Wealth was often seen as a mark of blessing in the ancient near east. Even today, we can confuse success with God’s favour.
A look at the text (read James 5:1-6)
The invite to the rich is repeated, they are summoned to come but not to celebrate and receive, rather to weep and mourn as their true destiny is revealed to them (5:1). All of their achievements and prosperity have been assessed and found lacking. We are given a glimpse of the future and although their riches and possessions look beautiful and glamorous now, they will not last but rot away as precious metals corrode and cloth perishes, eaten by moths. In fact, when it comes to judgement day, the condition of their riches and possessions will act as evidence against the rich, showing up the futility of their priorities.[1] Not only does the corrosion act as witness but also it is personified as bringing judgement, like a consuming fire that burns flesh, so just as their possessions perish, so too do the rich because it turns out that there was nothing more to then except their possessions (5:2-3a). They have been storing up treasure on earth, not in heaven as Christ instructed. Notice too that this shows a lack of awareness regarding timing and urgency. They have been doing this “in the last days” (5:3b).
Not only have their priorities been wrong but their methods too. They have become rich through injustice and oppression. They’ve fraudulently failed to pay their workers a fair wage, creaming off what they owed to increase their profits. God has heard the cry of their labourers, the farm workers who have been exploited (5:4). The rich have grown fat through exploitation. There is a double edged irony to this. If it is their own hearts that have been fattened, then they should remember that the calf is fattened up for slaughter, another pointer to the way in which they have condemned themselves (5:5). Not only have they oppressed others through economic exploitation but they have used their power to act unjustly by bringing false accusations and condemnation against the righteous.
Digging a little deeper
Who are these rich people? Can they truly be believers if they stand so roundly condemned? Yet, if they were not part of God’s people, then why would James be addressing them in his letter? McKnight suggests that these are in fact outsiders to the church.
“There is nothing in this passage that indicates that the ‘rich people’ are messianists … The tendency to read letters written by Christians as addressing only Christians is an unnecessary entailment of how Christians have learned to read the Bible canonically and for applications in life. If James picked a model for his letter, it was not Paul, instead his letter, especially 4:13-5:6, sounds more like a prophetic remonstrance with a variety of groups than like a pastoral letter to pious Christians huddled into a corner waiting for the coming of the Lord.”[2]
Whilst on one level, this argument sounds plausible and attractive, I’m not convinced. Of course, James does not use Paul as a model for his letter, indeed if his epistle came early, we may as much be looking for evidence that Paul models his letter writing on James but of course each will bring his own style for his own context. However, as I’ve argued previously, the differences between Paul and James have been overstated and the similarities under recognised.
Furthermore, we have no reason to assume that anyone outside of the scattered community of believers would have reason to pay attention to James. They are unlikely to be bothered about an apostate sect leader and relative of a failed rebel. Nor does James have particular reason to deliver a message to them. Whilst considering the way that we’ve been conditioned to read Scripture, it is worth remembering that despite such conditioning on our part, letters and book writing were not the primary medium for prophetic utterances which were normally delivered in oral form first.
Those likely to be reading James’ letter would be fellow believers and if James’ words here were directed to those outside of the church, then it begins to feel like he is preaching to the gallery with contented believers nodding their agreement.
Crucially though, James has made it explicitly clear in 1:1 and 2:1 that he is addressing those who at least profess the name of Jesus. He is speaking to those who claim to be believers. The very crux of the matter though is whether or not that faith is genuine. McKnight’s insistence that the audience sound nothing like “pious Christians” seemingly ignores the evidence both of our contemporary experience and of the other New Testament speakers and writers both that the church included those who were struggling, weak backsliders and those who were not truly saved at all. It is impossible to hear the parables of Jesus, read Paul’s instructions on church discipline or study the warnings of Hebrews 6 and miss this.[3]
It seems to me that the most obvious and straight forward solution is the most likely. James has made it clear throughout his letter that it is possible to give an appearance of faith, to be present with believers, to make the same profession and confession with your lips whilst being far away from God in your heart. The wealthier members of the congregations James writes to have demonstrated by their actions that they haven’t got true, life changing faith, they are still captivated by the idolatry of their riches.
A look at ourselves
Perhaps, James’ words here leave us a little bit uncomfortable. We cannot take them literally can we? We wouldn’t want to end up sounding more like socialist fire brands than preachers and pastors. So, it is tempting to quickly generalise the teaching here and draw out principles concerning faith, deeds and how we relate to each other.
Yet, I think we would do well to recognise that in every age and our own, every culture and our own, wealth and greed are temptations with a particular hold. Like the tic that burrows itself into your skin and won’t be dislodged allowing a crippling infection to get into your bloodstream, so too the love of money tends to get its teeth into us. Whilst perhaps few of us would consider ourselves to be truly wealthy and whilst perhaps we would never seek to directly exploit or defraud, to what extend do we benefit from unjust and unfair trading? How seriously do we take concerns about ethical business practices and the source of cheap goods? Does our silence and acceptance make us complicit?
Whilst there are wider implications and applications arising from the principles involved here, perhaps we would do well to start with this specific, concrete example and widen our application from there.
[1] “He writes in the perfect tense, the most heavily marked tense, here perhaps used in a prophetic sense. In James mind, it is a certainty that these riches will go bad, and so he speaks of it as having already occurred. Blomberg & Kamell, James, 220.
[2] McKnight, The Letter of James, 383.
[3] Perhaps then there may be a warning to preachers and commentators here about the danger of seeking to be clever, edgy and provocative whilst missing the obvious staring directly at us.
Faithroots 