NOTES for Jam 5:12

The Apostle James tells us today: “Do not grumble against one another.” Let us remember: how long has it been since we last said, “If it weren't for him...” “It's all his fault...” “How can anyone work with people like that?!” It would be good if it stopped there, but we often also say, “If it weren't for you...” Is it easy to refrain from such phrases? Is it easy not to look for someone to blame and not to complain, even if only to oneself? After all, this happens essentially automatically. And it is precisely this automatic response that we must do something about. To begin with, we can try not to say any of this aloud... and pray that the Lord will teach us not to seek someone to blame or complain, but simply to do our work as well as possible under the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

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.

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.