Two ways to live

Bible Reading

James 5:1–12 NLT

1 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment. 4 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 5 You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you. 7 Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen. 8 You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9 Don’t grumble about each other, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. For look—the Judge is standing at the door! 10 For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy. 12 But most of all, my brothers and sisters, never take an oath, by heaven or earth or anything else. Just say a simple yes or no, so that you will not sin and be condemned.

Introduction

Back in the early 2000’s, this British couple won an astonishing 148 million pounds sterling, or about A$271 million from the Euromillions jackpot. It’s not hard to understand why they are smiling, is it?

And yet, 15 months later and the husband is engaged to a girl 16 years his junior, and the wife is living with a car salesman in Scotland. They are also estranged from the rest of their family. What happened?

Well, it wasn’t from a lack of good intentions. They celebrated their win with a holiday in a caravan park. But then they started throwing around money: they bought a huge mansion to live in. They gave siblings huge gifts, like $1.5m to start a business. They bought a nice apartment for their parents. But, quickly growing used to the luxury, relatives asked for more, and more. When they refused, they were cut off, ostracised! What use is a multi-millionaire but to fund my lavish lifestyle, seemed to be the attitude of their family. And for themselves, their luxurious lifestyle seemed to eat away at who they were, and soon they were living in different countries (England and Scotland), their marriage had dissolved, and they were filling their emptiness with new partners.

The scary thing is, this experience is not a rare one for lotto winners. It is not, of course, the norm, but money, even such an astonishing amount of it, is not a solution to many of the struggles we have in life.

Let’s turn now to see how James unpacks this dilemma.

James’s Contrast (Context)

We’re almost to the end of James’s letter to the “twelve tribes in the diaspora,” or the Jewish Christians scattered from Jerusalem. And with this last section before his conclusion, James hammers home his point. There are two ways to live: self-indulgent, worldly lives focused on pleasure in the present, or loving lives of patient endurance, trusting in Christ and the reality of his future kingdom.

James sets up this idea of two ways to go right at the beginning of his letter. In verses 6-8 of the first chapter he says,

James 1:6–8 NLT

6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

He insists that worldly wealth should not influence a Christian in chapter 2:

James 2:5 NLT

5 Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him?

And he insists that our desires must not control us.

James 4:1 NLT

1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?

James is hardly alone in these concerns. Much of what he says quotes directly from Jesus’ teaching. But Jesus spoke through the Old Testament, too, and he has always been concerned about these issues. If you go and read Leviticus 19 you’ll find where James gets his themes from; that passage ends with this verse:

Leviticus 19:18 NLT

18 “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

James calls that the “royal law.”

So let’s see how James unpacks these two, contrasting approaches to life.

The Problem with the Wealthy Landowners

In verses 1-6 of chapter 5, James tears shreds off selfish, wealthy, land owners.

James

Most shockingly, James says that the wealth that the land owners have hoarded will turn around and destroy them. Their corroded silver and gold will eat away their flesh like fire. Sounds ghastly! And the same rusty pile of metal will condemn them at the judgement.

These horrible people have engaged in wages theft (real wages theft, not merely a difficulty in trying to keep track of complex awards), and they’ll be found out when the judge of the whole world comes again!

The rich that James is portraying here are people who have exploited others for their own immediate pleasure. They have hoarded wealth that should have been shared out, not merely out of generosity, but out of justice! They have placed their own comfort before even the lives of those they deal with.

Today

So what might be the equivalent sort of person today? It seems clear that James is not speaking of Christians here, because he doesn’t even try to ask for repentance.

I don’t know about you, but that sort of person sounds a lot like many of the ultra-wealthy today. CEO’s who earn tens of millions and are worth billions, yet who are busy laying off thousands of people without taking the tiniest pay cut themselves. Sports starts who earn obscene amounts of money, and think the rules don’t apply to them, thus placing people in danger. Or, yes, even local business owners who are taking every dollar they can get for themselves, and doing nothing to protect or care for their employees.

