James 5:13-20

Click here to view the full sermon video, titled "Healing"

It’s become something of a trope that whenever news breaks about the most recent mass shooting event in our country, politicians invariably trot out the phrase “thoughts and prayers.” And just as invariably there is backlash against this phrase. What good are thoughts and prayers, goes the argument, in response to the ongoing problem of gun violence? The unfortunate result of both the overuse of this phrase and the backlash is that we might conclude that thoughts and prayers are useless, that they mean nothing. Indeed, in this very letter James makes the argument earlier that faith without works is dead. That if we are merely hearers and not doers of the Word that we are like a person who looks in the mirror and going away from it immediately forgets what they look like. Hearers forget, admonishes James. Doers act. 

In the wake of something so terrible as gun violence, in response to lives cut short by weapons and ammunitions too easily accessed, thoughts and prayers feel entirely too passive, entirely too ineffective. But of course, it isn’t just in response to tragedy that prayer starts to feel pointless. I got to spend time with my friend Rob this week. Rob is on his sabbatical leave as the Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church. As we were circling the parking lot, he told the joke of the woman who was running late for an appointment. When she got to where she was going she couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere. In desperation she cried out, “God, I know I haven’t been very faithful, but if you will help me find a parking spot, I swear, I SWEAR, I will come back to church and rededicate my life to you. Just then, the sun shone through the clouds and there in front of her a spot opened up. “Never mind,” she said, “I found one.”  

Maybe the problem is that the way we talk about prayer feels too easy, that it’s just the thing we say to get what we want. Plenty of people who watch sports pray for their team to win. But I’m not sure that God is paying much attention the outcome of our sporting events, or  convenient parking. In the chapter before this one James even suggest that we ask and do not receive from God because we ask wrongly, just trying to get whatever will satisfy us in the moment. It’s a reminder that that really isn’t why we pray. We do not treat God as the Genie in a bottle who will grant us whatever we wish. In her book All About Love, the cultural critic Bell Hooks observes that children who are indulged with whatever they ask for often grow up to believe that this is what love looks like. It looks like getting our way, getting what we want. Conversely, they conclude that the inability, or unwillingness of another to give them their way is the opposite of love. Often when I hear people question the existence of a loving God, the argument has something to do with the pain of suffering of a world that does not operate according to our expectations. “If God is so loving,” the argument goes, “then why did this, or that terrible things happen?” As if it is God’s job to shield us from suffering. 

James seems to have a different idea. If we are suffering we should pray. Notice that he says nothing about God magically taking our suffering away. But prayer in the face of suffering isn’t useless either. That’s because prayer isn’t meant to be transactional. I say the magic words and voila I get the thing that I asked for. Prayer is how we draw closer to God. When we suffer, we draw close to God in the way that a child draws close to their parent for comfort. The kiss doesn’t heal the injury, but it really can make it better, because if nothing else we know that we don’t suffer alone. Likewise, if we’re joyful. James says to sing out loud. We sing out because if suffering alone only compounds the experience, to experience joy alone can diminish it for lack of someone to share in our joy. When we’re sick, it helps to have someone come and pray with us. If it were just about being cured, what would be the point? But if the prayer is about recognizing the power of facing such things with the help and companionship of our community, then why wouldn’t we want that? 

Today is our annual celebration of those in this congregation who have lived at least 90 years. That’s a long time. For many of them they have belonged to this faith community for much of that time. They have witnessed and experienced for themselves the power and effectiveness of the prayers we share with one another. They have come to the font to confess their sins together. They have know the healing power of prayer. 

Speaker and writer Tony Campolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer. Campolo prayed boldly for the man’s healing. The next week, he got a telephone call from the man’s wife. She said, “You prayed for my husband. He had cancer.” When he heard her use the past tense verb, Campolo thought that his cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said, “He died.” 

Campolo felt terrible. But she continued, “Don’t feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God. He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn’t take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence.” 

But the lady told Campolo, “After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We’ve sung. We’ve laughed. We’ve read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they’ve been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing.” 

And then she said something incredibly profound. She said, “He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.”  

Too many people act as though aging is a problem in seek of a cure. It’s something they want to avoid at all costs. But today we celebrated those in our midst who have seen more, know more, experienced more than we can begin to imagine. Their lives are a treasure trove of hard won wisdom, but more than that they are a testimony to the healing power of our the prayers we share with and for one another. There is no cure for aging. But we are healed from believing it’s a problem when we celebrate together  all that those years have brought with them. The suffering, the joy, the sickness, the going away and coming back, we are saved through all of it when we are drawn near to God and one another through the power of our prayers.