Scolding

Jane Denniston October 23, 2026 0 0

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James 5: 1–6 (NIV-UK)

5 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 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. 4 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. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

This is another passage which feels as though it could have been written for today.

I confess I am rather addicted to ‘doomscrolling’ on social media. I don’t think it necessarily does my mental health any good but occasionally I come across some very thought-provoking statements or facts and figures. One politician, for example, argues that the vast accumulation of wealth by some company CEOs is achieved by theft from the workers – by which he means not paying them a living wage, or allowing them to benefit from the growth they have helped create. Or the fact that if you had a billion pounds and spent one million every year, it would take you a thousand years to spend it all.

So, are all our CEOs wealth creators? Or are some of them taking from their workers to fund a lavish lifestyle? Why do people who have more money than they can spend in a hundred lifetimes not want to give some back to the people who helped them get where they are?

I also come across several instances of celebrities (Billie Eilish, Barbra Streisand, Taylor Swift for example) at awards ceremonies attended by the rich and famous, taking the opportunity to scold those who accumulate vast wealth and allow children to starve.

When you look at the world and its woes – who would you scold, and why? And, perhaps more pertinently, how!

It’s easy to become disheartened in the face of powers which seem too great for little people to influence but we are not voiceless and in joining our voice to others’ who are standing up for Christian values we can make a difference. If all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, let us not be those people.

Prayer:

God of the voiceless

you have given us a voice

however weak it seems,

however ineffectual it appears:

teach us how to use it.

Give us iron in our soul

to stand up against the ‘progress’

that leaves too many broken in its wake.

Show us how we can use

our faith in you

our trust of you

our love for you

to make a difference for good in this world. Amen