The Legend of King Midas
Perhaps you’ll have heard this story before.
Once upon a time, long ago, a certain king loved his wealth. The sight of gold would make his heart flutter, and he desired to acquire as much gold as he could. The only thing that rivaled his captivation with gold was the love he had for his daughter. Yet the more he loved his daughter, the more he desired gold—for what better gift to give her when his time was done? So he set about to become as rich as he could become.
One day a stranger passed through his kingdom, a young, handsome fellow. When he saw the king, he declared his admiration, “You are a wealthy man, king! You must be happy.”
The king shrugged and said, “It is but a drop in the sea, if you consider how much more could be made with more time. Imagine if I lived a thousand years more!”
The stranger squinted at the king and wondered aloud, “Then you are not satisfied? What would satisfy you, if not all that you already have?” He waited a moment and then added, “Please, king. Tell me your wish.”
The king suddenly had an inkling that this was no ordinary stranger, that whatever he said next could indeed become a reality. His heart raced with desire, as he deliberated how to become even richer. “I wish,” the king said, “I wish that everything I touched would be changed to gold.”
The stranger kept silent and eyed the king soberly, before asking, “You are sure this will satisfy you?”
“How could it not?” the king replied.
Well, you know it goes from here. At first, the king is in a wonderland. He walks out into his garden, eager to test his newfound power. Every flower he touches turns to gold. He cannot believe his fortune.
Later that evening, his daughter enters his room, her face in tears. She holds in her hand one of the flowers. “Daddy,” she says, “they’re all metal now.” Her tearful face pierces the king’s heart, and he rushes to console her. But the moment they embrace, she goes still. And cold. And hard. And the king takes a step in back horror, faced with the golden statue of his daughter.
Frantic with fear, the king sent all his servants out to look for the young stranger who had visited him earlier. For three days they looked and found no one matching his description. On the third day, however, the king saw the young man himself wandering his garden.
“You seem upset, king. Has your wish not been granted?”
The king fell on his knees before him, shaking his head, “It has been granted…and I’m unhappier than ever. I see now what really matters.” The stranger winced and nodded. Then the king pleaded with him, “Please, is there any way to lift this curse?”
The stranger then gave him instructions: go down to the river at the bottom of his garden. Immerse himself completely and bathe himself in it. And then fill a pitcher full with its water and sprinkle anything gold he wished to return to its original state. “If you do this with a sincere and earnest heart, king…it may be possible that your life is restored.”
The king rushed to do as the stranger had instructed. After bathing, he filled a pitcher and hurried to his daughter. With trepidation, he sprinkled the top of her head—and lo and behold, she looked up at him, sneezing and sputtering and laughing, “You’ve just spilled water on me, father—how foolish!” She did not know that she’d previously been a golden statue. The king hugged her, longer than usual, relishing that he could feel her heart beating and hear the inhale and exhale of her breathing.
It is said that from that day on the king abhorred the sight of gold—except in the hair of his daughter.[1]
A Cautionary Tale
Our scripture this morning begins in rather jarring fashion. I don’t know about you, but that opening line—“Come now, you rich people”—already has me squirming a little bit in my seat. (Imagine how you might feel if I started one of my own sermons in that way!) To be sure, I wouldn’t call or consider myself “rich.” But I know enough about the world around me to know that anyone who’s living in relative comfort in the United States is, in a global sense, quite rich.
I don’t want to tame today’s scripture, to water it down, to let us off the hook too quickly or easily, but…but it is important to know that the rich people whom James seems to be addressing in today’s scripture, were not actually the recipients of his words. To put that a different way: the early community of Christ-followers that would have received James’ letter would have been made up largely by people considered poor in the Roman empire. If you’ll remember, when Jesus begins proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God, he indicates that this is especially good news to the poor (Luke 4:18), and he regularly commends the poor as being recipients of God’s blessing. To put it simply, the early Christian movement was, on the whole, a poor people’s movement.
So what is James doing, addressing a group of people who aren’t actually in his audience? Clearly his goal is not to convert the rich. Nor does he seem to be advocating a program of reform, encouraging his poor audience to seek some revolutionary redistribution of wealth. No, what James is doing is encouraging his poor audience to maintain the treasure they have received in Christ, rather than to exchange it for the treasure of the world.
