Almost every commentator and preacher I looked at while preparing this sermon splits this passage of James into two parts. The first part, v. 1-6, is a discussion of the danger of depending on wealth. The second part, v. 7-11, typically focus on patience.
Well, I’m going to buck the trend. Because I think that both of these passages are about the same thing. I think James is giving essentially the same message to both the arrogant rich and to the suffering poor. And that message is, “today is not all there is.”
I’m going to buck the trend in another way, too. It’s pretty unpopular in American Christendom to talk about either heaven or hell. According to a recent Harris poll, 70% of Americans believe in heaven, and 59% believe in hell, but in another poll - I’m afraid I couldn’t find it to support what I’m about to say - almost everybody is sure they’ll go to heaven.
Very few are worried about going to hell. Part of that is, of course, is that when we measure ourselves by other people, most of us - especially those who find themselves in church on Sunday mornings - are pretty sure that God grades on a curve and that they’re comfortably above the great divide. And besides, isn’t James talking about the filthy rich? I don’t see Bill Gates or Warren Buffet in here, and besides - they’ve both given huge quantities of money to help the poor, so they don’t count either. It’s just the bad, greedy rich who are in trouble here. You know, like George Soros and the CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Furthermore, I really don’t think that many of us would be positively influenced by the sort of pulpit-pounding hellfire-and-damnation sermon that are the stereotypical idea many Americans have of Southern Baptists and that ilk. Which reminds me of a story... When I was in seminary, which was run by the Baptist General Conference, we hosted a 3-day preaching conference. It was very well attended, with people coming from over a dozen different states. Most of those were Baptists of one stripe or another, so it wasn’t surprising. But we also got a lot of people from the Twin Cities area, Lutherans and Methodists and even a Presbyterian or two. In fact, one of the presenters was an absolutely terrific Presbyterian preacher named Richard Davis.the same message to both the arrogant rich and to the suffering poor. And that message is, “today is not all there is.”
At any rate, when feedback time came at the end of the conference one of the local Lutherans stood up and said that he had been favorably surprised by the lack of those hell-fire and damnation sermons I mentioned before. And the host of the conference replied, “Well, that’s because most of us here think that the gospel is good news.”
And so do I, and so do we all.
But on the flip side, the idea of preaching patience to the suffering poor has long been held in disrepute because it was a message which kept the peasants quiet under the iron hand of the upper classes, from robber barons to actual kings. Marx’s identification of religion as “the opiate of the people” was an indictment of the controlling function which the alliance of the institutional church with the governing powers had on suppressing discontent.
And it also goes right along with the admonition earlier in this letter when James says, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” [Jas 2:15-16] You could rephrase it, if one of you who has plenty to eat says to your sister who has none, “You’ll get your reward in heaven,” what good is that?
Whichever way you look at it, whether it’s preaching hellfire to the rich or meek endurance to the poor, very few people really want to hear about the afterlife except at funerals. It doesn’t speak to our present day needs and struggles.
And that’s why it’s so important not to skip over this passages. We’re all so focused on our present needs and struggles that we take very little time thinking about where we’re headed. And as someone once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably not going to get there.” What does your bumper sticker say? “The one with the most toys wins?”
The rich people James is talking to in v. 1-6 may or may not be Christian. That is, we don’t know if they come to church or not, although I suspect they’re part of James’ congregation, just as they are still part of ours. What we do know is that they are not using their prosperity in the way they are supposed to. And James is clearly talking to the upper upper classes, that is the landowners.
Compared to the way 3/4 of the world’s population lives, we are also in that category. The United States ranks 10th in per capita GDP, that’s gross domestic product, at $55,000. And there are over 100 countries under $5000. We produce over ten times what they do – per person. People in the Central African Republic live on $607 per year. American families can’t live on that much per month.
So I think we ignore this passage at our peril.
“Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.”
Rob Sider, in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, writes “Most Christians in the Northern Hemisphere simply do not believe Jesus’ teaching about the deadly danger of possessions. We all know that Jesus warned that possessions are highly dangerous ? But we do not believe Jesus. Christians in the United States live in the richest society in the history of the world surrounded by a billion hungry neighbors.”
Now, I don’t agree with most of his solutions - which involve economic redistribution more than economic empowerment - but he’s right about American attitudes toward the poor in other countries. We’re comfortable with all the stuff we have - because after all, we haven’t personally defrauded anyone, have we? And how many of us buy ourselves little luxuries on a bad day, saying to ourselves “After all, I deserve it?” I certainly have done so.
Remember, it’s not how much money we have. That’s really irrelevant. Of course it matters how we got what we have. But just as important, and just as indicative of our seriousness about God’s call on our possessions, is what we do with it. John Calvin said that “insofar as [we] do not live in simplicity and righteousness, [we] are thieves in God’s eyes.” (Sermon on the 8th commandmt)
I want every one of us to stop for a minute and think. Is the amount you give away - whether it’s to the work of the church or to other charities like World Relief or the Red Cross or even a small local charity like our food shelf - is it proportional to the amount kept to spend on yourself? God only asks for 10%. Doesn’t he deserve it?
The reason why Jesus said “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" [Mt 19:24] is that when we have enough stuff that we don’t notice the hunger in our souls, we rely on our stuff to keep us happy and secure, and forget that this life is not the end of our journey.
There’s a wonderful story about a rich man who nagged St. Peter until he got permission to bring along one suitcase full of his most valuable possessions when he died. So there he is, stepping up to the Pearly Gates, and when customs inspected his luggage, they found it stuffed with gold bars. “What on earth were you thinking of?” they exclaimed. “We have plenty of cobblestones!!”
If you have any thought at all of winding up on God’s side when your time is up, you have to aim and plan and invest for it. God is not an afterthought, a by-product of never having gone to jail or otherwise disgraced yourself in front of your peers. God asks to come first, and the road to heaven is not paved with good intentions but by paying good attention to what he says. And he says “love your neighbor as yourself.”
And as far as those of us to whom the last 5 verses are addressed are concerned, yeah, patience is good. And there are those of us who feel like the harder we work the farther behind we slip. From gasoline prices to health care costs, as well as unfulfilled needs and disappointments that have nothing to do with money, most of us don’t have everything we want. Even actor Brad Pitt, who most of the world no doubt envies for his success, said in an interview for the Rolling Stone, "Once you got everything, then you're just left with yourself?it doesn't help you sleep any better, and you don't wake up any better because of it.” Even the rich - if they stop to think about it - cannot be fully satisfied in the present.
But James isn’t saying to lie down and let fate have its way with you. We are meant to work, to strive, to provide for ourselves and have enough left over to help a our neighbor. We’re also meant to seek justice and work to improve the world we live in.
What James is saying is, don’t ruin your life - even though what you have may not be much compared to the people down the block or over the mountain - don’t ruin your life by envying, or grumbling, or anxiety, or ingratitude. Receive it all from the hand of God, who has not forgotten you, who will not forget you, and who will right all wrongs at the appointed time.
