Last time, I began to look at James’s prophetic declamation against the rich. On its face and outside of biblical context, it may be seen to support the notion that God doesn’t like rich people. But as I tried to show last time, we’re the ones interested in the outward man, whereas God is interested in the heart—the source of motivation or drive behind what and why people believe and so act the way they do, whether rich or poor.
Great wealth can be a source of great temptation, to be sure. James notes that the rich among his Christ-professing readers whose hearts are idolatrously set on their wealth have made an enormously bad investment: they have laid up treasure for themselves in the last days (Jas. 5:3); they have fattened their hearts in a day of slaughter (5:5).
Yikes! Talk about a bad investment, and lack of due diligence in making it! These are people who have gone all in on the things of this life, whose portion, as the psalmist says in Psalm 17:14, is in this life, whereas the man or woman of God’s strength of heart and portion is in God, and forever, as Psalm 73:26 reminds us.
James provides us with a mini-catalog of wrong priorities that may be seen among the rich who profess Christ. As mentioned, they’d made a bad investment but don’t see it, at least not yet. It’s God’s mercy if they see it at all before their end. Another is that as business owners or employers, they treat their people unjustly, here in James, fraudulently. In James’s example, they withhold wages, even though they can afford to pay those working or providing services for them (5:4). What’s likely going on here is holding back from selling already harvested grain because with scarcity, the rich farmers can command an even higher price. The scarcity is not real, but manufactured for the farmers’ gain. Meanwhile, the farmers use this as an excuse for not paying their harvesters who, in turn, can’t meet their own, likely more pressing, expenses.
How about Us?
Sad to say, but Christians in business can and do manipulatively treat other Christians this way. And I speak not only from hearsay and reading articles about this, but from experience: More than was contracted is routinely expected for as little as possible, and invoices may be left unpaid for months under the assumption that the brother who provided the services won’t say or do anything. By contrast, a non-explicitly Christian service is paid for immediately, or certainly within thirty days, for fear of a bad reputation. (Thankfully, none of the Christian outlets I work with, including The Outlook, is in this category.)
One thinks also of investment firms or large companies exerting influence to their advantage while hurting smaller businesses, like the character Henry F. Potter in the Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. Or current payday loan businesses that charge exorbitant interest rates on funds to be paid back only a few days later. Or large companies buying up competitors who don’t have a choice except to sell, since once identified by the larger company, they wouldn’t be able to stay in business. These are wealthy people who are expert— plotting on their beds—how they can manipulate the business or personal situations of others to their financial advantage, even if it’s to others’ hurt. The cries of those they have abused have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts (5:4).
James’s goal here is that if there are rich people among the professing Christian community who act this way, that they repent. These are newly converted Christian Jews, but the apostle John in his Revelation has a similar message for the Gentile church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:17). It’s a common problem and across the board, both then and now.
James ends his declamation against rich, unfaithful Christians by writing that they “have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you” (Jas. 5:6, English Standard Version). Are they murderers? To the extent that they have broken the sixth commandment by treating their neighbor—he who is poorer than they and in their employ—disdainfully, fraudulently, unmercifully, then, yes. James is also referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t he? The One who was righteous yet condemned and murdered, and who didn’t resist. How does this compare with their behavior? As Christians, it’s their idolatrous sin that sent Christ to the cross. That’s what James reminds them of. We do well to be reminded as well.
Tough Being a Hebrew Christian
As we move through the final parts of James’s letter, we see him quickly take up several, last themes. He’s moving into application based on the teaching he’d earlier laid out before these early Christians. Remember who they are and what they’re going through: they are mostly early Hebrew Christians, and as such they’re likely being discriminated against in their broader community.
That has implications for how they do business and earn their daily bread, but it also implies other tensions besides only the economic: they are a persecuted minority, treated disdainfully as cultic in a larger believing community, and they don’t like it. Can you blame them? Another New Testament book, the letter to the Hebrews, makes their difficulties and suffering clear. And so out of these difficulties and persecutions arises an attitude— grumbling, internecine warfare, a war of words, an energized concern or worry about money given their difficult situation.
When people sense themselves in trouble, they easily slide into looking for someone to blame. Isn’t that true? People look at their economic plight, civil unrest, and ask what to do next about Covid-19 when twenty-first-century science has told us it has all the answers. And what’s the general response to society’s apple cart getting knocked around? For some it’s panic, for others anger, and for still others hand-wringing worry. But for nearly all, it’s looking for someone or something to blame. What’s more, if we disagree about who to blame, we can end up turning on each other and angrily argue about that.
Sounds almost like a scene from hell, doesn’t it? Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. And for Christians, it shouldn’t, since they have the Spirit’s power to live above and beyond life’s daily worries even as they’re fully engaged in daily life. That’s the miracle of the Christian life, and the kind that gets the world’s attention. That’s why James turns his readers’ attention to the Christian virtue that should have been in charge at their control center all along: patience. What! Patience? How boring. You want me to be patient with what people are saying and doing? You want me to be patient when my world is falling apart? Sounds like a cop-out to me!
Patience
But Christian, Holy Spirit-influenced patience is no cop-out, and it certainly isn’t boring in its engagement with God, even as it’s a benefit to an angry, anarchic world. Patience is a central theme in the Bible. As a reminder, James points his readers to the prophets and to Job (5:10–11)—people who had all that seemed to matter most go against them, and yet who prevailed and were vindicated in their own day. James points to farming (5:7), something his readers, especially those concerned about their businesses, would have known and understood. “You seem so impatient about things and with each other, and even with the Lord,” he appears to say. “And yet, as farmers, you have an example in the natural world for the supernatural in your lives. Don’t you see it?”
The farmer doesn’t plant, water, and harvest his yield for market in a twenty-four-hour news cycle, does he? Of course not. He waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains (5:7). “You also be patient,” James writes. “Establish your hearts,” both for what’s coming and for what you’ll need until it comes (v. 8). In other words, go all in with the Lord for the long game. We consider those in biblical history who remained steadfast with God, no matter their circumstances, as blessed, he reminds them (v. 11). Don’t you want to be blessed? Then trust in the Lord with all your heart, not leaning on your own understanding, acknowledging him in everything, and he’ll make your paths straight (Prov. 3:5–6).
Patience in such circumstances doesn’t mean being miserable in some hangdog way either. According to the apostle Paul, Holy Spirit-influenced patience and endurance is something that strengthens the Christian and is accompanied by joy (Col. 1:11). That doesn’t sound boring. And it’s certainly no cop-out. James writes that there’s a goal just around the corner that should motivate his readers’ patience. He writes that “the coming of the Lord is at hand” (5:8). Is he referring to the second coming or to something else?
But before considering what he means here, we need to see that what he tells these early Christians also applies to us, particularly when we’re under pressure, as these early Christians were. That’s the time not to panic, grow angry or aggrieved, or worry, but to turn to the Lord, read and meditate on his word, pray, and, frankly, pick up and carry on—that’s right, carry on, not by “being strong,” as we may hear, but by being strengthened in and by him so we may remain strong in him— exercising faith, hope, and love. That’s the Christian’s testimony, and it goes a long way when others are living in panic, anger, and fear.
Gerry Wisz is a writer, college instructor, and semi-retired public relations professional who, with his family, is a member of Preakness Valley URC in Wayne, NJ.