The old saying: “if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” works with a number of assumptions that float just below the surface of its cheeky tone – that being smart should result in wealth, and that poor people are therefore by definition not smart. While neither assumption is necessarily true, these ideas shape many of our attitudes toward wealth.

Have you ever been talking to a person and notice that they are scanning the room to see who else is there? It makes you feel unimportant doesn’t it?

James is speaking directly to this issue of showing favour towards one person over another.

When I lived in Calgary I served for four years as a crisis intervention worker at the Foothills Hospital. During that time I carried a pager and would get ‘buzzed’ when there was a “crisis.” Now a crisis in a hospital is when the very capable staff are facing a situation they could not handle or take the time to handle.

On Keats Island in British Columbia I was speaking to junior high schoolers at a camp. (My respect for junior high teachers grew exponentially after this experience.) However, I captured their attention by asking them to keep a secret with me. On Wednesday of that week, I had arranged to have a deadly weapon brought onto the island.

We don’t pay enough attention to jealousy.

It is a trait or tendency that can sneak up on us. We couch it with all sorts of terms like, “I aspire to be like him or her.” But underneath can lie an insidious spirit that brings out the worst in us.

One summer I sat outside with my sons and a few of their friends. One of the friends started laughing at us.

“What is so funny?” I asked.

“You all laugh exactly the same, you can sure tell you are family,” he replied.

A poisoned tongue can cause terrible damage. In 1 Samuel 22 (the context for Psalm 52) the venomous tongue of Doeg resulted in the murder of 85 priests; as well as the men, women, children and animals in Nob.

Psalm 52, a maskil (psalm of instruction), deals with the inexorable justice of God.