Warning to the Rich

“You rich people, listen! Cry and be very sad because of the troubles that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes have been eaten by moths. Your gold and silver have rusted, and that rust will be a proof that you were wrong. It will eat your bodies like fire. You saved your treasure for the last days. The pay you did not give the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the workers have been heard by the Lord All Powerful. Your life on earth was full of rich living and pleasing yourselves with everything you wanted. You made yourselves fat, like an animal ready to be killed. You have judged guilty and then murdered innocent people, who were not against you.” (James 5:1-6, NCV).[Re-read James 1:9-11]

James paints a very unpleasant picture of the rich in this passage. His warning to the rich announces that judgment is coming and terrible troubles because of their lavish, selfish, and dishonest ways. All worldly possessions are precarious at best. Fine clothes will become moth-eaten. Hoarded silver and gold will rust (accumulations of money won’t last). Again, James sounds an echo of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 6:19-20: “Don’t store treasures for yourselves here on earth where moths and rust will destroy them and thieves can break in and steal the. But store your treasures in heaven where they cannot be destroyed by moths or rust and where thieves cannot break in and steal them. Your heart will be where your treasure is.” (NCV) James says wealth will “eat your bodies like fire.” Those who amass wealth will become obsessed with gaining more. The wealthy pay meager wages to workers, thus adding more to the rich person’s coffers while mistreating the poor. The plight of the poor is noted by the Lord, and while the rich seem to enjoy their wealth, they are unaware that there is a “pay day some day.” Even what they save up for the “last days,” will be of little use. Their days of rich living and pleasing themselves will meet a stern judgment. The tone of this passage is prophetic. A day of reckoning is coming and those who love riches will be judged. Wealth itself is not a sin, but when it becomes a god, pursued with an obsession that drives the wealthy to love and pursue riches without regard for others, then judgment is sure. Paul wrote a similar warning in I Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (NIV). James also wrote about poverty and riches in James 1:9-11.

Is there a way out of the dilemma of the love of money? Consider these guidelines: (1) We brought nothing into the world and will take nothing out. (2) God gives us the power to acquire money. Our pursuit of money should be honorable and honest. (3) Our money should be used to serve God and others, not hoarded selfishly and with the idea of more possessions, more pleasure. God, help us to follow these guidelines.

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Monday, October 25, 2010