Thursday 24 February 2022

Today is Thursday the 24th of February, in the seventh week of Ordinary time.

Josh Garrels sings, 'Steadfast' by Sandra McCracken.

Today's reading is from the Letter of James.
James 5:1-6
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

We are faced with some striking imagery today…rich people weeping and wailing; treasure and rust; clothes and moths; flesh and fire…How do you picture all of this in your mind? What sense do you get from the passage?
Holding onto these pictures, what is stirring in you as you reflect on the warnings to the rich of the 'miseries' that are coming?

As you listen to the passage again, notice how you are responding to the words…perhaps discomfort or conviction, or a sense of anger at injustice…
'The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts'. How do you meet the Lord of hosts, this Lord of justice in these final moments of prayer now?


Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.