James 5:13-20

A TIME FOR GRATITUDE: GRATEFUL PRAYING

Today James urges Christians to pray – to pray for ourselves as we confess our sins and cry out for healing; to pray in happy times with songs of praise; to pray for one another in the church; to ask the pastors (the elders) of the church to pray for the sick and anoint them with oil; to pray for those that have wandered away from fellowship in the Gospel.  James presents prayer as a great gift from God’s gracious hand, for surely God wants to hear our prayers.  James tells us that the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

DISEASE

I was in my thirties before someone helped me to look closely at the familiar word “disease.”  A pastor pointed out to me that the word meant “not at ease” – that something was amiss – that the life of that person with a disease was out of whack.

I thought back to my first days as a 24 year old hospital chaplaincy student.  I was visiting patients on the open psychiatric unit of a general hospital.  When I knocked on one door, a small voice said: “come in.”  I had no sooner crossed the threshold taking notice of this elderly woman curled up in bed in the fetal position, than a woman with bright red hair jumped out of a bedside chair, rushed over to me, grabbed my name tag to get my name, demanding: “And who are you?”

As it turned out, my interrogator was the patient’s daughter-in-law.  She began to tell me what a horrible place the hospital was, how inept all the staff were including me, and how she would be filing a very large lawsuit any day.  Meanwhile I noticed the patient was curling up tighter and tighter in a ball.  Every time I tried to speak to the patient, the daughter-in-law would go on another tear telling me how angry she was.  When she had said everything that she needed to say since I was saying nothing, she said: “And you should be glad that my husband and father aren’t here; I’m the nice one in the family!”

At last, I was able to speak with the elderly woman.  I asked her a few basic questions about how she was feeling, how long she had been in the hospital, etc.  Then I asked where she and her husband lived.  She answered: “We live with my son and daughter-in-law.”  That’s when I asked: “And what brings you into the hospital?”  Her answer: “Hypertension.”  I had to bite the sides of my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

When I went back to my supervisor’s office to tell him about this particular visit, he said: “Isn’t it funny how sometimes those in the hospital are the sanest people in their family?”

The woman didn’t have a disease.  She was not at ease for obvious reasons.  Living with her husband, son, and daughter-in-law was clearly taking a physical and emotional toll on this poor woman.  Would that her doctor had ordered that she be allowed no visitors including her family!

Before I left the woman’s room, I prayed with her for peace.  Sad to say there would be little peace in that poor woman’s life unless her family was transformed.

CONFESSION

We’ve all heard the proverb: “Confession is good for the soul.”  Sometimes confession is also good for the body and especially good for relationships.

When our lives are out of whack, it takes quite a toll on us in some way.  Sometimes there is a most obvious connection between a bad choice and a bad consequence.  Drunk driving can lead to an arrest.  Regularly spending one’s free time in a bar can lead to infidelity, to divorce, to the loss of a job, to the loss of friendships, to the loss of a way of life, and even to the destruction of one’s health.  Such are some of the more dramatic cases of cause and effect between spiritual brokenness and tragic consequences.   

Each week when we make confession at the beginning of worship, we call to mind the ways in which our lives have been out of whack the past week.  Every day many Christians get down on their knees and ask for forgiveness and for God’s help to amend their broken ways.  But sometimes the weight of that sin is so great and the sense of shame and disappointment so strong that someone asks for time to make a private confession.  Whatever that person says to me in confidence is kept confidential.

Praying prayers of confession in the presence of a pastor carries with it the chance finally to be done with a terrible misdeed.  Praying prayers of confession in the presence of a pastor carries with it the power of hands laid upon one’s head and the spoken promise that God does indeed remember that sin no more.  Praying prayers of confession in the presence of a pastor carries with it the opportunity to reflect upon how life can be indeed different, indeed transformed with the Holy Spirit’s good and gracious help.  

PRAYERS FOR HEALING

At the end of each weekend service at St. Matthew’s, one or more persons typically comes forward during the final hymn to receive healing prayer with the laying on of hands and the anointing with oil.  This prayer by the pastor (elder), which James urges upon Christians, is not magic, is not a substitute for the amendment of life, or medical care, or treatment.

Rather this traditional and ancient practice of the Christian Church recognizes that “dis-ease” is a spiritual problem.  Sometimes it is a spiritual problem in the soul that causes the “dis-ease”, and sometimes it seems that the “dis-ease” creates spiritual problems in the form of great doubt or despair.

Some illness, some brokenness seems a rather obvious consequence of bad choices.  But some illness, some brokenness, is rather inexplicable.  We wonder why little ones get seriously sick and why some die.  We wonder why a human rat walks around scot-free with little or no problems and why devout saints of the church suffer so greatly.  That sort of score-keeping and note-taking on the human condition is crazy making if you try to figure out why. 

