James 5:1-9
0 Amens
James 5:1-9
Video- $8 Hot Dog
Welcome- Katie Alpert
Prayer and Meditation-Today is Father’s Day- another one of those holidays that feels great to some, feels absolutely terrible to others and ends up being a mixed bag for most of us. I was raised by grandparents, so for most of my life Father’s day was about my grandfather. One memory I have in particular was of my grandfather giving me money to buy presents for others- Christmas, birthdays, whatever… And I remember one Christmas in particular that everyone got really crappy presents because I figured out that, hey, if I didn’t spend this whole wad on them, that leaves some for me, hey hey.
See, you see it right away, but It took me a long time to realize how selfish and wrong it was to take what someone who fed me, clothed me, gave me everything I owned at the time, to take what they had given me specifically for someone else and use it on myself.
I know for some it’s easy to think of God as Father, harder for others, but for the next couple of moments, wherever you are on that continuum, try to think about all the things that God has given you, all he’s provided you with. Maybe there are some things you are still waiting for, but for the moment set those aside… What has he given you? Are there pieces or portions of all of that which He may have given you so that you could do something good for others?
Body Prayer-Â closed hands moving to open hands
Psalm 41:1-3
Songs-All of Me, God of Justice, Give Us Clean Hands
So this morning we come to another tough passage in James- not so much tough
to understand- tough to hear. What have been some pieces of James that have stuck out to you so far? Any pieces particularly impactful for you?
Read James 5:1-6
Whoa. I totally should have made Dustin do this week instead of last week.
It might be good to go back a bit and start where we left off last week:
At the end of chapter 4, James begins to speak to merchants, those who traveled here and there buying and selling this and that, and he certainly had no critique of them for doing their business. It was the how rather than the what. How were they doing what they were doing? And so what does James counsel them to do?
And then he makes this statement which serves as a bridge of sorts between last week and this: James 4:17
James moves from talking directly to his audience- those displaced Christians who had to leave their home because of the persecution that started happening in the mid-to-late 40’s AD, and now he begins some editorial speaking, not necessarily to his audience, but to those who were now making life harder for those to whom he was writing. He says:
VS 1
It’s hard to describe this passage as anything but a fairly seething attack. James opens up with both barrels. So here’s a little story about this passage- Upton Sinclair, the author and social reformer once read a paraphrase of this passage to a group of pastors, but told them it had been written by a female anarchist named Emma Goldman. They were all so infuriated that they began to shout that she should be deported.
This is hard, subversive stuff- and that combination is exactly what makes, or should make, Christianity somewhat dangerous. Being swayed by compassion, not currency. Who is James talking to here?Â
A couple of thoughts… He had said back in chapter
2:6
James conceives of his audience as being somewhere in the middle, which it probably was- something of a bell curve with some very poor Christians like Onesimus the slave and some very rich Christians like Lydia. But most, somewhere in the middle. And those in the middle were being not only persecuted for their faith socially, but even legally, dragged into court.
So, even though he uses direct address, it may be that he’s more speaking about some people rather than speaking directly to them. Of course, the real question:
Is James talking to me, to us?
It depends. He addresses “you rich” and goes on to give a very detailed picture of “which rich” he was speaking to. Let’s read this and I’ll leave it completely up to you to decide if James is speaking to you. He says:
VS 5:2-3
He says “this treasure you have accumulated.” Does anyone have a different translation than “accumulated”? Yes- I think “hoarded” captures it a bit better.
These people were not just getting more stuff, they were “hoarding it.”
It says “your wealth is rotting away,” literally “decaying.” What kind of wealth would people who have owned lands that were farmed by others have had that could rot? Food! James is excoriating these people not because they have food, but because they have food, hoarded in barns, going to waste. Not sold, not given, but kept- just in case. He says “Your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags.”
Do you know why the poor never had to worry about moths getting their clothes? Because in all likelihood, they would have had one or two sets of clothes at the most. They were either wearing them or washing them. Only rich people had enough clothes to hang them in closets and allow them to become moth eaten. James is nailing these guys, not for having nice clothes, but for rather than giving away what they hadn’t worn in years to those who had little or nothing to wear, allowing those clothes to rot.
He says your gold and silver has become worthless- literally “corroded” and though gold and silver don’t literally corrode or rust, they tarnish, they become black after awhile. These people had so much gold and silver sitting around, there wasn’t even time to polish it all. In other words, you don’t use it, it just sits there. And the NIV renders the next line this way: “Their corrosion will testify against you” He says “this treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment.”
