Daily Worship

Overlooked by the economic system

October 24, 2016 0 0

James 4:13

Warning against Boasting

13 Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.” 14 You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears. 15 What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.

17 So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.

Warning to the Rich

5 And now, you rich people, listen to me! Weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you! 2 Your riches have rotted away, and your clothes have been eaten by moths. 3 Your gold and silver are covered with rust, and this rust will be a witness against you and will eat up your flesh like fire. You have piled up riches in these last days. 4 You have not paid any wages to those who work in your fields. Listen to their complaints! The cries of those who gather in your crops have reached the ears of God, the Lord Almighty. 5 Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you.

There is a sense of the Hebrew prophets about James and his letter. His language about the rich and prosperous here and in 2:6,7 is fierce and challenging. But what most offends him (and God, he says) is their attitude to their employees. Non-payment of wages (still practiced, as recent news reports show), low pay and oppressive employment conditions are an offence against kingdom values, as this reading suggests

 

God of justice, in whose kingdom the marginalised are valued equally with the powerful,

and the worth and work of each person is of equal worth;

we pray for those whose employment is exploitative and oppressive,

whose pay is so poor that they rely on state benefits to make ends meet,

and we pray for all organisations that seek to help them.

We pray too for large companies and small businesses and the people who manage them,

that good employment practice may drive out all that undervalues

and fails to reward employees for their work;

in Christ’s name.

 

What small thing can I do today that will speak for those who are ‘overlooked’ by the economic system?