James 5 – Prayer Matters

Lectionary Readings for July 24, 2022        7th Sunday After Pentecost, Year C
Hosea 1:2-10      The Family of Hosea
Psalm 85      v7 Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.
Colossians 2:6-15 Paul calls the believers in Colossae to remain steadfast in their faith.
Luke 11:1-13      Jesus offers a model for praying – The Lord’s Prayer. 

But this week we’ll look at James chapter 5 as we wrap up our series in James.

Peace through Leadership Quotes

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”  ~ Meister Eckhart 

“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.”  ~ Soren Kierkegaard

“Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.”  ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Prayer is a powerful way that we can create peace with God, with ourselves, and with others. While our prayers might not change God’s fundamental nature, our Christian tradition teaches us that God hears and is affected by our prayers, thus deepening our relationship with the universe’s Divine Creator. Private prayer helps us connect our bodies and minds with our faith. And public, corporate prayer helps us connect with the needs and concerns of people we know and love. Prayer matters because prayer connects. And those connections are the foundations for peace.

Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me. God loves me. God has plans for me.

Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading

This morning’s reading skips the first six verses of chapter 5 which warn the rich against using their wealth to insulate them from the suffering of the poor. Weegee’s 1943 photo titled The Critic visually confronts us with James’ concern. It’s easy for us to quickly say that we don’t personally identify with either extreme of society represented in this photo.

But if we pause for a bit and are brutally honest with ourselves, I think many of us – including myself – can eventually connect with both sides.

On the one hand, if we get a decent education, work hard, save some money, and spend wisely, we can easily insulate ourselves from people who have less than us. Through our daily choices of where we shop, where and with whom we recreate, and the social events we attend, we can easily ensure we never see people who are less affluent than ourselves.

On the other hand, no matter how much power, fame, and fortune we have, we know there are others – perhaps in our own community – who have more than we do. It’s easy to imagine these people, how much money they must have, how they might eat and entertain themselves, how comfortable and happy they must be… jealousy and contempt can be… toxic.

Either way, we can become terribly judgmental IF we do not get to personally know other people. Modern examples of this are politicians and movie stars. For most of us, everything we know about these incredibly famous people comes from what we’ve watched on TV, read in books, or seen on the Internet; which means we don’t really, personally know them.

Before we judge any individual – or any group of people en masse – we’d do well to insulate less and communicate more. By doing so, we just might discover that the Kingdom of God is bigger and more diverse than we ever imagined.

Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts as James encourages us to pray to a loving God that is compassionate and merciful.

Read James 5:7-16 and the rest of chapter 5 when you can.

Two days ago, Marlene, myself and another person prayed with someone whom I can best describe as one of our beloved Friday-afternoon friends. This lady’s pre-school-aged grandchild has been recently diagnosed with a terribly aggressive cancer; the child is currently in the hospital and their condition is rapidly worsening. We each offered noticeably different prayers which reflected our own understandings of faith and life.

If this emotionally and physically exhausted woman who is already clinging to any thread of hope she can find asked you to pray for her, how would you pray? How might you pray in a way that offers her comfort and compassion while also not causing her to doubt God’s love or power or her own faith should the child die? How might you pray?

Prayer can get very complicated, very quickly. But that is no excuse to not pray. I propose that prayer is the central nervous system of the entire Bible; for thousands of years, prayer has connected people with God and with others. From Genesis onward, prayer is often the first response to a crisis OR a celebration.

With his typical focus on practical application, James tells us to pray when we are suffering, sing prayers of praise when we are joy-filled, and pray as a group when one of us is sick.

In verses 15 and 16, James tells us the results we can expect from prayer. Notice how specific and vague (i.e. open to interpretation) these results are.
15 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.

How might the sick be saved? Saved from what? Perhaps your prayer can save you – or someone else – from the burdens of stress or fear or from a responsibility you are no longer able to fulfill.

How might the Lord “raise them up?” Perhaps by mystically helping the person praying exchange some of their sorry for joy or their anxiety for peace. Perhaps God will raise us above the social and emotional clutter of our lives so we can more closely connect with God.

How might prayer help us understand and embrace the notion that God offers forgiveness to anyone? Might our prayers to – OR with God – help us better understand what it means to be God’s beloved child? Might our prayers help us understand forgiveness as a renewal of intimacy rather than as a repetitive transaction that has become ordinary?

James goes on to say… 
16 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the God-seeker is powerful and effective.

Confess your sins?!? Are you crazy?!? If I do that, people will know my faults and failings and they’ll hold that stuff against me! I’ll just keep my mouth shut, suffer quietly under the weight of my guilt and fears, and keep telling folks, “everything is find; thanks for asking.”
Now that is crazy, but sadly, that thinking and behavior is “normal” for most of us, whether or not we are church-goers.

Dennis reminded me that “a lot of people would be nervous about hearing someone confess their shortcomings because they wouldn’t know what to do with it.” True! But that is a failure of our church leadership (i.e. pastors like me) to adequately train and prepare all of you so that you can skillfully, compassionately, and confidentially receive someone’s confession and help guide them to a place of healing and growth. Pastors have also failed to prepare you to confess your shortcomings with a sense of hope that you will be supported, not condemned; embraced, not rejected. Ladies and gentlemen, we have work to do!

…confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.
This week’s Bible Study group discussed how we can embrace different understandings of what healing means. Maryel noted how praying together makes us more of a family. Our weekly prayer team has certainly experienced that first-hand. Prayer interweaves us together. Margie explained that our prayers as a church body, as our community of faith, demonstrates to people beyond our walls the love our community has for an individual or a group of people.

The modern translation called The Voice offers us this reflection on James 5 regarding prayer:
“Why should we bother to pray if God already knows what we are going to ask for? Prayer involves so much more than making personal requests. It connects us with God and works to bring our wills into conformity with [God’s will]. How, then, should we pray? First, James tells us to pray in community, not just by ourselves and for ourselves. When we pray together, life is shared and community is born. We also confess our sins, not just to God, but to each other. Through this vulnerable transparency, God knits souls together in authentic community, and we discover the true benefit of prayer.” (The Voice Bible, Ecclesia Bible Society, 2012; p1501)

The many forms and styles of prayer – which we’ll talk about soon – help us create and nurture healthy, life-giving relationships with God, with ourselves, and with others. When we choose to engage with this powerful tool, the Kingdom of Heaven is filled with the energy of Divinity Itself. That energy, that power has transformed communities and lives for millennia; and prayer can do the same for us today. Let’s embrace this power and open our lives to God’s transforming Spirit.

Amen? Amen!