James and the giant swindle
One of the readings in church today was from the epistle of James. It didn’t get any comments from the pulpit, but seems to me to fit the current mood of reflecting on the tremors and scandals running through our financial system (emphasis mine):
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
Now, I’m not about to say that the bible is against people having money. The thing is full of parables of people being rewarded for being wise with their money. What upsets James here is the use of financial power to increase one’s wealth on the backs of others who really don’t have a say.
When you’ve been swindled, seeing the crook who just made off with your money living in “luxury and pleasure” becomes a double injury. James has very strong words for this kind of injury, implying the very spoils of the heist will eat away at the perpetrators. What is it, anyway, about ill-gotten-booty that makes it so easy to spend away on luxuries? It seems like most of the time, that’s how thieves get caught anyway. Anybody have stats?
I think that whether you’re a migrant worker getting stiffed out of wages with no legal recourse or a investor who’s been bilked of a lifetime of savings, you will find a kindred spirit in James. Like many times of late, I’m reminded that human nature has not changed much in the last few thousand years, and thus much wisdom of the ancient world speaks to today’s problems.
