"Walking Through James: Part 5 - Prayer" - James 5:13-20 (September 30, 2018)
/James 5:13-20
Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.
My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Today is our last stop on our journey through the Book of James. We have allowed this important letter of the New Testament to ask us some crucial questions for the times in which we find ourselves. How can we be both hearers and doers of the Word? How can faith be a living thing if it does not affect how we live our lives? How can we use our tongues and the words that come from them to heal instead of hurt? How can the wisdom of the Gospel lead us to lives of gentleness that, in fact, have the power to change the world?
Today’s passage closes out the Book of James with some very practical advice for the Christian community. Are you sick? You should pray. Are you cheerful? You should sing songs of praise. Are you sick? You should call the elders to pray over you and anoint you with oil.
The heart of today’s passage is about prayer. For James, prayer is the default activity of the Christian community. Prayer is the natural result of all the behaviors James has been lifting up to us this past month. Righteousness, gentleness, impartiality, benevolence, mercy, faithfulness, generosity. When these behaviors are exhibited, prayer is the inevitable outcome.
Prayer is central to who we are as Christians. Prayer is what allows us to connect with God and with each other. We pray when we’re happy. We pray when we’re sad. We pray when we’re scared and nervous and we pray when we just don’t know what to do. Prayer is something that I believe is both a practice we learn and a gift of the Holy Spirit. One need only flip through the pages of the Psalter to be reminded of the diversity of prayers at our disposal.
However, in any discussion of prayer, it is important that we make some clarifications about what prayer is not. Prayer is not a magical solution to every problem. Yes, we should pray in all circumstances; James makes that perfectly clear. Yes, prayer is powerful in ways that we do not fully understand. However, you and I need only flip through the channel to find a televangelist who stages “prayer healings” where people line up and miraculously have their maladies instantaneously taken away. It makes me angry to see “pastors” like that prey on people’s misunderstandings of prayer, often for the goal of amassing large amounts of money. Because that understanding of prayer can lead us into really tricky territory.
If I get cancer and I pray and the cancer remains, did I not pray good enough? If I pray that my friend may find employment and no job offer comes, am I not being faithful enough? Indeed, dangerous things can happen when we take a pre-scientific understanding of the power of prayer and inject it into a 21st century world.
And yet, that does not mean that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. The fact that we understand that prayer isn’t always an instant solution to sickness and evil doesn’t mean that we should abandon prayer altogether. Of course not. Prayer is a powerful force that draws us nearer to one another and nearer to God.
I prayed a lot yesterday. Whenever your spouse wakes you up at 1:30 in the morning telling you that you have to drive them to the emergency room, that’s usually a good time to say a prayer. In fact, yesterday, I found myself inadvertently taking James advice from the very passage we’re journeying through today. Tricia and I found ourselves in the midst of the very three conditions that James lifts up today: suffering, sickness, and cheerfulness.
Driving up Nicholasville Road at 2:00 A.M. is an eery experience. The road that I normally associate with very thick traffic was completely abandoned and, thankfully, we were able to hit almost every green light between Man O War and the Central Baptist Hospital. Tricia was in a lot of pain. She was suffering. And so we prayed. Well, actually, I just prayed. Tricia was a little preoccupied.
Once we got to the E.R., we waited for the surgeon to walk us through the upcoming surgery, one of the most routine surgeries ever but a surgery nonetheless. Tricia was sick. So we held hands and prayed together out loud.
While Tricia was in surgery, I ran home to go let out the dog and take a quick shower. While I was in the middle of shampooing my hair, I heard the phone ring in the bedroom. I jumped out of the shower, bringing the shower curtain down with me, making a ruckus that caused my dog Elsie to look at me with quite a look of confusion, as I ran to pick up the phone. It was the surgeon. He told me the surgery was a success and that Tricia was doing well in recovery. I was joyous. And so I prayed. I’m sure I looked absolutely ridiculous praying that prayer of joy but it was a beautiful prayer, nonetheless.
