NOTES for Jam 5:1-6

The apostle James uses the metaphor of rusted gold and silver to point not to the material side of life, but to the goals and meaning of every kind of accumulation. Accumulated experience, fame and recognition as a specialist, a great public figure, success in business, academic degrees - these are the very gold and silver that rust and will be a testimony against us. And the goals we set for ourselves are our treasure. They mean very little for the future. None of the successes of this world is required in order to love our neighbors, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. And for a believer, a churchgoing person who reads the Gospel, awareness of the smallness and inconspicuousness of our successes before the world and before God must become fundamental. When the Apostle says, "Lament and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom," he calls us to pay attention to the fact that we strive for joy and merriment, that we drive difficult and heavy thoughts away from ourselves. But there is no joy in the world. We carry joy in our hearts. And this joy is from God. He alone can grant it to us. Yet we look in this world for a substitute for relationship with Him. And we understand that we must do good, we feel the need for it, but the mercy we have shown and the help we have given do not bring us joy if through them we do not glorify God and thank Him for the opportunity to help and to be near someone in need.

In speaking of Christian life, James connects it with the day of the Messiah's return and the triumph of the Kingdom. This is understandable: Christianity has meaning only in this context, sometimes called eschatological. As another apostle, Paul, says to Christians: if it is only in this life that you hope in Christ, you are the most miserable of all people. James understands this perfectly well too. He knows that some problems are, in principle, insoluble within the present order of things.

The world lies in evil, and it can change only by becoming part of the Kingdom the Savior has brought into the world. Yet the only thing that distinguishes Christians from other people is that they already live the life of this Kingdom. This is not an attempt to escape the world and life, nor a desire to gloss over their very real problems, but a process of putting down roots in the new life brought by Christ.

Christians are not people who flee from life and its problems, but people who have made it their main task to learn to live the life of the Kingdom here and now. The apostle urges the readers of his epistle not to forget this central task. Everything else is merely a means. People sometimes ask: does prayer with the laying on of hands and anointing with oil replace ordinary medical care? There is no unequivocal answer to the question. It may replace it, or it may complement it. But the point is not whether one can replace the other, nor even precisely how one complements the other.

The point is that even a human condition as obviously incompatible with the life of the Kingdom as illness can be brought into the context of that life. And not only can it be, it must be. The particular form is only that—a particular form, nothing more. The question is whether we believe that the evil of this world must be overcome solely by this world's methods, or whether it must also be acted upon by the power of the Kingdom whose inhabitants we are as Christians.

This is the same question of wholeness of life: do we remain inhabitants of the Kingdom when we suffer, for example during illness, or do suffering and illness take such a hold on us that we forget the new life opened to us and become caught in a cycle of endless confrontation with the evil environment in which the fallen world exists? Here, when speaking of illness, it is not so important whether prayer with the laying on of hands will help bring healing. The question is whether illness will become the center of our life or remain on its periphery. The same applies to physical death, which is inevitable in any case. And there is also the question of whether we will die with our death, or continue living the life of the Kingdom, where death has no place.

The intensity with which James denounces the rich reaches its peak. But next we see an appeal to those being oppressed to be patient, and here numerous opponents of Christianity have often exclaimed: “Aha, working people must endure oppression! So you Christians are on the side of the exploiters!”

Yet an attentive and unbiased reading does not permit such an interpretation. Just protest against social evil does not contradict the apostle’s words; the epistle itself bears witness to this. Nor is patience required in order to encourage oppressors, but because they are already condemned if they do not repent. A violent protest against earthly evil has too often turned into a destructive revolt which, after bloodshed, ended in defeat and renewed enslavement. But persistent and patient defense of justice has often proved more fruitful and victorious. This, too, is labor, and it is impossible without patience. Labor is necessary under every social order, and therefore we must be patient until the coming of the Lord.

Here James also reminds us of the power of prayer, something every Christian knows in principle but which in practice is all too often underestimated. To those of us who do not consider ourselves capable of boldness in prayer, he points to the great prophet Elijah, unexpectedly calling him a man like us (rather than calling us people like him!). This means that the spiritual power the Lord gave Elijah He can give to us as well. If only we will receive it.