REFLECTION 16 NOVEMBER 2025 “NEVER TIRE OF DOING WHAT IS GOOD” 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

Some mornings, I wake up and I think.  Today I’d like to do nothing.  I’m sure many of us have those days.  We used to call them MHD’s mental health days.  Yesterday was one of those days but unfortunately, the lawn needed mowing, the washing needed hanging.  I had to prepare my meals.  Snoopy needed walking.  I don’t believe there is anything such as a literal day-off for a single minister.   

Have you heard of the song by Bruno Mars called “The Lazy Song” it starts off:   

“Today I don’t feel like doing anything  

I just wanna lay in my bed  

Don’t feel like picking up my phone 

So leave a message at the tone ⁿ 

Cause today, I swear, I’m not doing anything,  

uh I’m gonna kick my feet up,  

then stare at the fan Turn the TV on,  

throw my hand in my pants  

Nobody’s gon’ tell me I can’t nah! 

It’s literally a whole song about doing nothing, staying in bed, and avoiding responsibilities. 

In Aotearoa today, “idleness” is rarely the problem. People are exhausted, overworked, underpaid, burnt out.  Others carry trauma, disability, grief, or chronic mental health challenges.  Some can’t find stable work, or they face discrimination in hiring. Some work multiple jobs yet still live in poverty. 

The real issue is not idleness it’s inequality. 

Our reading from 2 Thessalonians 3:6–13 is one of those passages that has a history of being misunderstood — and sometimes misused.   Paul — or the writer in Paul’s tradition — says,  “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” 

This has been quoted by politicians, social commentators, even church leaders, to shame those who are poor or unemployed.   It has been used as a weapon against beneficiaries, solo parents, the disabled, refugees, anyone who struggles.   

The writer of Thessalonians wasn’t talking about beneficiaries, or the homeless, or those living with disability, trauma, or chronic illness. 

He was speaking into a very specific moment: a frightened little community who believed the world was about to end, and who had stopped working out of anxiety not apathy. 

This particular letter was written into a community in crisis.
Some early Christians, believing Jesus would return imminently, had stopped working altogether.
They weren’t lazy — they were apocalyptic. They thought,
“If the world is ending soon, why keep going to work?” 

So they quit their jobs, relied on other community members to feed them, and spent their days anxiously speculating about the “end times.”
It created stress, resentment, and deep division. 

In that context, the writer says:
“Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”
This was not an insult to the poor.
It was not a judgment on the unemployed.
It was a pastoral attempt to calm a panicked community, saying:
“Please, keep living your lives. Keep contributing where you can. Keep our community sustainable.” 

This text comes from a moment of fear — not failure. 

Historically, Thessalonica was a bustling Roman city with competing philosophies, gods, and political tensions.  The early Christians there were waiting for Jesus to return not metaphorically, but literally.
Some believed the world was about to end.   

So this particular group being addressed in Thessalonica had essentially stopped working.  Not because they were lazy, but because they were anxious,
frightened, and convinced that their everyday lives no longer mattered. 

This put pressure on the rest of the community.  Meals had to be shared, resources stretched thin, tensions grew. 

So the writer says:  “Stay engaged.  Keep contributing as you’re able.
Life still matters.  The community still needs you.” 

And then — the heart of it “Do not grow tired in doing what is good.” 

Across history, this passage has been weaponised against people who are struggling:
the poor, the homeless, the disabled, refugees, people on welfare, people between jobs.
It has been used to imply that poverty is a moral failing. 

But that interpretation does not align with the heart of Jesus,
nor with the witness of the early church, whose core identity was shared meals, shared resources, and shared dignity. This passage is not about blaming the vulnerable.
It’s about calling the whole community to shared responsibility. 

When the writer warns against “idleness,” a better translation might be:
“disorderly living”  or “living in a way that disrupts the community.” 

This is not about people who cannot work.
It is not about people doing their best under difficult circumstances.
It is not about beneficiaries trying to survive in a stressful economy. 

The problem was disruptive disengagement, people withdrawing from communal life and expecting others to carry them indefinitely. 

So the question for us is not, “Who is unwilling to work?”
but “How do we build a society where everyone can thrive?” 

The text becomes not a warning against laziness, but a call to shared responsibility and compassionate endurance. 

When Paul speaks about idleness, he is addressing a particular group in the early church who were choosing not to contribute to the wellbeing of the community, even though they had the means and the capacity. 

But today, in Aotearoa, we need to be very careful about how we use that word idleness. Because the world we live in is shaped by structures—policies, economics, and decisions that affect people’s ability to work, to survive, and to flourish. 

Just this month, Work and Income has introduced a new “traffic-light system” for people receiving Jobseeker Support. On paper it talks about encouraging people into work, but on the ground it means stronger sanctions, more check-ins, and heavier expectations. Someone who misses a single appointment can now find themselves having to report weekly, complete extra training hours, or risk having their benefit cut. Being poor is not the same thing as being idle. 

Many of the people outside in our community, and many of the whānau we serve, are doing everything they can just to stay afloat. Housing costs, transport, complicated family situations, health and disability barriers—none of these are solved by threats of sanctions. None of these are healed by bureaucracy. 

And next year, young people—18- and 19-year-olds—will face even tighter eligibility rules. If their parents earn above a threshold, or if they cannot prove a “support gap”, they may be denied the Jobseeker Support or Emergency Benefit altogether. That means some of the most vulnerable young people in our society—the ones couch-surfing, the ones escaping unsafe homes, the ones trying to stand on their own feet—may find themselves with nothing. 

So when our passage from Thessalonians says, “Never tire of doing what is good,” it is not calling us to judge the poor.  It is calling us to protect them.
It is calling us to advocate for them.
It is calling us to refuse systems that confuse poverty with laziness. 

Doing good, in 2025 and 2026, looks like: 

• helping people navigate Work and Income systems that feel overwhelming 

• speaking up when policies punish those who are already struggling 

• supporting our youth, especially Māori and Pasifika, who are more likely to be affected 

• ensuring our church is a place of dignity, not judgement 

• refusing to let the word “idle” be used as a weapon 

The gospel when read with a social justice lens always calls us toward compassion, not condemnation.  The gospel we follow is not the gospel of sanctions it’s a gospel of shared responsibility.

It’s the systems that keep people poor, not the people themselves. Never tire of doing good means that we as a community continue to:  

• advocating for the living wage 

• making our building accessible 

• opening our doors to rainbow whānau 

• challenging harmful theology 

• refusing to shame the poor 

• welcoming refugees 

• celebrating diversity 

• singing justice into being every Sunday 

Never tire from doing what is good is that we don’t stop speaking when compassion becomes controversial.

That we don’t stop welcoming when others close their doors.
Don’t stop rising up when people are pushed down. 

We are invited to: 

Keep showing up.
Keep loving boldly.
Keep resisting injustice.
Keep lifting one another up.
Keep creating a community where no one is shamed for struggling.
May we not grow tired of doing what is right and good.  Amen.  

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Audio of selected readings and reflections

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Audio of the complete service