James Crocker, first year graduate theologian here at Oriel, delivered an excellent homily at last night's Choral Eucharist on our reliance upon God. Please have a look...
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readings: James 5:1-6 & Mark 10:46-52
Tonight I’d like to set up a parallel, and then draw a contrast between the rich as described by James, and Bartimaeus, the blind begger, in Mark’s Gospel. I’d like for us to consider what the real difference between them is, and I’m going to suggest that the difference is that one of them realizes something that is generally true of life, which the other misses completely, that our security and joy does not ultimately lie in our own efforts.
In the passage from James, we see the brother of Jesus, and the very first leader of the church, echoing the prophets of the Old Testament in condemning wealth and power in the strongest terms. However, despite his strong language, it is clear that he is not simply condemning wealth for its own sake. Even though the New Testament often implies that “wealth can be a particularly strong obstacle to Christian discipleship,”[1] in and of itself wealth is simply passive and can be used for good or for evil.
In order to get to the bottom of James’ denunciation, we need to examine the text more closely. What is it that he actually condemns the rich for?
First, ‘Your riches have rotted…their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire.’[2] Of course, we know that gold and silver don’t actually corrode, but that isn’t the point. The point is that they have been gathered up and left in reserve – imagine someone stockpiling grain which then rots, and is of no use to anyone. I think that is the image we’re working with here, but applied to the riches that James’ targets have actually gathered. Rather than using their riches for good, to clothe and feed the poor for example, they have kept them as insurance for their future. This is why he says ‘you have laid up treasure in the last days.’ This is a warning very similar to Jesus’ parable in Luke 12 – a man has filled up his barn with grain, and he has still more, so he decides to tear down his barn and build bigger ones, thinking that in this way he will be secure for many years, and can simply lie back and enjoy life. Jesus says, ‘But God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.’
In fact, James has already made this point. The section we are looking at is written as a parallel to the section which immediately precedes it, where James says that it is foolish to be so confident about all of our plans for the future, in verse 15 of the previous chapter he says ‘you ought to say “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.’ In this way James, following Jesus (and, incidentally, the book of Ecclesiastes) shows us that planning for our future security can be foolish if we are not mindful of our own transitory nature.
The other two specific charges of James are intimately related: ‘Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and…have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence. [in short] you have murdered the righteous person.’
The social context which James is writing into had a great disparity between rich and poor. If a poor farmer could not meet his tax burden or his debts, he would end up having to sell his smallholding to a rich landowner, and then hope to be hired as a day laborer, even on the land which used to be his. These day laborers would be paid at the end of each day because that is literally all they would have, and without it their families would go hungry. There is recognition of this problem in the Old Testament law – in Deuteronomy 24 is written, ‘you shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy…You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the LORD, and you be guilty of sin.’ This is undoubtedly what is in James’ mind as he writes this. The wealthy people that he is writing about have disobeyed this law, and in contrast to the desperate situation of the defrauded laborers, are living in luxury, but ultimately under judgment. ‘You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.’
So we can say that ‘the hoarding of wealth is wrong not just because it demonstrates utterly false priorities, it is doubly sinful because it deprives others of their…lives.’[3]
We will now turn to consider the story of Bartimaeus. He was a blind man who sat outside the city of Jericho begging. There are some striking details in his story in Mark. He calls Jesus by the messianic title ‘Son of David’. This is interesting because other than the demon-possessed and Peter, Bartimaeus is the only one to call Jesus by a messianic title. It is part of Mark’s acute sense of irony that as Jesus is surrounded by his disciples and a large crowd who follow him, it is only a blind man who sees that he is the savior of Israel. Understanding this, Bartimaeus cries out to him ‘Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!’ The crowd tells him to be quiet, but he can’t be stopped. Jesus stops and calls him, and when Jesus calls, he throws off his cloak and goes to Jesus. Some commentators suggest that beggars of his day would spread their cloak out around them to collect money given to them, so by throwing off his cloak, Bartimaeus is perhaps leaving behind all his worldly possessions at Jesus’ call.[4]
Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants, and Bartimaeus asks only for his sight. Jesus responds like this: ‘Go your way, your faith has made you well.’ What does it mean that his faith has made him well? That he believed Jesus could do it? That he saw that he was the Son of David? Maybe that he left everything he had behind to approach Jesus? Or something else? That’s not really what I want to focus on actually. Rather I’d like to consider his response to Jesus. Jesus tells him to go his way, and yet Mark notes that ‘immediately he recovered his sight, and followed him on the way.’ Through his faith, Jesus’ way became Bartimaeus’ way.
To sum up, I’d like to make the contrast between the rich one and Bartimaeus even more explicit. The rich are rich, Bartimaeus was not. Yet the rich James is talking about save in order to cling to absolute self-reliance, and steal from the poor in order to support their own lavish life style. Bartimaeus, at the suggestion of Jesus threw aside his worldly goods and received his sight as a blessing which not even the richest person could buy, and followed Jesus on the way. The rich one relies on himself, but ‘riches provide no spiritual benefit in the present, nor do they give grounds for hope’[5] in the future. Bartimaeus relies on Jesus, and is made complete.
What does this mean for us? We need to ask ourselves, do we resemble the rich, or Bartimaeus? Do we try to pretend that God is not real, that our only hope lies in ourselves, and as a result harm others in the pursuit of some sort of vain security, or passing pleasure? Or do we rejoice in God’s revelation of himself and of his love for us in the savior, Jesus, and so let go of our selfish and vain pursuits?
I suspect for most of us, and certainly for myself, it is the former. We are consumed by worry about our futures, about jobs, about funding, about all kinds of social activities, and family worries, and I will not deny that these are important. However, when this worry becomes stronger than our faith in God, we can be, as the rich in James are, doubly sinful, forgetting our true priorities, and willing to harm others, or even to withhold help, all for our own benefit.
Of course, most of us are not rich, but we still life a life of privilege. We should not forget God’s specific blessings to us in allowing us to be here studying or working in Oxford. This is why we thank God for our benefactors in the College prayer, and why we also pray that God would help us to use the benefits which they have given to us rightly – we should realize that we are responsible to God for how we use our time here in Oxford. And I suppose if you remember nothing else from tonight, I would hope that next time you hear the college prayer the words will perhaps have a greater weight of meaning to them.
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