A LETTER FROM JAMES

Chapter 5 – part 1

Warning to the Rich

5 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment.  (James 5:1-3 – NLT)

Once again James is pulling no punches; telling it like it really is. He uses a practically derogatory expression to commence this section: Look here, you rich people:  - he wants to grab their attention, urgently, as if by the throat. There is virtually a sense of desperation in his tone as he tries to get the members of his fledgeling church to focus on what is Christlike and eternal. He is acutely aware of what lies ahead of those who put their trust and confidence in possessions and wealth, rather than in God.

There is a sense in which wealth and material possessions blindside humanity, desensitize and numb them to their true standing before God, and the plight of their fellow human beings. When the reality of their situation before God dawns upon them, it will be a grim revelation of their own greed and selfishness, and too late to remedy their situation, hence the terrible troubles ahead of you.

There is no doubt that James is well aware of the appalling destiny that awaits those whose lifestyles have been defined by selfishness, greed and materialism. In some Eastern cultures loud, unrestrained, weeping and wailing are part of the grieving process. James is using this image to indicate that the day is coming when they will weep and groan with anguish over their misspent and decadent way of living. Even that which is considered incorruptible will perish away; Your gold and silver are corroded. So great will be the catastrophic climax, even that on which the wealth of nations is built, their gold reserves, will be massively devalued.  That which humanity has seen as indestructible and greatly prized is doomed to decay.

There is a sense of degenerate and unrestrained revelling in their wealth and possessions: The very wealth you were counting. James warns that it is this very decadent and unrestrained revelling that will be their ultimate destruction, it will: eat away your flesh like fire. Like the alcoholic, greed and materialism can become a self-destructive path to a personal hell on earth.

This corroded treasure you have hoarded – their selfishness, greed and materialism will be used as evidence against them on the day of judgement. The tendency of humanity, to obsessively focus and concentrate on the material things of life, is to spend life, on that which must fade, decay, and eventually be surrendered. There is a sense in which it is self-generated annihilation.

The call to social justice

4 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

5 You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you. (James 5:4-6 – NLT)

James now turns his attention to the negative outcome that flows from the decadence and greed of the rich and calls for what we term today as social justice: the concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges. (Wikipedia)

As we have observed earlier in James writings, the early church was an egalitarian society where the poor, the rich, the slave and free served and worshipped together without any distinction whatsoever. It was his intention that the poor were honoured and the rich were humbled and that the compassionate, fair and just treatment of the poor was to be one of the hallmarks of Christianity.

Here he takes aim at the callous and self-centred attitudes of employers who have deliberately cheated their workers of a fair day’s pay for their labour in the fields. Times have not changed and nor has humanity. The Industrial Revolution was to see the gross and unfair exploitation of workers by employers and it was in this fertile soil of unrest and injustice that saw the rise of the trade union movement from among the ranks of Wesley’s Methodist movement. Above all James wants to uphold the Biblical principal of human dignity that was to become one of the foundations of the Christian church.

James is quite sure that the desperate cries of the poor and oppressed workers will be heard by God and there is a veiled threat here of retribution from Heaven’s Armies. In his great mission statement found in Luke 4:18, Jesus zeroes in on the poor and oppressed and comes as their champion. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free. (NLT) James is doing no more than following the mission of his Master in addressing this injustice and ruthlessness.

There is a sense in which, when people indulge in a selfish and lavish lifestyle, they are offending God who cares for the poor and oppressed. As the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:16-21 tells us, He will not tolerate their thoughtless, reckless and negligent mindset forever. The other side of this selfish and lavish lifestyle is that there will always be negative outcomes, for someone has to pay the price for this selfish and lavish lifestyle. Unconcerned about the outcome of their greed and luxurious lifestyle, the rich have lived in self-imposed ignorance and it is the poor and the oppressed that end up paying the cost, sometimes even in the cost of their own lives. James is quite clear where responsibility lies: You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you.

The Christian church needs to be watchful, for all too often it is seen as being in collaboration with the rich and powerful. At times, the opulence of some branches of the church is offensive, not only to the poor, but also to God himself. The modern push by some churches along the theology of prosperity religion is not only erroneous, but also offensive to God and denies the mission of Jesus, who said he had nowhere to lay his head and had come to bring Good News to the poor.