In apocalyptic fashion—not unlike what we might see in the book of Revelation—James paints a picture of what’s really going on with wealth. He peels back the curtain of the appearance, of the alluring images of the comfort and convenience of wealth, to show what’s happening in reality, what’s happening in the soul. He depicts riches that rot and decay, fine clothing that burns at the flesh, accumulated money that screams to God on behalf of the poor from whom it has been unjustly withheld. And the scene ends in a vague murder, the very anonymity of which allows it to fit to so many different scenarios: the laborer who dies because of unsafe working conditions, the laborer who dies in jail because they cannot pay off their debt, the laborer whose child dies because of a lack of food and nutrition…and so on.
In effect, James is telling a cautionary tale not unlike the story of King Midas. The tale of King Midas entered folklore, getting told and retold in popular settings. In other words, it was not addressed to kings who were greedy. It was addressed to the common person, warning them against the kind of greed that consumed their kings. In a similar way, James addresses his words not to rich folks, but to poor Christ-following communities that might be tempted to seek the status and privilege of wealth. He is warning the early Christ-followers against the lure of wealth, alerting them to its disintegrating, destructive quality. On the one hand, it does not do what it promises to do. The images of rot and decomposition point to its fleeting nature. King Midas, we might remember, is unsatisfied long before he realizes he is cursed. Indeed, he is the richest man in the kingdom when he meets the stranger, and yet it is his unsatisfaction that leads him to make his wish. On the other hand, wealth also disintegrates relationships. When profit is prioritized over people, the fabric of relationship begins to unravel. James paints a picture where the wealthy see only their profits, and not the people who suffer as a result of their greed. Their monetary gain is a grave spiritual and relational loss. We see a similar loss of relationship in the tale of King Midas. His greed for gold turns his daughter into a lifeless golden statue.
Listening for the Good News
The good news for King Midas is that when his daughter turns to gold, his heart is horrified. His horror is good news, because it turns him away from a pursuit that was not making him happy anyway and turns him instead toward the true source of life, which is to say love. I love the way Nathaniel Hawthorne ends his version of the tale, having King Midas proclaim about his granddaughters’ blonde hair: “Ever since that morning [when my wish was granted], I have hated the very sight of all other gold, save this!”[2]
The good news is perhaps a bit more difficult to detect in our scripture today, where James never really lets up from his tirade against wealth. But I think the good news is there. We just have to listen closely.
I hear it in a single word: treasure. “You have laid up treasure for the last days,” James cries out to the wealthy (Ja 5:3). Now, I think the immediate sentiment is akin to “You reap what you sow.” That is, if you make wealth your treasure, then when you find yourself alone and without a friend, the wealth that you’ve laid up will be little comfort—but that’s all you’ll have.
By itself, that’s not really good news. But I wouldn’t be surprised if when James uses the word “treasure,” he’s actually remembering one of Jesus’ teaching, one of the times Jesus used the word “treasure.” “Sell your possessions, and give alms,” Jesus tells his disciples. “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:33-34).
The good news according to Jesus is that there is an “unfailing treasure” (Luke 12:33). Which is to say, a treasure that will enrich our lives rather than destroy them. The surprise is that this treasure is found in other people, and especially in the least, the last, and the left out (the very people neglected and oppressed in the pursuit of wealth—as we see in James’ picture of the world). Repeatedly in the gospels, Jesus encourages us to let go of things so that we might receive the company of others, especially the needful (cf. Luke 12:32-33; 14:12-14). That’s the surprising twist to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the story of King Midas, Midas learns at the end of the story that the real treasure is his daughter. The gospel affirms that, yes, love is the treasure, but it invites us to love not only kith and kin, but also the needful. For in so doing, we suddenly receive a kingdom of care, a community where people are precious, much more precious than things, a world where we are never alone but always in good company (cf. Mark 10:28-30).
The real treasure, according to Christ, is being able to look into another pair of eyes and see God. Such a person will always be rich.
Prayer
Dear Christ,
Whose riches are found
not in comforts or conveniences,
But in communion with
others,
Inspire us to see other
people
As you saw them
…
Not as more or less than
us,
Nor as potential sources
of wealth (or impediments to wealth),
But as precious brothers
and sisters
In God’s family.
Amen.
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