Scripture scholars agree that most of the New Testament literature does not speak too forcefully about the issues of social justice. Those who devote themselves to the cause of social justice will find much more support for their work in the writings of the Hebrew prophets. Some will use this fact as a way to avoid the social justice teachings of the Church, claiming that they are far more interested in the Christian Scriptures than they are in the Hebrew Scriptures.
There is, of course, a good reason why the Christian Scriptures don’t delve into these issues more forcefully. The people to whom Jesus preached, the ones who were drawn to him by his preaching, were, by and large, the poor, the rural folk, the peasants. The urban elite were not persuaded by his preaching and were, in fact, ultimately responsible for Jesus’ passion and death. When the evangelists recorded the life, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, their audience was the same people. They didn’t need to hear the social justice Gospel. They were the ones who suffered at the hands of the wealthy.
The one exception to this rule is the Letter of James from which we have been reading these past five weeks. Today’s passage is very pointed in addressing these concerns to the wealthy. However, we cannot impose the reality of our economic structure on this Scripture. The wealthy of Jesus’ time were those who were born into the elite. Their wealth was a matter of power and influence because of their status. To be wealthy at the time of Jesus meant that you had to prove yourself by conspicuous consumption which oftentimes meant cheating those who worked for them.
So the issue that James writes about is not wealth in and of itself. It is, rather, the use of wealth. We will be judged not by whether we are rich or poor, but by how we use the gifts God has given us. We have so much to be thankful for in our society and in this country. We have been blessed by God in so many ways. The real point of the Letter of James is directed to the issue of how we use those blessings and gifts; i.e. for ourselves? or for others?
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator