“Let Us Pray”

James 5:13-20

September 18, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

The letter of James has been a problem right from the beginning. In the first place, it is not really a letter. It is a sermon and a pretty good one at that. It was circulated, as letters were, among the churches at the end of the first century. It was passed along because someone thought that it was worthy of instruction and that its words might be helpful. Indeed they are helpful.

It has some of the great notable sayings of the Bible in its five chapters, such as, “Be doers of the word, not merely hearers only.” That is the kind of biblical saying that is worthy of being cross stitched, framed, and hung in the living room of your houses as a reminder of your Christian calling. James has a couple of more sayings that probably won’t make the walls of our houses, but they should make their way to our hearts and our minds. Let me give you those two. James writes, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. Brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” And then, of course, James’ second most famous line. We know the truth of this one, “The tongue is a fire.”

Just so you know, the main criticism that this little letter got was that it was not like

the letters of Paul. Paul’s letters, as you know, dominate the New Testament. There are thirteen of them, if you couple the Corinthian correspondence with the ones to Thessalonica, and to young Timothy. Some argue that Hebrews was written by Paul, too, so you could add that one to the list. Paul’s letters, for the most part, are so deep, theologically. In the eyes of some, not only does James not have much depth to them, it also contradicts one of Paul’s main themes, that we are saved by our faith in God’s grace alone, not by our works. This is one of the reasons why Martin Luther, the great German reformer, wondered why James made it into the Bible. He called this letter an epistle of straw, meaning that he did not think that it held much weight.

The problem, I think, is that Paul wrote theology for the whole church. He wrote about practical concerns and church problems, but for the most part, he was concerned about what people believed and why. James, on the other hand, wrote practical advice for a particular congregation. Paul is not easy to understand. James is. In fact, in the second letter of Peter, which is a lot like James, there is a line that reads, “There are some things in Paul’s letters difficult to understand.” To be honest with you, sometimes I read what Paul writes and I say, “Huh?” So I read it again and I say, “Huh?” So I get out another translation of the Bible, with more contemporary wording, and I read the passage for the third time and I say, “Ah, huh?” James isn’t hard at all to understand. It hardly takes any effort at all. You can easily comprehend it, because he uses simple words, giving a church advice on how it ought to arrange its life together.

In our text for this morning, the last part of the fifth chapter, James is talking about those who are suffering, those who are sick, and those who are sinning. Well, that pretty much covers it. That’s a pretty good description of most of the people in any church, any congregation, the suffering, the sick, and the sinners. James doses out a prescription for all three. The prescription is the same; it is prayer. “Are any among you suffering, you should pray. Are any among you sick, they should call for the elders of the church for prayer. If there is someone among you who has sinned, and they confess their sins, then pray for them.” If you take James seriously, and I do not see any reason why you wouldn’t do that, then prayer is what the church ought to be spending most of its time doing. In a sermon last July, July a year ago, I challenged all of us to spend at least fifteen minutes a day in prayer. In that sermon, I told you that if you would pray fifteen minutes a day for thirty days that prayer would become a holy habit for you.

So you are doing that, right? You are praying at least fifteen minutes a day, right? Right?

Just in case you are not. If you still need convincing that prayer is a good idea, in fact a great idea, let me give you two reasons why I think that we should pray. Here’s the first, we should pray because we know what prayer will do. I will go ahead and give you the second thing, so you’ll know where our sermon is going. The second reason that we should pray is that we do not know what prayer will do.

What I know is that prayer will change you. I have thought about this for a long time. Look at those people that we consider saints, those people who are spiritually admirable to us. Why are they? Why do we admire them? I know such people. There was a woman in the Harmony Grove Church whose name was Ida Lee Walters. She believed in the power of prayer.

While I was at the Harmony Grove Church, we were trying to raise money to build a new fellowship hall. In an act that I will just chock up to sheer stupidity, I told the church that if they would raise $10,000 by a certain date, I would preach from the roof. I will never make a promise like that again. I didn’t think that there was any way that they could do it. They did it!

The day before I was to preach, several from the church came and set up folding chairs on the church’s front lawn. Because the roof was so steep, we rented a scissor lift that would elevate me to the roof line. The next morning the rains came. A storm blew in. It was obvious that I would not preach from the roof. When the worship service was over, Ida Lee came over to me, reached for my hand, and whispered in my ear, “Preacher, I prayed for rain today.” I said, “Thanks, Ida Lee.”

You know people like Ida Lee. There is something about their lives, there is a depth to it. There is a quality to it. There is a peace about it. There is the ability to accept life in all of its seasons. Their lives are full with love and compassion that go out so quickly and so freely. It is as if they had something inside of them that is missing inside of us. What is it? I think that it is prayer. I really do. What prayer does is to empty or to cleanse our lives of everything that is a distraction, all that is not really important, all that is draining, and all that freezes us. Prayer, among other things, is inviting God to come inside of us and to take over.