Here’s the metaphorical picture James gives us- all of us standing on the day of Judgment with something beside us- maybe it’s a number of children who grew up being supported by us through an organization like Compassion, maybe it’s all the friends we helped out financially when they were in need, maybe it’s a whole village in Haiti that had clean water because we helped make that happen. Maybe it’s a man who would have frozen to death had he not gotten the warm winter coat from our closet that we hadn’t worn in years, or it’s the woman in crisis who was helped by Arima House, because we took all the old stuff we had around our house that we never used and sold it, brought the money and did something good with it.
Or maybe, James suggests, what will be next to us is a pile of rotting food, moth- eaten clothes, tarnished silver… wasted opportunities to help others, wealth gone rotten… speaking, testifying to a life of selfish indulgence.
Do you get the picture? I do. And if I have to be perfectly honest, it terrifies me, because I think in some ways, James is talking to me. He says :
VS 4
The Old Testament was clear- pay your workers at the end of the day. Don’t make them wait until even the next morning for their wages- they may have to buy food on the way home to feed their children. And James says, the wages they were holding back would cry out against them and the cries of those who worked in their fields have reached the ears of “the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”- the King James used to say “The Lord of Hosts.” The picture is God, gearing up for battle- that is, taking the side of the poor and oppressed against those oppressing them.
I’m not going to get too far into the issue of fair trade and what not. But I will say this: our desire to get things more and more and more cheaply may not always be the best thing. We want to live simply, yes, but at times, it might be the better thing to buy the slightly more expensive thing that you know was produced by people who were paid a living wage rather than the cheaper thing produced by those being paid pennies. I understand (at least I think I do) the economics- most people in the third world are glad to have any jobs at all- I get that. But that doesn’t stop us from demanding as good American consumers that the companies we buy from pay their workers more, provide education and health benefits, take good care of their workers… if we’re willing to pay for it.
I’m not anti-capitalist or even anti-enjoyment of wealth. As I look across the whole scope of Scripture- here’s what I see. Be responsible and prepare for the future- but prepare both physically, financially and spiritually. Understand that God gives you what He gives you to enjoy. That’s what the book of Ecclesiastes says. But not exclusively for your enjoyment. He also gives you what he gives you in order for you to learn how to give to others, to feed others, to clothe others. Don’t feel like the “Christian” thing to do is NEVER to buy a new coat. Sometimes the Christian thing to do is to clean out your closet, buy a new coat that’s made in a socially responsible way, and make sure all your old coats get to people who really need them, before they simply rot away and become worthless.
Is it a LOT of work to try to balance simple, inexpensive living with socially responsible spending? YOU BET. But what’s the controlling statement here? “It is a sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” And the alternative?
VS 5-6
Jesus told the story of a rich man and a man named Lazarus, a beggar.
Someone different read each verse- Luke 16:19-31
A couple things are interesting to me: ONE- the rich man was condemned not for what he did, not for enjoying the wealth God had given him, but for failing to do anything with it. Failing to help the man right in front of his eyes.
And second, someone did rise from the dead, and the people Jesus was speaking to, and James as well, didn’t believe what He had to say.
I don’t know if James is talking to you or to me- probably not. I really think that if this was the way you wanted to live, the LAST place you’d be was here this morning. But….
