James 1:9-11Common English Bible (CEB)

⁹ Brothers and sisters who are poor should find satisfaction in their high status. ¹⁰ Those who are wealthy should find satisfaction in their low status because they will die off like wildflowers. ¹¹ The sun rises with its scorching heat and dries up the grass so that its flowers fall and its beauty is lost. Just like that, in the midst of their daily lives, the wealthy will waste away.

 

There is an old saying, “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”, which isn’t in the bible but James 1:9-11 comes close. I understood it to mean that we are supposed to become advocates for people in bad situations; poor, hungry, sick, etc. Matthew 25 is my biblical, guiding light for most of the actions I take as a pastor. It is also important to take the other half of that statement to afflict the comfortable and speak truth to power. Most of us believe that our criminal justice system gets it right for the most part and it does seem to work fairly well if you are on the outside looking in. That belief becomes more challenging when you are inside the system. Like many huge systems there are problems within and instead of working to correct them it becomes easier to just ignore the problems or turn a blind eye. We have some problems in our system, whether you are talking about the huge bureaucratic system of the United Methodist Church or the criminal justice system. We all believe that once we are in the system we can make changes to improve the system. However, once we are in the system, it can become harder to affect changes because we get caught up in our own personal lives and it becomes easier to just go along with “the way we’ve always done things”.

I want us to be more aware of the things that are happening in our state that seem unjust. One that comes to mind is regarding Kenneth Dewitt a former chaplain in the Arkansas prison system. He sexually assaulted over 50 people in his religious program and only received a 5-year prison sentence. He is already eligible for probation. He used his position of power in a system that enabled him and protected him. Maybe, we can’t do anything about this particular case. However, we can speak up and speak out when things come up and hold people accountable. We cannot just retreat to our bubbles and ignore the world around us, as tempting as that might be at times.