From Capitalism to California.
I was reading an April article from The Washington Post Concerning the fear by some tech billionaires that the system they created by which they have become so wealthy may no longer be sustainable. If this happens, their fortunes will be lost. The article may be found at the following site.
The first five verses of James Chapter 5 remind us that the problem cited hereinabove has existed ever since man began to keep written records.
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. (James 5:1-6 NIV.)
In James’ day, as it was so many centuries earlier in the days of the Prophet Amos, the rich were getting richer by defrauding their poor laborers. The failure by these rich landowners to pay the daily wage was a continuing problem throughout the history of Israel. It was, in fact, one of the causes of their downfall to the Babylonians.
Further, this type of greed, no doubt, has contributed to the stereotype of the Jew as unscrupulously wealthy and callous towards his workers in his business dealings.
Like all stereotypes, this picture is exactly that, a stereotype. However, it does point out abuse in the system in the day of Amos on forward into the day of James. Obviously, this practice was not limited to Jews. To think so is to unfairly pass on a stereotype.
The modern stereotype is of the wealthy person of any (or no) religion who Is so caught up in protecting his wealth that he is completely, purposefully and unknowing ignorant of the hardship of his workers.
In a scathing op-ed piece written for the guardian, George Montbiot writes:
Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity…
The second defining element is the bizarre assumption that a person is entitled to as great a share of the world’s natural wealth as their money can buy. This seizure of common goods causes three further dislocations. First, the scramble for exclusive control of non-reproducible assets, which implies either violence or legislative truncations of other people’s rights. Second, the immiseration of other people by an economy based on looting across both space and time. Third, the translation of economic power into political power, as control over essential resources leads to control over the social relations that surround them.
Unfortunately, Mr. Montbiot admits that he does not have a solution to the problem. Perhaps, Mr. Montbiot Has not recently read his Bible, because the answer Is clear in that text. The same Bible which gives us the plaintiff cry of the Prophet Amos and of James the Just, condemning the unfair practices of the Entrepreneurs and capitalists of their days gives us a better way, the Way of Jesus.
Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; Love your neighbor as yourself.” While to the erudite writers of worldwide-circulation periodicals, these words might seem trite, time-worn, and a bit quaint, I would argue that these words live on to this very day and shall live on as Buzz Lightyear says, “to infinity and beyond.”
Jesus lives in the Christian’s heart. May I suggest that He also lives in the Christian’s brain, feet, and hands. An example of this life is found in the church in Petaluma County, California pastored by a friend of mine, Alan Cross, Petaluma Valley Baptist Church.
As you are no doubt aware, both northern and southern California are being consumed by wildfires at an unprecedented rate. In the northern California fires, the evacuation area has currently come to within 30 miles of Petaluma, California, the town which houses the church to which I refer.
While it would be a very good thing for the church members to pray for the evacuees, it is also a good thing to do as they have done, putting feet to their prayers. They have opened their church as a shelter for evacuees. They are currently at capacity. Every night, members of the church reside on the floors of the church’s facilities supervising evacuees. Every day, members of the church cook and bring in meals to feed the evacuees.
Pastor Alan posted on Facebook that a reporter from Sacramento came to view the church. The reporter asked Pastor Alan if they were doing these good things out of “survivor’s guilt.” Pastor Alan, himself a survivor Hurricane Katrina, and no doubt a bit taken aback, told the reporter that they were merely acting as Christians should act. They are putting into hands and feet Jesus’ words to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you; To love your neighbor as yourself.”
I’m not an economist. Neither am I a Socialist or a Communist, and neither do I have a better solution to the rape of the poor by the unscrupulous rich in a system of capitalism run amok, but I suggest that James the Just, who condemned the same thing in his time in James 5, and Amos in his time would agree with my assertion that if Christians acted like Christians and followed the words of Jesus (the Christ for Whom they are named,) the other things would take care of themselves.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
johnthebaptist15 