Scripture tells us that there is an old evil one that loves to tell lies, to inflict pain, and to destroy confidence in God’s goodness.  In the Large Catechism, Martin Luther warns us that the devil is constantly attacking us with the intent of drawing us away from God.  Tough times and tragic losses becomes occasions for that old enemy to work overtime trying to convince us that God’s love is a sham and God’s love means nothing.

One of the strongest reasons for coming forward for healing prayer in tough times is the assurance that God has not forgotten us, that God has not taken His love from us, that God indeed is stronger than sin and sickness and doubt and death.  The pastor’s touch and the pastor’s words are not somehow magical.  They embody God’s promise of grace and mercy!  They carry the certainty that God’s love in Christ is the last word!

SALVATION AND HEALING

In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes that where there is forgiveness of sins there is life and salvation.  The word “salvation” literally means “healing.”  God’s Son Jesus is able to help us, because He is both God’s Son and fully human, born of the Virgin Mary.  Christ Jesus comes down to earth to reach out to us who were once far off from God because of sin.  On His cross, Christ Jesus has suffered with us and for us.  He has died to take away the sins of the whole world including our own sin.  When we are buried with Him in the washing of Holy Baptism, the old sinner in us is drowned.  Just as Christ Jesus was raised from the dead on Easter Sunday, so now those that trust Him with our living and dying and who are baptized into His death and resurrection are also raised to a new life every day.

St. Paul likes to say that we are being saved.  We have the promise of healing.  We are living in-between what we used to be and what we will be.  All that is not right now will be made right in the life to come.  All that is wrong with our bodies here will be made right when we receive a new body in the resurrection.  All the hurts and heartaches that come with caring about other human beings will give way to everlasting joy.  Each time we hear the words of Christ’s forgiveness spoken, yesterday’s sin becomes a cancelled check.  Today is a day of gracious release.  For we have life and salvation as a promissory note!  That is what the Holy Spirit guarantees!  You can take it to the bank!

What it all means is that when the Lord Jesus comes to us in the bread and in the wine, we have a foretaste of the feast to come – the great wedding banquet in heaven when faith will give way to sight, when hope will give way to fulfillment, and when God’s love will be all in all.  The promise of salvation is the promise of ultimate healing!

PRAYER FOR THE WANDERERS

Many of you have heard me tell about the woman that prayed 40 years for her friend to come to faith in Jesus Christ, and I got to be part of the fulfillment of those prayers.  There was great joy that Easter Vigil, that Easter Eve, when the woman was finally baptized along with her daughter-in-law and two of her grandchildren.

We may not get to see the fulfillment of our prayers in this life, but that should never stop any of us from praying constantly for those that have wandered off and those that have never yet believed in Jesus as Lord and Savior.  If you have grown children that have abandoned their faith, don’t give up.  Keep praying for them.  If someone is no longer in your life because of their bad choices, don’t give up.  Keep praying for them.

It is not we that do the saving.  It is all God’s work.  Our job is to sow seeds.  Our job is to share good news.  Our job is to invite and keep inviting loved ones to worship.  But it is the Holy Spirit who gives the gift of faith to those that do not harden their hearts.

Sometimes our prayers of confession may well entail admitting that we have been part of causing others to stumble along the way.  To our shame we may have to admit before our heavenly Father that we have said and left unsaid, done and left undone words and deeds that have damaged the cause of Christ.  For this we again need to beg for forgiveness and pray that the Holy Spirit will heal the wounds that we have inflicted.

A TIME FOR GRATITUDE

Five weeks ago we began this preaching series on James reminding ourselves that the Christian life is a time for gratitude.  We cannot earn God’s love and mercy.  It is a free gift freely given to all the world in Jesus Christ.  Indeed everything we have and everything we are is a gift from God’s gracious hand!

We pray not because we have a God that has to be somehow convinced to help us or love us.  We pray not because we have a God that has to be buttered-up with sweet words or shame-filled groveling.  We pray not because we have a God that willfully holds back gifts until they are begged for and who only then dispenses them willy nilly.

We pray, because our heavenly Father wants to hear from us like a loving parent wants to hear from his children.  We pray, because we are grateful that an awesome God has come down to us in Jesus Christ to save and redeem us sinners.  We pray, because we trust that, even when we cannot presently see it, that our God is bringing us safely home to Himself.  We pray, because we are grateful that God loves us, and we are His and He is ours forever!

Samuel D. Zumwalt is the Pastor at St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wilmington, North Carolina