Stop. Breathe.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? 

But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

At Bible study this past Monday, I think I used the words “weird” or “strange” at least half a dozen times while going over the details and quirks of our passage today. And I’ll be totally transparent with you all— I don’t love this epistle. There’s something a little… odd about it; a lot of it just doesn’t make sense to me. (Luckily, I’m not the only one—even one of the greatest church fathers, Augustine of Hippo, wrote of 2 Thessalonians v. 6-8, which our lectionary was kind enough to not include in our reading today, “I frankly confess I do not know what he means.” )

That being said, as always, we can find meaning in this in the purpose of this section of the letter— which is, to sort of calm and refocus the community to which he’s writing. Now, like I said last week, we can’t know exactly what’s going on here, since we can’t precisely date when it was written, nor can we know who this “lawless one” was, but one thing we can be somewhat sure of is that the people to whom the author is writing had gotten some bad information. Whether that information as by spirit (a false prophet), word (rumors, word of mouth), or letter (perhaps a forged letter imitating someone in authority), word had gotten around that Jesus had, in fact, already returned to earth, and the end times were already underway. This meant a couple things—it meant that some people were terrified, thinking that they had been, left behind, for lack of a better phrase; and it meant that some people thought since the end times were underway, they could stop working for the cause, stop contributing, and just sit back and wait to be taken up to heaven. So this was probably a very chaotic time, and the author of our letter today was trying his best to right those wrongs.

Having said that, his method for trying to calm this community down doesn’t feel especially effective to me? He’s assuring his readers that no, the end times are not in motion yet, and you don’t have to be freaking out that you’ve’ been left behind; but he’s adding that, so don’t worry, we’ll have an idea about when these end times will occur because all these unbelievably horrible things will happen to that we have to look forward to—this rebellion that he mentions will be, essentially, a violent, ultimate battle between good and evil.

You see, the part that our lectionary skips over goes into more detail (and let me tell you right now, adding the extra details does not make this passage any easier to understand), about how we’ll know when Jesus is back. In verse 6-8 (the part that I just mentioned that Augustine was totally flummoxed by), it’s written,

6 And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.

So in order to calm his audience, he’s assuring them that the lawless one will be unrestrained all of a sudden (and just like we don’t know who the lawless one is, neither do we know who or what this restrainer is), will begin to do massive harm, and then Jesus will come as this destructive force of the annihilation of evil. This is not calming to me! But you know, that’s really here nor there in regard to what we can actually learn from this passage. Because believe it or not, in spite of all its weirdness, there is some wisdom we can take from this, I promise.

Now, all this anxiety stemming from all these different theologies, theories, and rumors got me thinking of these cycles of anxiety that fellow anxious people like myself can find ourselves trapped in—when one anxiety feeds another one. And I get the feeling that this is what was happening here. You have all these rumors swirling, you have false prophets, you have misunderstood predictions, you have a Christian faith still in its infancy, still trying to figure itself out; it’s a recipe for misunderstandings and chaos. And while I don’t know how effective this author’s strategy may be, there is a central theme of this passage that we can take to heart, that can guide us.

You might remember last week when we read the first handful of verses from this epistle, that much of it wasn’t… especially relevant to us, but that the central theme of that section, and really the central theme of the letter was one we could hold onto; and that was the theme of solidarity, and really being there for each other in this faith community, and in the wider community, no matter what challenges come our way. This week, we take the solidarity, and we build on it with discernment.

“…We beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed… to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.”  One of my commentaries interpreted this a little more colloquially by translating this as “don’t be shaken out of your wits” with all these rumors that Jesus is back. In other words, don’t panic. Slow down. Breathe. Now, let’s put aside what the author of this letter says after—about the predicted rebellion, and then the strange and dramatic verses our lectionary leaves out. The main piece of advice the author is giving here is—don’t panic. Think things through. And stand strong on your faith and what your tradition tells you.

If, in regard to the end times, we’re going to go by what our faith tells us— then the main thing to remember is Matthew 25:35: “…about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only [God].” So always be ready. But also be discerning. Also keep your cool. Don’t believe every wild rumor.