There’s some good warning for us here, because maybe we’re all there to one extent or another, in one area or another. If we think about it, there’s probably something here for us to chew on…
If the most important things in your life are what you wear, your money, your possessions and your comfort, then yes, James is talking to you. But even if that’s not the case, maybe a word about hoarding is enough to get us to think about the coats in our closets and the excess we own that would be better used by others than sitting on our shelves. Hoarding and self-indulgence is what James warns us of. And here’s what he encourages us towards:
VS 7
I think James is writing to the ones who were working the fields- not the poorest of the poor who had to beg, or the rich who owned the land, but those in the middle who had jobs working for others- sometimes for less than they should have been paid, sometimes in conditions less than-optimum, and he tells them: Be patient. God is not an absentee landlord, He sees, He knows, He’s coming. His timing may not make sense to you, but…
When I read this, I know this encouragement towards patience is something a lot of you need to hear as well- Many of you look around the world at what’s happening in different places and you begin to lose hope. Where is God in Africa, where is God in South America, in the slums of India, in all the injustice we see around us? Where is God in the suffering right in front of me. Where is God in my pain? James says- be patient. The justice you long for and work for is exactly what God is going to bring to this world. Why then, instead of NOW? I don’t know… but I do know that every good thing you do, every child you feed, every family you provide water for in Haiti, is like a seed being planted, a small plant being put in the ground. And though we’re still waiting for the spring or fall rains, it’s coming. It’s sure. It will happen. All the good you want to see in the world will happen and all the evil you hate will be judged- genocide, abuse, every evil large or small… just …
VS 8
This is the picture that God draws for His people of that time when His Christ, His anointed one, our Savior will come back and set the world right: Like the fall rains after a long, hot summer, bringing life and restoration to places parched and dry, bringing renewal, or as the Old Testament put it, bringing justice rolling down like water and righteousness like a mighty river.Â
There is a downward pull to the Gospel- it’s the same downward pull that brought Jesus to a dirty, dusty, barren place like Nazareth, and it’s the same downward pull that should move us into action. God gives us what he gives us for a reason. Don’t feel guilty about having a good job and earning good money. Feel guilty if you fail to use it wisely. Those who truly get the Gospel feel it’s downward pull and find that being like Jesus isn’t just about morality- though that’s part, or ethics, though that’s part. It’s not just about being nice and playing by the rules, or about getting my spiritual needs met. It’s about participating in God’s redemptive plan in the world- living in such a way that we see more and more people in relationship with Jesus and more and more people experiencing the justice and peace in whatever way possible, even limited or temporary that ultimately will come when Jesus Himself returns.
So- Pray, ask God- God, I feel like I do not have a ton of resources and time-though I probably have more than I know-Â how do I maximize? Where do I give? What have you given me that you hope I will use for others? What do I do- and then listen. The same is true for our community- what we put into the offering box and the organizations and individuals we help and support.
When it comes down to it, James is telling us to live in such a way so that the idea Christ coming to set up His Kingdom fills you with anticipation, not dread.
Vs 9
Someday we will all be Judged. Live as one to whom James would say “take courage!” not “look out!”
Johnny cash video
Reading- Psalm 146
Song- Surrender/Be Thou My Vision
Wrap up- Bob
Read MoreVideo- $8 Hot Dog
Welcome- Katie Alpert
Prayer and Meditation-Today is Father’s Day- another one of those holidays that feels great to some, feels absolutely terrible to others and ends up being a mixed bag for most of us. I was raised by grandparents, so for most of my life Father’s day was about my grandfather. One memory I have in particular was of my grandfather giving me money to buy presents for others- Christmas, birthdays, whatever… And I remember one Christmas in particular that everyone got really crappy presents because I figured out that, hey, if I didn’t spend this whole wad on them, that leaves some for me, hey hey.
See, you see it right away, but It took me a long time to realize how selfish and wrong it was to take what someone who fed me, clothed me, gave me everything I owned at the time, to take what they had given me specifically for someone else and use it on myself.
I know for some it’s easy to think of God as Father, harder for others, but for the next couple of moments, wherever you are on that continuum, try to think about all the things that God has given you, all he’s provided you with. Maybe there are some things you are still waiting for, but for the moment set those aside… What has he given you? Are there pieces or portions of all of that which He may have given you so that you could do something good for others?
Body Prayer-Â closed hands moving to open hands
Psalm 41:1-3
Songs-All of Me, God of Justice, Give Us Clean Hands
So this morning we come to another tough passage in James- not so much tough
to understand- tough to hear. What have been some pieces of James that have stuck out to you so far? Any pieces particularly impactful for you?
Read James 5:1-6
Whoa. I totally should have made Dustin do this week instead of last week.
It might be good to go back a bit and start where we left off last week:
At the end of chapter 4, James begins to speak to merchants, those who traveled here and there buying and selling this and that, and he certainly had no critique of them for doing their business. It was the how rather than the what. How were they doing what they were doing? And so what does James counsel them to do?
And then he makes this statement which serves as a bridge of sorts between last week and this: James 4:17
James moves from talking directly to his audience- those displaced Christians who had to leave their home because of the persecution that started happening in the mid-to-late 40’s AD, and now he begins some editorial speaking, not necessarily to his audience, but to those who were now making life harder for those to whom he was writing. He says:
VS 1
It’s hard to describe this passage as anything but a fairly seething attack. James opens up with both barrels. So here’s a little story about this passage- Upton Sinclair, the author and social reformer once read a paraphrase of this passage to a group of pastors, but told them it had been written by a female anarchist named Emma Goldman. They were all so infuriated that they began to shout that she should be deported.
