“Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 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. 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. You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you.”
This passage might as well begin with the words, “Hey, Americans!” This is a prophetic word for us. You may not think of yourself as all that rich, but if you make $32,400 a year you are in the wealthiest 1% on the planet. Materialism is a constant threat to our spiritual lives. We are surrounded by a standard of living that far exceeds billions of people on earth. What was the last thing you urgently ran out to the store for? How large is your clothes closet? (The Bible’s definition of a lot of clothes is two shirts… Then you have one to give away.)
James is calling our attention to something: the cries of the workers. God has heard them, have you? Our cell phones and shoes and clothing and TV sets were all made by those in great poverty. Factory workers in Cambodia, Vietnam, China are suffering to make our stuff. They do not resist, as James says here, because it is the best job in town. And yet we are still responsible for condemning them to live in poverty and risk death.
Our stuff owns us. The more we say “no” to buying, the more we give away, the more we opt out of materialism the better off we will be. Jesus lived a simple life that we can emulate when we stop chasing “stuff.” It’s okay not to have things. You will be set free when you stop going to the mall. Shop at thrift stores and let your money go to charity instead of big corporations who oppress workers. Or better yet, simply live with fewer items of clothing. Even more than this, develop relationships with people who do not have a lot. This is very hard to do in America, as even our poor people often have a lot of stuff. But they are here, in our cities and in our rural towns. They are our children who are hungry and our homeless in need of a shower. They are our brothers and sisters with mental illness or chronic physical pain. Don’t just volunteer once at a soup kitchen. Move your entire live into a place where these are your actual neighbors. Let’s love and live the way Jesus did.
Want to think more about this? Read Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger or follow Shane Claiborne and his community The Simple Way.