1Pay attention, you wealthy people! Weep and moan over the miseries coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted. Moths have destroyed your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you. It will eat your flesh like fire. Consider the treasure you have hoarded in the last days. 4 Listen! Hear the cries of the wages of your field hands. These are the wages you stole from those who harvested your fields. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of heavenly forces. 5 You have lived a self-satisfying life on this earth, a life of luxury. You have stuffed your hearts in preparation for the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who doesn’t oppose you.
Reflection
James was one to tell it like it is! There is so much in this small book of the Bible. There are lots of good studies out there on James if you are so inclined to do more study. I feel this scripture is very timely and speaks right to many of us.
We hear a lot about the top 1% – those that are super wealthy, and in the US that figure in 2022 was for people who made $785,968. But according to Vox in September of 2023, if you earned $60,000 after tax and had no children, you would be in the richest 1% of the world. Just a couple other numbers – with a partner and 1 child, the amount to fall into the richest 1% of the world is $130,000 and if you have a partner and 2 children the amount is $160,000. That does not seem like an overwhelming amount of money, does it? Some of us do not make those numbers but stick with me here either way. Even if we don’t make those salaries, we can see that James has a message for us.
I looked up those statistics while sitting in my car drinking my Starbucks the other day during a break between seeing the kiddos that I work with. That made me think about how I love jewelry, shoes, and food and the fact that I know I spend more than I should on all of those at times. I am sure I don’t take other people’s wages for my pleasure, but do I sometimes feel like there might be a better way to spend my resources than on myself? What would that look like?
Should I sell all that I have and go to a mission field to follow Jesus? Jesus told the wealthy young ruler to do just that in Luke 18. Should I downsize my home? What are the sacrifices I should make? Those are often questions we ask ourselves when we read these passages. Maybe we are being convicted not to buy something and to give that money away or to put it away until we are shown a better use for it. Do we justify our expensive coffee habit by saying, “I don’t do it often, I give a nice tip, and I am helping to employ people?” That is all good, and I think it is fine to have a coffee break sometimes, but I also think we need to be alert for those times when we can say, “No, I don’t need that new pair of shoes or pair of earrings, etc.” Maybe we can say, ”let me buy a breakfast sandwich for that person who looked like they have not eaten today.” We all have things we give money to, I am sure – the church, other organizations such as World Central Kitchen or Doctors Without Borders who are trying to help people around the world. That is sometimes very easy to do – we do an automatic monthly withdrawal, but do we pray for those people we are helping with our cash? Do we do any research into what is happening in their country right now? Do we offer up our time to help others? MUMC has a very generous congregation, no doubt about that, but how can we continue to push ourselves to see other things we can be doing in this world?
I love the last line of this passage – after all we have done on this earth to live a self-satisfying life and condemned and murdered the righteous one, Jesus doesn’t oppose us. God still loves us and still wants us to be in relationship.
by Janet Waryck
For Pondering and Prayer
What could we go without in our lives to help others in need?
Prayer: Generous God, help us to use the resources you have given us in the best possible way to help others. Give us wisdom and kindness to do good in this world. Amen.