This is hard, subversive stuff- and that combination is exactly what makes, or should make, Christianity somewhat dangerous. Being swayed by compassion, not currency. Who is James talking to here?Â
A couple of thoughts… He had said back in chapter
2:6
James conceives of his audience as being somewhere in the middle, which it probably was- something of a bell curve with some very poor Christians like Onesimus the slave and some very rich Christians like Lydia. But most, somewhere in the middle. And those in the middle were being not only persecuted for their faith socially, but even legally, dragged into court.
So, even though he uses direct address, it may be that he’s more speaking about some people rather than speaking directly to them. Of course, the real question:
Is James talking to me, to us?
It depends. He addresses “you rich” and goes on to give a very detailed picture of “which rich” he was speaking to. Let’s read this and I’ll leave it completely up to you to decide if James is speaking to you. He says:
VS 5:2-3
He says “this treasure you have accumulated.” Does anyone have a different translation than “accumulated”? Yes- I think “hoarded” captures it a bit better.
These people were not just getting more stuff, they were “hoarding it.”
It says “your wealth is rotting away,” literally “decaying.” What kind of wealth would people who have owned lands that were farmed by others have had that could rot? Food! James is excoriating these people not because they have food, but because they have food, hoarded in barns, going to waste. Not sold, not given, but kept- just in case. He says “Your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags.”
Do you know why the poor never had to worry about moths getting their clothes? Because in all likelihood, they would have had one or two sets of clothes at the most. They were either wearing them or washing them. Only rich people had enough clothes to hang them in closets and allow them to become moth eaten. James is nailing these guys, not for having nice clothes, but for rather than giving away what they hadn’t worn in years to those who had little or nothing to wear, allowing those clothes to rot.
He says your gold and silver has become worthless- literally “corroded” and though gold and silver don’t literally corrode or rust, they tarnish, they become black after awhile. These people had so much gold and silver sitting around, there wasn’t even time to polish it all. In other words, you don’t use it, it just sits there. And the NIV renders the next line this way: “Their corrosion will testify against you” He says “this treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment.”
Here’s the metaphorical picture James gives us- all of us standing on the day of Judgment with something beside us- maybe it’s a number of children who grew up being supported by us through an organization like Compassion, maybe it’s all the friends we helped out financially when they were in need, maybe it’s a whole village in Haiti that had clean water because we helped make that happen. Maybe it’s a man who would have frozen to death had he not gotten the warm winter coat from our closet that we hadn’t worn in years, or it’s the woman in crisis who was helped by Arima House, because we took all the old stuff we had around our house that we never used and sold it, brought the money and did something good with it.
Or maybe, James suggests, what will be next to us is a pile of rotting food, moth- eaten clothes, tarnished silver… wasted opportunities to help others, wealth gone rotten… speaking, testifying to a life of selfish indulgence.
Do you get the picture? I do. And if I have to be perfectly honest, it terrifies me, because I think in some ways, James is talking to me. He says :
VS 4
The Old Testament was clear- pay your workers at the end of the day. Don’t make them wait until even the next morning for their wages- they may have to buy food on the way home to feed their children. And James says, the wages they were holding back would cry out against them and the cries of those who worked in their fields have reached the ears of “the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”- the King James used to say “The Lord of Hosts.” The picture is God, gearing up for battle- that is, taking the side of the poor and oppressed against those oppressing them.
I’m not going to get too far into the issue of fair trade and what not. But I will say this: our desire to get things more and more and more cheaply may not always be the best thing. We want to live simply, yes, but at times, it might be the better thing to buy the slightly more expensive thing that you know was produced by people who were paid a living wage rather than the cheaper thing produced by those being paid pennies. I understand (at least I think I do) the economics- most people in the third world are glad to have any jobs at all- I get that. But that doesn’t stop us from demanding as good American consumers that the companies we buy from pay their workers more, provide education and health benefits, take good care of their workers… if we’re willing to pay for it.
