Tombs of famous men and women fill Rome. Everywhere you turn someone’s grave calls you over. Many of these powerful people paid designers (like Michelangelo) to create bigger and better burial edifices. If it weren’t for signs attached to each tomb, I had no clue who I was looking at as I licked my gelato and wandered around.

All these fancy graves remind of a quote I read once by George Eliot: For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

I visited lots of tombs in Rome. But what if Eliot’s thought is accurate? What if most of the good in this world exists due to regular folks who lived faithful lives, and now sleep in graves no one visits?

Which leads me to the scripture reminding us that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous can accomplish much (James 5:16). Sincere prayers of the charitable result in greater goodness than the ministrations of the powerful.

What does it matter the beauty of our tombs? When Jesus returns, he’ll blow the lids off. A marble slab or a pine box, tourist attraction or overgrown with weeds, the quality of the heart registers more the value of the tomb.

Building a fancy burial chamber may show off one’s wealth and power, but actually paying attention to our designer makes a much bigger difference in this world and the next.

James 5 in reading the Bible in 2023