James 1:9-11 – The Leveling Wind

9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

I thought Michael Keaton cut an engaging, self-deprecating Bruce Wayne in Batman's 1989 cinematic outing. So did Vicki Vale, and her smitten reaction was irritating her fellow reporter who had eyes for her. When Wayne leaves, he consoles himself aloud, "The rich. You know why they are so odd? Because they can afford to be."

James in writing his epistle in the Bible would not have thought of this characterization unrecognizable. The rich he surveyed there, he warned, could easily become defined by the idiosyncrasies in which they could indulge. The wind of the Spirit, though, is a leveling wind. It, in keeping with the inspired prophecy of Mary the mother of Jesus in the Magnificat as well as the teachings of Jesus Himself, exalts the lowly and brings down the proud.

By that Spirit, what the rich can afford to get away with is no longer the deciding issue. As they, along with their poor counterparts, die to themselves and their preferences, James says there is a kind of party of parity. There is exaltation on both ends of the socioeconomic scale because both realize they are absolutely dependent on the riches of Christ's righteousness rather than the grandeur or the grievances they bring.

Well does the rich man who comes to Christ in spite of his riches know that the faith which Christ characterized as the camel getting through the eye of a needle is not his by merit. Well does the man pour in the goods of this world understand that the joy in Christ which bypasses the class bitterness around him is not something he can buy.

Rich and poor, then, among Christ's elect our brothers in bewilderment. They seek Him by grace for new identity. They seek Him to relearn how to relate to their purchasing decisions. They seek Him to relearn how to relate to each other. What they were, with all its incumbent assumptions and scripts, is passing away. They are aware of a mutual accountability more important than their opinions of each other as they pass in the street.

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