Pray for One Another James 5:13-20 Sunday, September 30, 2012 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching

Transcription

1 Pray for One Another James 5:13-20 Sunday, September 30, 2012 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching Scripture. Prayer. Opening. I heard a story about a salesman who had been working in Virginia and was being transferred to California. The move had been the main topic of conversation around the house for weeks. The night before the big move, when his five-year-old daughter was saying her prayers, she said, And now, God, I ll have to say goodbye forever because tomorrow we are moving to California. James s letter to the whole church ends with a focus on prayer. He wants to make sure that even Christians who move to California remember its importance. I. James on Prayer. Ever practical, James gives us clear instructions on how to take action in the form of prayer. Suffering? Pray. Cheerful? Sing Praise. Sick? Call the elders to pray and to anoint with oil. Desire healing? -- confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Simple, direct advice. Easy to comprehend. Very difficult to live out in practice. This is classic James. There is no question as to what he is teaching. He says what he means and means what he says. The questions come when we try to figure out how to follow his instructions. He lays big challenges before us. At the same time, he gives us a clue as to how to proceed. In referring to Elijah, James hints that we can learn from more experienced folks. 1

2 James says in verse 16 that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. We can learn to be more powerful and effective in our prayer from those who do it well. We can learn from the powerful and effective prayer lives of the righteous. This means reading books about prayer, attending classes, seminars and lectures on prayer, practicing prayer with other Christians in prayer groups, studying the Bible concerning prayer, teaming up with a prayer partner... William Barclay gives us this teaching on prayer: When we pray, remember: 1. The love of God that wants the best for us. 2. The wisdom of God that knows what is best for us. 3. The power of God that can accomplish it. (William Barclay, Prodigals and Those Who Love) This is great advice, in the spirit of James. Simple and direct. God loves us; God is wise; God is powerful. What more do we need to know? We can trust Him with our deepest and most vulnerable prayers. Stuart Briscoe, in his book, Getting into God, shares this equally simple and direct teaching: When our children were small, he writes, and we were trying to teach them to pray, we had three kinds of prayer: Please prayers, Thank you prayers, and Sorry prayers. Please prayers, Thank you prayers, and Sorry prayers. These are the same basic prayer categories that James suggests. When we pray for others, we are saying please prayers. When we offer praise to God we are saying thank you prayers. And when we confess our sins to God and to one another, we are saying sorry prayers. 2

3 James would love this kind of simple, direct approach to prayer. In wrapping up his book to Christians in all times and in all places, his biggest concern is that we pray for one another. And our primary goal in prayer, according to James, should be to bring back anyone who wanders from the truth. In short, to seek after the lost, the hurting, the wounded, the lonely, the angry, the forgotten anyone who has wandered away from God. Prayer is the place to start in this regard. Sometimes prayer can be difficult. We may feel separated from God somehow, or we don t know what to do or what to say. Or we may be afraid of the pain that is just below the surface. If we open ourselves in prayer, we might not be able to stop the outpouring of grief or anger or shame, or maybe even the fear itself. Prayer makes us vulnerable. Prayer changes things, and sometimes we are not ready for change. A woman went to Andrew Murray with the problem of feeling she couldn't pray. He said: Why then, do you not try this? As you go to your inner chamber, however cold and dark your heart may be, do not try in your own might to force yourself into the right attitude. Bow before Him, and tell Him that He sees in what a sad state you are, and that your only hope is in Him. Trust Him, with a childlike trust, to have mercy upon you, and wait upon Him. In such a trust you are in a right relationship to Him. You have nothing -- He has everything. The woman later told Murray that his advice had helped her. She discovered that her trust in Christ's love for her could help her pray, even when prayer did not come easily. (from Our Daily Bread). II. The Community of Prayer. When James writes about prayer, he does not limit prayer to the realm of the personal and 3

4 the private. James states that the prayer of faith will save the sick and lead to the forgiveness of sins, and that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. He ends his letter with these words: whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. James is concerned about the whole community of faith, and the power that prayer can have within the body of Christ throughout the world. According to James, our prayers and actions on behalf of other help them, yes, but they help us, as well. When we pray for others, our relationship with God grows, and we are blessed in a hundred amazing ways we could never have foreseen. James is talking about the community of prayer, and the fruits of powerful, effective prayer for the whole family of faith. I would invite you to write down any names that come to you today and in the days ahead -- names of people you know who might be ready to learn more about God, who might be ready to risk coming to church again or for the first time, who might be hungry for a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. Write down their names, pray for them, and carry their names in your pocket or wallet or glove compartment, or post them on your refrigerator. Put them somewhere that you can see them and be reminded to pray for these folks. It s amazing how, when we pray for particular people, God suddenly puts them in our path or makes a new way forward in their lives. I encourage you to try this experiment and see how it works for you. When we remember William Barclay s words -- that God loves us; God is wise; God is powerful we are encouraged to trust God not only for ourselves, but for our family and friends, for our church, for our community, for the whole world. When we remember Stuart Briscoe s teaching, we are encouraged to come to God with childlike trust, saying, please, thank you, and sorry, on behalf of our church family here on the corner of Beech and Adams. As we pray for one another, a spirit of love and joy and compassion grows among us. We know that God s 4

5 Spirit moves among us. We know that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ walks among us. III. Prayer in the Way of Jesus. If we live our lives as a prayer, following the way of Jesus as much as possible, the power of our prayers will increase. Henri Nouwen, a beloved author on the practice of prayer, writes that, the spiritual life [is] the active presence of God s Spirit in the midst of a worry-filled existence (Making All Things New). Nouwen is one of those righteous people from whom we can learn to pray better. He describes the spiritual life as being difficult at first. The powers that cause us to worry are so strong. But if we take a small step and begin to pray a little each day, a hunger develops in us. We begin to hunger for God and our prayer life grows and grows. We are led deeper and deeper into God s kingdom in spite of ourselves. And, says Nouwen, There, to our joyful surprise, we will discover that all things are being made new. All things being made new this is the salvation that James speaks of. This is the forgiveness of sins that is ours as the result of a righteous person praying for us. Jesus is always concerned with the forgiveness of sins. Healing the sick is a sign of the salvation that occurs when Jesus touches the blind and the lame and the leper. In our humanness, we tend to be more concerned with healing than with salvation in most of our prayers. We want our sick child to be well, we want our dying loved one to be healed, we want peace in a war-torn country. Salvation is important, for everyone, for the whole world. We understand this. We get it. And if we forget, James is right there to remind us. 5

6 Barbara Brown Taylor is helpful in sorting out these wrenching issues. She writes: While illness is no sin, plenty of sick people carry guilt about their sickness. Maybe they did not wash their hands enough. Maybe they did not get enough exercise. They probably ate too much, drank too much, smoked too much, thought too many of the wrong kind of thoughts. Anyone who thinks there is no shame to illness has not been paying attention. Just ask the sick how many of their friends disappeared when they took to their beds. If they can still speak, they can name the names, along with the names of those they never expected, who showed up bearing jars of flowers and pots of soup. When we pray for one another, we find compassion for one another. We find the courage to say that we are hurting. We find the time to care for the sick and the lonely and the lost. Prayer doesn t just change things. Prayer changes everything. Closing. Early African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions. Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent one, Brother, the grass grows on your path. (Today in the Word, June 29, 1992). May the grass never grow on the path that leads you to prayer. May the paths always be well-worn that lead you to pray for one another. Amen. 6