Money: Meet Mouth
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Now the believer of humble means should take pride in his high position.But the rich person’s pride should be in his humiliation, because he will pass away like a wildflower in the meadow.For the sun rises with its heat and dries up the meadow; the petal of the flower falls off and its beauty is lost forever. So also the rich person in the midst of his pursuits will wither away.
All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change.By his sovereign plan he gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
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My brothers and sisters, do not show prejudice if you possess faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.For if someone comes into your assembly wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor person enters in filthy clothes, do you pay attention to the one who is finely dressed and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and to the poor person, “You stand over there,” or “Sit on the floor”?If so, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor! Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme the good name of the one you belong to?
James 17-18
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we will be judged more strictly.For we all stumble in many ways. If someone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect individual, able to control the entire body as well. And if we put bits into the mouths of horses to get them to obey us, then we guide their entire bodies.Look at ships too: Though they are so large and driven by harsh winds, they are steered by a tiny rudder wherever the pilot’s inclination directs. So too the tongue is a small part of the body, yet it has great pretensions. Think how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze. And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence—and is set on fire by hell.
For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature is subdued and has been subdued by humankind.
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James
Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are coming on you. Your riches have rotted and your clothing has become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have hoarded treasure!Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.You have condemned and murdered the righteous person, although he does not resist you.
Have you ever noticed how wealth can earn people a lot of privileges? Of course you have when it comes to the super rich. We who are in the middle and working classes don’t have to look too closely at the billionaires of this world to see how their lives are different. But looking at the disparity between Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the rest of us doesn’t really help show the more subtle differences that creep in as folks slowly climb the income ladder. Differences which are made all the more subtle by the fact that we like to hide them.
“Music and the arts in schools correspond to success in life.” True, but music and the arts are best supported in schools that are well-funded, usually thanks to property taxes from high value homes.
“It’s best to eat a diet consisting of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, and grass fed meat, and no gluten or GMOs.” Literally none of these things are scientifically proven to be better for you, but they definitely have a higher price tag, and their visible differences make it easy to judge people.
“I drive a hybrid because it’s better for the environment.” That’s true. Unfortunately, there aren’t many used hybrids in the $1,000-2,000 price range a lot of broke folks have to shop at.
“Mikey only makes minimum wage at McDonald’s, which is a nice way for him to get some experience and earn some pocket money after school.” Meanwhile, Mikey’s co-worker is a single mother of 3 who works at two different McDonald’s. She also earns minimum wage.
It doesn’t stop there, of course. We also privilege marginally higher incomes when it comes to access to information, the cost of utilities and financial services and, perhaps most telling of all, employment. No joke, one of the strongest indicators of whether you will get interviewed for a job with a given salary is how close it is to your current salary.
With so many ways to quickly and easily guess as to how high another person’s income likely is, it probably comes as no surprise that we have built an impressively powerful bias against the poor, which permeates almost our entire lives. Everything from urban planning, to the location of grocery stores, to the legal system, to housing, to body language itself is subconsciously - and sometimes, flat out consciously - influenced by others’ perceived wealth.
As James shows us, this is nothing new. Look at the two stories he offers for comparison. The second one on its own doesn’t sound so bad. A poor man comes in to church, and you say “you’ll have to stand over there” or “here’s a spot on the floor for you.” They probably came in late, and church was full, so there were no seats to be had, right?
But this comes hot on the heels of the first story. The one about the person who comes to church wearing gold rings, and is escorted to “a good place.” If the room was already crowded, chances are all of the good places were already taken, requiring someone to move.
And this is where that subtle privilege comes in. Because even if those two things happen within minutes of each other, we will justify both of them without a passing thought. We’ll even make ourselves sound good in both stories. The first one will go “Well, this woman came in, and there weren’t any seats, so Samantha here, well, she just gave up her seat. Wasn’t that nice of her? You’re so nice, Samantha. Oh? Did she seem well off? I hardly noticed” While the second one is told “Yeah, it’s too bad he came in too late to get a seat, but we don’t turn anyone away here, do we? No, we don’t. So I found him a spot in the back because I wanted to make sure he at least felt welcome. Maybe next time he’ll get here early enough to find a place to sit. Oh, and maybe someone can help him find some nicer clothes if he comes back. Wouldn’t that be nice of us?”
It’s not nice. It’s prejudice, and it’s a part of a system of prejudice that should be a source of shame. With every individual scenario perfectly justified, and every individual unable to change anything on their own, the system is allowed to persist. We don’t know how to fix it. In many cases we don’t even know it’s broken. So we just keep going.
Can we respond to James’s call to action? When will the rich among us weep and cry over their luxury? When will the poor receive the favor that is due them? When will we, together as one, see that what one of us has to spare, another needs, and so go about setting the world to rights once more?