James 5:1-6

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

James 5:1-6, NIV

Sheesh! I sure am glad I’m not one of those rich people! James is definitely not holding back his swings! I’m not one of those rich people James is talking about, right?

When we compare ourselves to others, we often think we are not all that rich. Sure, we have a house, a car, a decent savings, we can go on a modest vacation every year, but that’s not rich, right? There’s people out there with mansions & sports cars & yachts, etc. I’m just middle class.

Whether or not you see yourself as middle class or maybe slightly above or under, chances are, you are rich compared to a majority of the world. According to the World Bank’s “Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report” for 2024, 44 percent of the world’s population live on less than $6.85 per day.¹ To put that into perspective, the average household income in Clackamas County, Oregon in 2024 was $118,000! So while we definitely may not feel as though we are rich when we look at the culture we are in, just the fact that we live in this community means we likely have far more access to resources those in other parts of the world do not.

I say all this not to condemn you or guilt you into giving more money to the poor, but rather to help us see ourselves in this text. When we read Scripture, especially the more challenging parts of it, we often look for a way to absolve ourselves of any responsibility to change. But we must learn to recognize that a life of discipleship to Jesus is a life of continual repentance. We don’t repent once and call it good, we must continue, on a daily basis, dying to ourselves and repenting of the ways we fall short.

In this passage, James is explicitly condemning the rich, especially for their unjust treatment of the poor. Throughout Scripture, there is a constant warning to those who are rich to not use their position in society to take advantage of or oppress those who are poor or vulnerable. This is such a constant theme throughout Scripture because all too often, those who are rich get rich off the back of the poor and vulnerable in society. The rich often get rich because of their hoarding of resources for their own use and control. 

While it looks different today, we still often find ourselves wealthy and advantaged at the expense of the poor, only now we have so far removed ourselves from the poor and vulnerable that we claim ignorance. 

Our culture of consumeristic materialism encourages us to buy more and more always looking for the cheapest and most convenient option. It tells us to value our comfort and convenience over anything else. This separates us from all the people involved with creating the items we consume and getting them to our door. We don’t even need to see the overworked delivery driver who brings it to our door, we just wait for the update on our phone telling us that it has arrived. Lecrae’s words capture a convicting truth of the nature of our wealth today:

Sponsor some kids just to show off what you did, and then jump in your luxury car
Drive past the hood and the poverty, get to the stadium just to watch people play ball

-Lecrae, CC4

While we may not see so many of the physically damaging effects of our materialism in our community, there are whole countries that are experiencing devastating effects from our wanton consumerism and wastefulness. On back end of our consumerism, Ghana has waterways and coastline so polluted by our used clothing that you cannot get in the water without climbing over mounds of old clothes and plastic.² Yet, most of the world that contributes to this pollution likely isn’t even aware of the contributions they have made.

Again, I don’t mean to condemn, I myself am a part of the problem just as we all are. I simply want us all to become more aware of how our actions affect those in our community and across the world. Regardless of how isolated we may think we are, we exist, as Martin Luther King Jr. says, “in an inescapable network of mutuality.”

So, when we see the rich being warned or convicted in Scripture, we must recognize ourselves in this place, not to be shamed, but to repent and continue to work for justice and equality. Ron Sider writes:

God wills justice for the poor, not occasional charity. And justice means things like the jubilee and the sabbatical remission of debts. It means economic structures that guarantee all people access to the productive resources needed to earn a decent living. Prosperity without that kind of biblical concern for justice unambiguously signifies disobedience.³

Let us, in our prosperity, seek justice and equality so that we can create a world where everyone has the chance to thrive and flourish as the person God has created them to be. And let us take the warnings against the rich of Scripture to heart, and repent for the ways we are complicit in an unjust system of exploitation.

¹ “Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024: Pathways Out of the Polycrisis,” World Bank, 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-prosperity-and-planet

² Sara Johnson, “‘It’s like a death pit’: how Ghana became fast fashion’s dumping ground,” The Guardian, June 5, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/05/yvette-yaa-konadu-tetteh-how-ghana-became-fast-fashions-dumping-ground

³ Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015), 109.