For a brief period early in my life, I preached a Sunday sermon. When I left that vocation behind, I could not imagine ever wanting to write a “sermon” again. The current times have changed all that. In the face of Post-Truth, Donald Trump, FoxNews, and the intentional de-semination of un-Truth, the best defense we have to redeem ourselves and our world is biblical language. 

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. 2 Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. 3 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[a] for the last days. 4 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. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you. (James 5:1-5)

This text is sometimes called a “Warning to Rich Oppressors.” Labeling it that way is meant to take some of the sting out of it.

Since Reformers like Luther have always had a theological quarrel with the book of James, it is a text that is seldom heard on Sunday mornings in most Protestant congregations. When it is heard or preached about it is most likely dealt with in the same manner as it is in most Roman Catholic contexts, as a warning to “Rich Oppressors.”

The inherent incompatibility of wealth and true Faith is a frequent theme for Old Testament prophets like Amos. For Jesus it was even more so.

And yet in Puritan-Influenced America, we esteem nothing more than wealth. It is our ultimate measure of virtue. It is viewed, in the Calvinistic tradition, as a this-world mark of being blessed in the next world by God.

The downplaying of Jesus’ antipathy to wealth has historical rationale. Early on the Christian church was seen by the Roman Empire as a threat. If the early leaders of the church (such as Paul) overly stressed some of the more radical ideas of Jesus like anti-slavery and anti-wealth, Rome would have come down even harder on the new movement. And the ultimate “conversion” of the Empire by the conversion of Constantine ( by extension wealthy Romans and all their slaves) ensured that the truly radical call of Jesus on the subject of the wealth would be permanently downplayed.

And yet the radical ideas of Jesus have remained in scripture. Along with Amos and the prophets and  these words from James for “all with ears to hear.”

The economic system we have is clearly broken. In our country people are homeless while others have multiple mansions. One parent is trying to figure out how to put food on the table for their child while another is buying their 16-year-old a BMW.

And in the world at large… Millions starve. Millions are refugees. Children are forced to work or are sold into slavery. Women and girls are sold into sex slavery.

And yet we know that it is not because there are not enough resources on this good earth to go around. It is because so few take so much of the resources for themselves.

This is what has always made the words of James, rooted as they are in the most radical ideas of Jesus, so difficult for Christians to hear and to preach. It is easier to say these are words meant for “Rich Oppressors” than to say they are meant for us and for the people we truly admire and aspire to be ourselves.

And so we come now to Donald Trump and the billionaire class to which he belongs. In a truly “Christian” country, by that I mean a country that truly followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, not only could Trump never have been elected, he and his like would not even exist. Because an economic system that concentrates so much wealth into the hands of so few, while the vast majority go without, would not be tolerated.

But since our economic system does allow such injustice, is in all actuality built upon such injustice, listen again to these words of James: “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you.”