I heard of a man who runs a retreat center in New Mexico who speaks about prayer in terms of creating holy space inside of us. He says that prayer removes all those things that we have been carrying around for years and creates holy space inside of us. Now, if you want God to come inside of your life, then you have to make room for God. That is what prayer does. Maybe one of the reasons that God doesn’t come into our lives is that are lives are too cluttered.

There is no room. Maybe it like the spare bedroom at our houses. The rooms are cluttered. The bed is piled high with clothes that need to be put away. Now, when we know that someone is coming to visit, to spend the night, we clean up the mess. Prayer is a means of remodeling, making room for God. Prayer is a form of hospitality, preparing for a visitor. Prayer creates space. We have seen that, undoubtedly. Prayer makes room for God and for other people.

I am a fan of Henry Nouwen, a great writer. I have many of his books. A preacher tells of meeting Henry at a dinner party. The preacher felt privileged to sit by him at the table. He knew that Henry was world famous. It came time for the evening to be over. So the preacher said farewell to everyone. Henry asked if he could walk the preacher out to his car, which he did. The three of them, the preacher, his wife, and Henry Nouwen talked for fifteen or twenty minutes out there by their car. He talked to them as if they were the most important people he had ever met. He asked about their family and their church. He was interested in them. The preacher said that Henry took them into the holy spaciousness of his life. He said that it was great and remarkable. He said that he would never forget it. When Henry Nouwen died, the testimonies of his life were told, and many of them included the words, “Henry said to me, ‘Let me walk you to your car.’”

That is what happens when you make room in your life for God. God will come in. God will invite others to join Him there because now there is plenty of room in your life for all those people that God loves. James says that the church ought to be characterized by prayer, because we know what will happen if we pray. Prayer will change you. Prayer will create this space.

And for that reason, we also ought to pray for the church. Hardly a week goes by that I do not receive a slick mailing from a group that is inviting me to come to learn about church growth and development. I’ve been invited by some of the great names of the world. They speak of renewing the church. Which is good, of course, but the renewal of the church has never come from a seminar or a workshop. It has come from God and His Holy Spirit, when the time is right, when we make space, so that God can move.

Church, I just really believe this. I am confident of it. We need to do this. We need to pray, we need to lift up the church in prayer. You have promised to do it, are you doing it? If you’re not, why aren’t you? You promised that you would. We need to be praying for God to have enough space among us to move around and then to bring us people that He loves. Do you pray for first time visitors to come here? I do! We need to be praying that God will give us success in our ministries. We need to be praying that God will give us wisdom and vision and guidance. We need to be praying that God will bless this place that God will bless me and all who dare to dream.

I ran across the story of a church; the church was struggling with some huge issues. Many decisions had to be made. They needed a new way of doing things and they found it. They decided that before they made any decisions that they would gather the leaders together, have a time of Bible study. that led to a time of prayer and eventually to open and honest sharing with one another. Imagine that, making decisions after Bible study and a time of prayer and sharing? That is a wild idea, isn’t it? It is so wild that I think that we ought to do it here. Will you support me in such a thing?

We pray because we know what will happen. We will change, the church will change. We also pray because we don’t know what will happen. That is the message from the second part of our text. There is Elijah, praying for rain. He’s our example. Elijah was just like us. James makes that perfectly clear. He was an ordinary man, but a prophet, up against Jezebel and the priests of Baal. Baal was a nature God who was supposed to help with the farming, to bring rain when it was needed and to keep it away when there was too much of it. Elijah, to confound the priests of Baal, prayed that there would be a drought. Later he prayed for rain. The rains came. The point is that surprising things can happen when you pray. Elijah was an ordinary man. He prayed. Look what happened.

This is the most dangerous part of any talk about prayer. The temptation is to make prayer something that will manipulate God, to get God to do what we think God ought to do. But there is a connection between all of us, and prayer is that which binds us all together. I think that John Donne had it right when he said that no man is an island. We are a part of the same thing. What I do affects you. What you do affects me. So please pray for me, and I will pray for you. Who knows what will happen.

Let me close with a story that I’ve shared with you before. It is a perfect ending and so I want to use it. It is the story of a young preacher who went to see an elderly woman at the nursing home. At the end of their visit, he asked her if there was anything particular that he could pray for. With all her strength she said, “I want you to pray for me to be healed. I can’t walk. I want to walk. If I can walk, I can go home and live in my house.” The preacher was educated. He had been to seminary. He knew how to pray an acceptable prayer, so that if healing did not happen, all of the bases were covered. So he prayed, “Lord, we pray for our sister to be healed. But if that is not possible, give her peace and a willingness to accept her illness. Amen.” He finished the prayer. The woman opened her eyes. They were wild. She pulled the covers back, put her feet on the floor, stood up and yelled out, “I’m healed. I’m healed! Thank you God. Thank you, preacher!” She ran out the door and down the hallway. She danced and said, “Look at me, I’m healed”

The preacher got his things, left the room, walked out to his car, opened the door,

put his head on the steering wheel and said to God, “God, don’t you ever do that to me again!”

Why not? We pray because we know what will happen. And we pray because sometimes there are surprises.

(Special thanks to Rev. Mark Trotter for the idea for this sermon, a few lines in it, and the closing story).