Friends, did our prayers “heal” Tricia? I’m not sure that’s a question that I, for one, feel needs to be answered. But I do know this: that we were praying to a God who gave the doctors and the nurses that operated on Tricia the gifts and expertise they would need to do so safely and successfully. And if that’s not worth a prayer of thanksgiving, then I don’t know what is.
Prayer is indeed a powerful and mysterious thing. I’d like to share with you another experience I’ve had with prayer but, this time, an experience of having other people pray for me and the impact that had on my life.
About a year and a half ago, I was in a really, really bad place. I was still living in New York and I was beginning to discern that I was no longer being called to be the pastor of the people who are Shelter Island Presbyterian Church. As a first call pastor at the time, being in this place of discernment was a new experience for me, and a scary one at that. I was feeling inadequate, frustrated, and depressed. And to make things worse, being a pastor can be a really lonely profession, even when you’re NOT living on a 25 square mile island with no bridges. I was feeling alone and depressed. And I was feeling guilty for wanted to leave a congregation that I loved, and still love, very deeply.
As it happened, in the midst of this really horrific time, I was scheduled to go to a pastor’s retreat in Stony Point Conference Center about 45 minutes north of Manhattan on the Hudson River. It was a small group of about 12 pastor colleagues whom I had gotten to know quite well over the previous year. For several hours each day, we would simply sit in a circle and take turns sharing our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows.
When it came to be my turn, I let loose. I shared my deep pain. I shared my sense of total inadequacy. I was in a safe space with other pastors that I knew had experienced the same thing. I began to weep openly. One of my friends sitting around me said that they felt called to pray over me and lay hands on me. I agreed. So I got on my knees in the middle of the circle, almost in the fetal position, and all of my colleagues gathered around me and placed their hands on me.
My friend Shavon began praying a beautiful prayer that I wish I could recall to you. One of her hands was placed firmly but lovingly on my head while her other hand held her six month old infant son, Camden. I continued to gently weep as she prayed and others chimed in as their hands, too, held me in their love.
And, friends, something happened. I’ll never forget it. Even though the weight of all of my colleagues’ hands was quite heavy, something lifted from me. I felt the burden that I alone had been carrying all of the sudden being shared by all who were praying over me. My tears kept rolling but instead of simply being tears of sorrow they became mixed with tears of relief and joy. As the prayers came to an end, I was gently lifted from my feet and each person gave me a hug.
Now I might not have been anointed in oil like what is mentioned in today’s passage. But I was anointed with something else. Love, companionship, empathy, and human connection. I know that God sent those people to me at that exact time and God spoke to me through their loving touch.
Now, when I returned to Shelter Island a few days later, were all of my problems instantaneously fixed? No. Did I still continue to struggle with depression and grief in the months that followed. Yes.
But I was able to whether those storms with much more certainly because I knew I was not alone. I knew that God sent those friends to me to pray over me. I knew that prayer sometimes reminds me that I need to be taken care of just as much as the next person. I knew that God hadn’t abandoned me. I knew that prayer contained within itself a power that I cannot fully understand or suppress.
So, friends, forget not the power of prayer. Remember the words from last week’s passage from the Book of James: Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.
Today, we will offer prayer and the anointing with oil immediately after the benediction response for any who would like. You are invited to come forward and allow us to pray for you. Sheena and I will be at one of two stations up front so, as people are milling about after the service, you can come up to one of us and we’ll pray for and with you.
Now, it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the story I just told you.
Do you have a joy? Maybe you just got a new job or had a grandchild born? Come, share that joy with us and let us pray for you and give thanks to God.
Are you sick? Perhaps you or someone you love is struggling with a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual illness? Come, share that with us and let us anoint you with oil and send you forth with God’s blessing.
Perhaps the news this week has taken its toll on you. Perhaps old wounds have been reopened. Come, let us pray for you and remind you of God’s love for you.
Friends, as conclude our journey through James, remember the power of prayer and rejoice in the Lord your God who welcomes every prayer.
In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.