Surely, in a world on sensationalist clickbait, rage bait, in a world where the media seems to run on a currency of fear, we can heed this advice. I know for myself, as a new-ish mom, and as a chronically-online millennial, for the past few years, I’ve found myself on Reddit, in online publications, and just, on the internet in general trying to find the best books, the best information, the best science, the best strategies about parenting, about pregnancy, etc etc. The information overload is overwhelming. One public academic I’ve found to be a real calming presence amidst all of this, who I think is trying to do something along the lines of what his author of our passage today is trying to do, is Emily Oster. Oster is an economist, but she’s found this niche where she uses her expertise in reading and interpreting data to research what a huge amount of different studies really say, mostly focusing on pregnancy, maternal health, and early childhood— and she does a lot of combat what she calls panic headlines— for example, on her website, Oster points out that a few months ago, there was a headline going around that read, “Toothpaste widely contaminated with lead and other metals, U.S. research finds.” Now, this sounds horrifying. But when you really read the article, when you really look at the numbers, and if you know what the numbers mean (and most of us don’t), you would know that whatever levels they found, are profoundly low, and nothing to worry about. But that doesn’t matter. It makes a good headline. It makes you click. It makes you panic. If you’re an anxious new mom who’s took Tylenol your whole pregnancy for example, for whatever aches and pains you may have been getting, and you all of a sudden see a headline that says that Tylenol is maybe linked to autism, you’ll certainly click that link in fears of what it might mean for you or your baby. But when you actually look at the data, it’s correlation and not causation, and even then, the correlation is quite small. But as we’ve seen over the past few months, years really, when it comes to willfully bad data and misleading medical information, the damage has been done. People have panicked. And what people like Oster are saying is, Stop. Beathe. And let’s really look at what the past studies and data mean, and what it’s really saying. I know for me, as a person, and now a mom, prone to anxiety, her analysis and framing of various panic headlines have been wildly helpful to me.

Now, in regard to our passage today—whether or not we find the author’s strategies very effective, or even if we don’t find that they make a lot of sense—ultimately, he’s really only trying to stop people from panicking over false and misleading information. He’s trying to calm the people who think they’ve been left behind. He’s trying to reinvigorate people who think they can stop working or contributing. And he’s doing this by saying, “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught…”. Don’t immediately get caught up in the new or the exciting; don’t immediately panic at the frightening and misleading. Stop. Breathe. And think about the core values of our faith and of our lives. Think about the fact that no one knows the day or the time—that no one can know what the future holds. Think about the command to love one another as ourselves. Think about the command to help the least of these. And think about what we discussed last week—the praise the author was giving to his readers was that of continuing to love and support one another in the face of difficult times.

This is all just as true today as it was then— by holding fast to these core facets of our faith, we can avoid getting worked up to the point of debilitating anxiety or paralysis. And maybe we’re not contending with dueling predictions of the apocalypse, but we have plenty to fill us with anxiety and anger and fear these days. We live in a world full of panic headlines that take advantage of the fears and anxieties of new parents; a world where rage bait seems to the common language of the internet; a world where fear, anxiety, and doom sell, and so it’s fair game to be proliferated through newspapers, magazines, online. We can combat all the rage bait and all the panic headlines by taking a tip from our passage today—by not being “quickly shaken or alarmed” by sensationalist headlines, by clickbait that’s throwing it self at us through our screens; by taking a deep breath and discerning what so many of these articles are really saying, by making an effort to read and to understand, rather than immediately panic, becoming filled with debilitating anxiety.  Thankfully, in we have a powerful tool in doing this—we have our faith “the traditions we’ve been taught”— the traditions that teach us that while we can’t know the day or the time—what the future holds, we can know that we are unconditionally loved. We can know that we have the compassionate solidarity of Jesus to buoy us; we can know that we have the compassionate solidarity of each other, right here, in this incredibly community to keep us grounded as we can feel increasingly unmoored in this broken world; and we know that, as it’s written at the end of our passage today that we have our faith in Jesus “who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, [who] comfort[s] your hearts and strengthen[s] them in every good work and word.”

So whenever you feel yourself getting worked up over a scary new headline, whether it be a medical study, whether it be about politics, just stop. Breath. And “do not be quickly shaken.” Be vigilant, be discerning, but remember your faith and “stand firm…in the traditions you’ve been taught.” Stand firm in peace. Stand firm in compassion. Stand firm in love for your neighbor. This way, no matter what new rumor, or article, or clickbait headline, comes your way; no matter what cycle of anxiety or fear starts to spin out around, your hearts will remain comforted; and no matter what, you will be strengthened in every good work and word. Amen.