James Chapter Five, The Cost of Wealth

 

James 5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! [2] Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. [3] Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.

 

It is fairly typical to envy the rich in this or any era. They have “it,” and we, the unwashed masses, want “it.” But what is “it?” Wealth, of course, and the power and influence that comes with it. Solomon, in his epic search for existential meaning, wrote, “A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes merry; but money answers everything,” Ecclesiastes 10:19. The purpose of a banquet is to amuse oneself, the purpose of wine, to cheer the spirit. But money answers to every pleasure desired. It is why wealth is dangerous. Money of itself is not evil; it is the love of money. Rather, it is the lust for what money can provide. Money is like a key that gets us into a lavish room, filled to brimming with every carnal pleasure our minds can perceive. And with reckless abandon, many of us run straight into that shipwrecked way of thinking. “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition,” 1 Timothy 6:9.

Since God is no respecter of persons He is hardly moved by how much money we heap up. Rather the riches of the wealthy are corrupted and corroded. Their garments are moth eaten. These terms all carry the connotation of time working its power over the abundant excess the rich withhold. Corroded coin and moth-eaten clothing infer items simply languishing in some closet or drawer. It is amassed simply to be amassed. There is no logic behind it. This generation especially has entered into a peculiar “hobby” known as hoarding. Not just the wealthy now but also the average Joe holds onto every material item “just in case.” Wealth breeds materialism, which in turn provokes an obsession for acquisition without purpose. Christians are to use the things of this world without misusing them. Money is among them. We use what we need to comfortably provide for family and not allow money itself to become our god.

 

“Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy,” 1 Timothy 6:17. Again, being rich itself is not the issue. Being rich isn’t sinful. What we do when we have attained wealth is what will define our view of it. Paul contrasts “uncertain riches” with the “living God” who alone can without fail provide “all things to enjoy.” Money can, and does, fail. Just look at the economy since the pandemic began and the businesses and individuals who never thought such hardship would strike them. What Solomon learned of wealth was that if you pursue hedonism, money is a wonderful friend. In this case, “the more the merrier” might be an apropos saying when it comes to money. But money is not personable, unlike the living God. When Solomon’s riotous and grandiose pursuit of meaning came to a close he shares with us his findings, which are simple and poignant: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all, for God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil,” Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14. The rich have, as it were, piled up a material witness that will in the end become a hostile witness when called to God’s court.

 

James 5:4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. [5] You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. [6] You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

 

We have watched James caution us about the perverse influence wealth brings to our mindset in verses 1:10, 11 and 2:1-7. As the apostle nears the end of his inspired message he delves into more detail as to what is specifically wrong with the pursuit and acquisition of money. In chapter one James writes that people who focus on their monetary pursuits to the exclusion of their faith will simply wither and fade like grass. Chapter two demonstrates the envy and favoritism wealth kindles in the hearts of those who do not possess it, even if they are Christians. So money’s influence is fleeting and perverts right thinking. Now we see the ramifications for those who commit themselves to its power.

 

Perhaps this is pictured most clearly in the historical narrative of Lazarus and the rich man. “There was a certain rich man who clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores,” Luke 16:19-21.

 

Purple was the color of majesty in that time. Wearing it was a sure sign of opulence, see Mark 15:17. While the rich man apparently ate ridiculously lavish meals, Lazarus sat in the man’s gate, looking for the smallest handout. While there does seem to be an indication that the rich man and Lazarus knew one another (see Luke 16:24), or he at least learned the name of the beggar haunting his gate, he spared him nothing. When the rich man begs Abraham for relief from the spiritual torment he’s enduring, Abraham replies, “Son, remember in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented,” Luke 16:25. Lazarus’ faith saved him. Even in his piteous state he trusted in Yahweh, Israel’s covenant God for deliverance and when he perished the angels sped him to his rest. The rich man, trusting in his uncertain riches, or more likely blinded and insulated by them, died faithless. His wealth betrayed him; his faith in its power could not extend beyond the grave and now all he could do was regret his choice. “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath,” Zephaniah 1:18.

 

Verse 6 is the flipside of James 2:6, 7. There he posed the rhetorical question, whether or not the rich oppress those they deem beneath them and blaspheme the Christian confession. Here he directly accuses the rich of betraying their conscience in their pursuit of money’s power. The rich man incidentally murdered Lazarus by not caring enough to feed him when it was painfully clear such an act of kindness would have cost him nothing. More than that, being a Jew, the rich man was commanded in the Mosaic Law to practice charity to the downtrodden. Leviticus 25:35-38. Christians have our commission from our Lord: namely to love our neighbor like we love ourselves. True love does no harm to another. Rich or poor, simply turning a blind eye falls into the sin of inaction or apathy, James 4:17. To the rich I commend generosity. Not to give what you do not have, but to share in the excess of what you do. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home,” Luke 16:9.