel a sense of abandonment. They begin to believe that the owner doesn’t care about them or the building, or they believe the building has been abandoned, freeing them to toss a brick through another window. Soon there’s litter and junk collecting in the doorways. Graffiti appears, and no one cares enough to scrub it off. Serious structural damage begins, and in a relatively short time the building becomes damaged beyond the owner’s desire to fix it. The sense of abandonment felt by the residents suddenly becomes a reality.” (Homiletics, November, December, 2004. Volume 16, Number 8. Page 16.)
What Giuliani did was apply this “Broken Window” theory to how he was going to clean up New York City. He saw the “squeegee guys” as broken panes of windows. He saw graffiti as broken panes of windows and by addressing those that would normally seem to be small issues he was able to make a big difference in how New Yorkers viewed themselves and their city.
It’s the same thing that Paul is saying to us this morning. Idlers were for him broken panes of windows. Left unattended they would signal the spiral downward trend in his new Christian communities. Now it may seem to you that the preacher has left his wits out in the narthex or the hallway somewhere. Who among us today has any time to consider, let along practice anything resembling idleness? On the contrary, many of us view it as what could be considered a luxury few of us can afford. After all, there’s parent/teacher meetings to attend to, endless number of meetings you really can’t afford to miss, soccer games for the kids, concerts that are worthwhile, work that’s always there. Indeed, who in their right mind has any time to consider let alone practice anything resembling idleness?
Well, here’s where the title of the sermon again comes to the fore. In the midst of the endless stream of activities in which everyone one of us finds themselves we have to ask ourselves the question time and again, where in that midst are we busy building for the future and where in that midst are we being mere busybodies? What Paul wants from us is a critical review of how we spend our time. Where are the broken windows in our daily routines? What do we do in the normal course of events that is a waste of our time when we could be doing something a lot more worthwhile? What could we omit to give ourselves some worthwhile idleness in order to develop our spiritual resources? Or, to put it in Paul’s words, “not be weary in doing what is right.”
There’s no doubt all of us are far too busy doing all kinds of things, some of which is of no use in building for the future. Molly Strode has written a book, Creating a Spiritual Retirement. In it she has a chapter on “Compassion 101: Loving Yourself,” in which she writes: “Several years ago, I attended a retreat at which the leader directed us in a unique exercise. He told us to touch our eyes and to thank that part of our body for all those years of faithful service. We thanked our eyes for the years of eyestrain in studying for exams and being subjected to chlorine in swimming pools. We thanked them for the beauty they had brought to us and how our sight had kept us safe on many occasions. We paused for a few minutes and then went on to the next part of our body. We quietly meditated on how our ears had faithfully served us. By the time we had reached our shoulders, tears were streaming down my face.
“How hard I had been on my body all these years, with never an expression of appreciation! For the first time I experienced compassion for my body. In doing so, I experienced compassion for myself. After that experience I began to feel differently about myself. All those years I had demanded so much of myself and was critical when I did not live up to my expectations. I never thought to thank myself for what I did accomplish. I had always evaluated the results but failed to look at the effort…
“Many of us see and evaluate ourselves from the outside in. We compare ourselves with others in similar circumstances. If we see ourselves as less than our peers, we berate ourselves for our deficiencies. Compassion begins when we can forgive ourselves for not living up to our ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts.’ Compassion begins when we can forgive ourselves for the mistakes we have made. Many of us carry a smoldering self-anger under a seemingly calm exterior. Love grows when we can recognize this anger and invest this energy into moving forward. When we can do this, we are closer to understanding how we are loved by God.
“In that understanding, my life has changed. It has not changed exteriorly but interiorly, where we really live our lives anyway. Loved by the Holy One, I am valuable not for what I do but for who I am…My constant companion, whether I perceive it or not, is a compassionate God who will always be with me.” (Woodstock, Vermont; Skylight Paths Publishing. 2003. Pages 103-105.)
It sounds as though in so doing Molly Strode has spent some time replacing some broken windows and being busy building for the future rather than a mere busybody. It’s time all of us should consider in order to be faithful to Paul’s conclusion, “do not be weary in doing what is right.”
Thanks be to God,
Amen