Now, I don’t think any of us here are like that. But James places this warning to the rich here because their lifestyle is tempting to us. We may not be living it now, but why not? If we had the opportunity, would we skimp a bit on someone’s conditions in order to get a bit more for ourselves? Self-indulgence is a real temptation, and it’s a temptation that surrounds us as citizens of a wealthy nation.

In fact, in the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea, one of the great fourth century theologians, said in a sermon,

When someone strips a man of his clothes we call him a thief. And one who might clothe the naked and does not—should not he be given the same name? The bread in your board belongs to the hungry: the cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked, the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute. All you might help and do not—to all these you are doing wrong.

Robin G. Branch and Emerson B. Powery, “Wealth & Poverty,” Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical & Post-Biblical Antiquity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2014–2016), 388.

Basil might be going a bit far, but those are challenging words to consider, aren’t they?

The Christian Way

In verses 7-12 of chapter 5, James then presents his view of the Christian life.

James

He emphasises two characteristics of the Christian: patience and endurance. For those of us who have been working through the Letters to the Churches of Revelation on Tuesday nights, these will be familiar. Jesus praises the churches who possess these attributes, and encourages them to continue in them.

So, too, James encourages the scattered Christians, probably poor and struggling, to be patient as they wait for Christ’s return. He points to the way that farmers don’t give up hope in a harvest. Jesus’ return is just as certain as fruit ripening or grain growing.

Oh, and don’t forget, James adds, not to get grumpy with one another even when things seem to be going from bad to worse. Jesus is coming, and you will be rewarded, just like Job was.

Finally, says James, be straightforward: let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don’t be double-minded. Be authentic and sincere.

Today

Now while we may not be like the wealthy landowners who brutally oppressed their employees, neither are we really like the Christians James wrote to.

We’re somewhere in between, aren’t we? And so we must take a warning from the fate of the rich, as we already have. But we must also take encouragement from the exhortation to the Christians. We, too, need to be patient. We need to patiently resist the temptation of wealth. We need to patiently continue to place Christ before anything else in our lives.

We need to be people who are transparent. When someone asks us to do something or be something, we either say yes or no, and then we either do it or we don’t. Just as Job refused to compromise his understanding of right and wrong, and to admit to something he didn’t do, we too need to be confident about what is right and wrong, and unafraid of the consequences of standing up for what’s right and opposing what’s wrong.

On Tuesday night we looked at how the church in Philadelphia placed obedience to Jesus’ word above everything, even worldly influence. That’s what God is expecting of us. That’s what God’s gift of his Spirit is enabling us to do.

Even so, it’s hard, isn’t it? We are all wealthy compared to many people in the world. What do we do with that wealth? How do we avoid its corruption “burning our flesh like fire?”

Last words from Historic Christianity

At the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria, in a sermon called “Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?” offered this advice:

Riches, then, which benefit also our neighbours, are not to be thrown away. For they are possessions, inasmuch as they are possessed, and goods, inasmuch as they are useful and provided by God for the use of men; and they lie to our hand, and are put under our power, as material and instruments which are for good use to those who know the instrument.

In other words, we are stewards of the wealth that God has given to us. But we must never let the wealth that we steward take possession of us, through our desires. Clement warned:

But he who carries his riches in his soul, and instead of God’s Spirit bears in his heart gold or land, and is always acquiring possessions without end, and is perpetually on the outlook for more, bending downwards and fettered in the toils of the world, being earth and destined to depart to earth—whence can he be able to desire and to mind the kingdom of heaven—a man who carries not a heart, but land or metal, who must perforce be found in the midst of the objects he has chosen?

So let us hold lightly to the wealth God has given us. Let us ever be ready to share with those in genuine need. Let us fix our eyes, not on the next enjoyable purchase, but on the next opportunity to love Christ by loving one of his precious image bearers, another human being.

I am, of course, preaching to myself. I struggle with this every day. Temptation is but an online store away. Pleasure is delivered straight to our doors. But Jesus is closer still. His Spirit dwells within us, and he’s waiting for us to turn to him, to ask him to strengthen us. Let’s strive to bring Jesus with us whenever we break out the Credit Card or wallet. Let’s think on good deeds we can do rather than good things we can enjoy.

Let’s pray.