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James 5:1–6 (ESV)
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
Have you ever watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory staring Gene Wilder? It’s a great movie and there is one scene that I just love. In this scene a girl named Veruca Salt (played by Julie Dawn Cole), sings a song titled I Want it Now.
In the song, she is expressing her desire to get whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, and she wants everything…, right now!
At the end of the song she sings, “Don’t care how, I want it now”.
That’s the attitude of the “rich” which James is describing in this passage. The “rich” are the landowning cast in that cultural context, whose overriding fault is their desire for possessions. They horde their possessions and live a life of self-interest and irresponsible luxury, which has come about by their abuse of the poor and suffering. As David Nystrom stated in his commentary on this passage, the rich are living lives of “gross indulgence” at the expense of others.
James notes that not only have the cries of the harvesters reached the ears of the Lord of hosts, but so have the cries of the wages of the laborers; even the wages are crying out to the Lord.
Don’t miss the title that James gives to God. James calls God, “the Lord of hosts”. There are only two times that this title appears in the New Testament (Romans 9:29 is the other), and the image it calls to mind is that of God going to war, fighting to defend the poor against the wealthy.
All of this serves as a harsh warning for these self-indulgent rich to change the course of their lives. A call to repentance is not explicitly stated by James but it’s not unreasonable to assume that repentance is James’ goal as throughout the letter James has repeatedly called believers to have their lives reflect the presence of Christ within them, not just in belief, but also in practice.
This passage is hard to read, but we must not shy away from it or any other passage like it. We need to let this passage and others do their good work within us and challenge us to take stock of how we are living.
Is our faith in Christ only a matter of dispassionate intellectual assent? Or does our faith go to the bone, challenging, changing, and transforming every aspect of our lives to the point that we reflect the presence of the Lord in every way, not just regarding how we understand and use our wealth and possessions, but also in our attitudes, behaviors, and relationships.
God bless you, and know that you are constantly in my prayers.
Scott
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