I’m not anti-capitalist or even anti-enjoyment of wealth. As I look across the whole scope of Scripture- here’s what I see. Be responsible and prepare for the future- but prepare both physically, financially and spiritually. Understand that God gives you what He gives you to enjoy. That’s what the book of Ecclesiastes says. But not exclusively for your enjoyment. He also gives you what he gives you in order for you to learn how to give to others, to feed others, to clothe others. Don’t feel like the “Christian” thing to do is NEVER to buy a new coat. Sometimes the Christian thing to do is to clean out your closet, buy a new coat that’s made in a socially responsible way, and make sure all your old coats get to people who really need them, before they simply rot away and become worthless.
Is it a LOT of work to try to balance simple, inexpensive living with socially responsible spending? YOU BET. But what’s the controlling statement here? “It is a sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” And the alternative?
VS 5-6
Jesus told the story of a rich man and a man named Lazarus, a beggar.
Someone different read each verse- Luke 16:19-31
A couple things are interesting to me: ONE- the rich man was condemned not for what he did, not for enjoying the wealth God had given him, but for failing to do anything with it. Failing to help the man right in front of his eyes.
And second, someone did rise from the dead, and the people Jesus was speaking to, and James as well, didn’t believe what He had to say.
I don’t know if James is talking to you or to me- probably not. I really think that if this was the way you wanted to live, the LAST place you’d be was here this morning. But….
There’s some good warning for us here, because maybe we’re all there to one extent or another, in one area or another. If we think about it, there’s probably something here for us to chew on…
If the most important things in your life are what you wear, your money, your possessions and your comfort, then yes, James is talking to you. But even if that’s not the case, maybe a word about hoarding is enough to get us to think about the coats in our closets and the excess we own that would be better used by others than sitting on our shelves. Hoarding and self-indulgence is what James warns us of. And here’s what he encourages us towards:
VS 7
I think James is writing to the ones who were working the fields- not the poorest of the poor who had to beg, or the rich who owned the land, but those in the middle who had jobs working for others- sometimes for less than they should have been paid, sometimes in conditions less than-optimum, and he tells them: Be patient. God is not an absentee landlord, He sees, He knows, He’s coming. His timing may not make sense to you, but…
When I read this, I know this encouragement towards patience is something a lot of you need to hear as well- Many of you look around the world at what’s happening in different places and you begin to lose hope. Where is God in Africa, where is God in South America, in the slums of India, in all the injustice we see around us? Where is God in the suffering right in front of me. Where is God in my pain? James says- be patient. The justice you long for and work for is exactly what God is going to bring to this world. Why then, instead of NOW? I don’t know… but I do know that every good thing you do, every child you feed, every family you provide water for in Haiti, is like a seed being planted, a small plant being put in the ground. And though we’re still waiting for the spring or fall rains, it’s coming. It’s sure. It will happen. All the good you want to see in the world will happen and all the evil you hate will be judged- genocide, abuse, every evil large or small… just …
VS 8
This is the picture that God draws for His people of that time when His Christ, His anointed one, our Savior will come back and set the world right: Like the fall rains after a long, hot summer, bringing life and restoration to places parched and dry, bringing renewal, or as the Old Testament put it, bringing justice rolling down like water and righteousness like a mighty river.Â
There is a downward pull to the Gospel- it’s the same downward pull that brought Jesus to a dirty, dusty, barren place like Nazareth, and it’s the same downward pull that should move us into action. God gives us what he gives us for a reason. Don’t feel guilty about having a good job and earning good money. Feel guilty if you fail to use it wisely. Those who truly get the Gospel feel it’s downward pull and find that being like Jesus isn’t just about morality- though that’s part, or ethics, though that’s part. It’s not just about being nice and playing by the rules, or about getting my spiritual needs met. It’s about participating in God’s redemptive plan in the world- living in such a way that we see more and more people in relationship with Jesus and more and more people experiencing the justice and peace in whatever way possible, even limited or temporary that ultimately will come when Jesus Himself returns.
So- Pray, ask God- God, I feel like I do not have a ton of resources and time-though I probably have more than I know-Â how do I maximize? Where do I give? What have you given me that you hope I will use for others? What do I do- and then listen. The same is true for our community- what we put into the offering box and the organizations and individuals we help and support.
When it comes down to it, James is telling us to live in such a way so that the idea Christ coming to set up His Kingdom fills you with anticipation, not dread.
Vs 9
Someday we will all be Judged. Live as one to whom James would say “take courage!” not “look out!”
Johnny cash video
Reading- Psalm 146
Song- Surrender/Be Thou My Vision
Wrap up- Bob
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