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“Prayer of Faith, Prayer of Works”
A sermon by the Rev. Brian D. Ellison
The Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 27, 2009
Texts:James 5:13-20; Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Take a minute and imagine you just got some awful news. Terrible news. Maybe it is a particular diagnosis. Or you’ve been called down to the boss’s office and told to clean out your desk. Or you’ve been told a relationship is over.What is the first thing you do? I realize this isn’t a theoretical question for many people--what is the first thing you have done?
For a lot of us, it’s crying. For some it’s the opposite; it is to do nothing, to be stoic, to say nothing to anyone for a time. For some it is to swear and curse and cry out. For many it is to pick up the phone and call a friend, or to go to the next room and tell a spouse, or to silently speak to someone who really lives only in our memory. To accept comfort. To confess confusion. To ask why.
Now put that thought aside for a moment, and imagine a different scene. You’ve just learned something wonderful. A grandchild is to be born. The disease is completely gone. The employer has called and offered you the job—and at a salary that is much higher than you expected. He proposed, or she did, and you said yes.What is the first thing you do? Again, not necessarily a theoretical question--what was the first thing you did?
For a lot of us, it’s still crying. It’s barely possibleto do nothing. There is sometimes a lot of fist-pumping and shouting. Some of us need to call someone—maybe call a lot of people. Some of us propose a toast. Happiness begs to be shared so we’re inclined to post notices in newspapers, send out an email to friends, post wedding announcements or ultrasound images on refrigerators with magnets. We smile. We congregate. We hug.
But actually, I know the first thing that a lot of you do. In either situation, in fact.It’s a quaint thing, really. Sort of old-fashioned—in fact, people have been doing it for years.
Some of you, on receiving news that is unthinkably painful or unthinkably joyous,pick up the phone and--of all things--call me. Or Pastor Matt. Or Peggy in the church office. Or someone else from the church who you know can pass things along. Some of you, when you learn of one who is sick or hurting or in trouble, pray, and you ask others to pray with you.
And some of you, when you get good news, whisper something in my ear in the handshake line after the service or jot something down on a friendship pad or shoot me an email or tell everybody within earshot in the narthex. You say things like “Thank God.” Sometimes you even stand right up in church and say you have a praise to share.
And some of you, in fact, do this so naturally, that you’ve asked us to share with you when we hear about such a need, so that you can also join in praying. Some of you show up here on Wednesday mornings to lift up the needs of the church. Some of you make a point of sending notes of congratulations and shared thankfulness when you hear of births or anniversaries or celebrations.
And that, James says to us today, is how it should be. Except that it shouldn’t be just one part of our lives, but rather it should be all of our lives: The primary way of relating to one another. The tie that binds us in Christian community. The way they know we are Christians. Here, in the last few verses of his letter, James lifts up the all-encompassing power of prayer.
Maybe we’re surprised to hear this from James. Certainly, if we buy into the hype about James, this might seem out of place. James is all about action, not belief, right? Faith without works is dead, right? Get some bad news, the James (of our imagination) might say, then go out and make it better! Are any among thee cheerful—then get thee immediately to a soup kitchen and cheer up someone else who needs it! Are any among thee sick? Then get thyself to the doctor! Are any among thee suffering? Then take some Prozac and buck up, little camper!
This way of thinking certainly represents a particularly Western, particularly American, particularly 20th or 21st-century tendency found among religious and non-religious people alike. We’re self-reliant. We’re independent. Most of us, if we’re being honest, have very little patience for those who fail to leap into actionin a time of real need. Many of us, if we’re being honest—really honest—look at least a little bit askance and that neighbor who prays more than she takes care of her yard, the fellow student who prays more than he studies, the uncle who is always calling during dinner time to ask how he can pray for us, the fellow small group member who shares yet again how thankful she is for all the family she’s been blessed with. Do; don’t talk about it. Act. Accomplish. Achieve. Move on.
And maybe that’s not just a 21st century thing. Maybe, in fact, it’s a human thing. If prayer and praise were the natural first reaction of most people, James probably wouldn’t feel the need to say it. But he does say it, clearly and boldly, ending his whole letter with it, emphasizing its importance.
We hear him saying it. But can we believe it? More importantly, can we do it? Can we trade self-reliance for God-reliance? Independence for utter dependence? Can those of us who have been walking right along here with James, buying into all he says about obedience and service, about the dangers of hypocrisy and of friendship with the world – can we now accept this teaching on prayer?
Really, it isn’t so different from what he’s been saying throughout the letter.
For starters, maybe we need James to correct a misconception about prayer. Sometimes we treat prayer as a last resort. The thing we do when we can’t think of anything else. The option when all else fails. Have you ever caught yourself saying to someone, “Of course, you’re in my prayers—now is there anything I can do for you?” We sometimes act like prayer is the space-filler between real actions.
This is not the prayer James envisions! Prayer is work, and it is a good work! It has meaning. It is active. Prayer—this kind of prayer, at least—is consciously laying before God very real needs. It is responding to pain or suffering with a pro-active intention to see God do something about it. And praise is not just a tepid “thanks for thinking of me”;praise is to ascribe credit where it is due so that all might know and think like you do that God is pretty great. When you are praying for someone else, you are placing their needs before your own, you are honoring their dignity and worth, you are sacrificing time and energy and words that you would otherwise be spending on yourself. And when you are “singing songs of praise,” you are reordering your priorities, changing how you think about what you have and where it came from. To pray is to do.
And this doing—this work of prayer—is, like any other work in James’ mind, an act of faith. In fact, he even calls it that: “The prayer of faith.” And what he says about it is that faith matters. Chase out of your minds forever the idea that James does not care about faith. Or that James thinks faith is for wishy-washy wimps. He says, “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.”
Faith is praying for the sick, not a set of doctrines to which we give intellectual assent. It is not sitting around thinking something is theoretically possible. Faith is a willingness to make the real matters of our life dependent on an unseen being. Faith is to give credit for what has already taken place not merely to human accomplishment but to the hand of the Almighty. Do you think prayer isn’t about things that matter? Community joins to see sins forgiven. Love expressed for another and bodies are healed. And those are pretty important.
Which brings us to James’ climactic point about prayer, indeed about all speech, about faith and works: “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” There’s your memory verse: The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Prayer works.
Itsometimes works in just the ways we hope, but always it works. Elijah prayed for no rain and it didn’t rain. Then he prayed for rain and it rained. Did it work? It did.But it works in another way, too. It works in a way that happens even when the relationship doesn’t recover, or the crops fail, or the dog dies, or the son stays prodigal. In prayer, we remember to whom we belong. When we pray, we become more mindful of the suffering of others, less focused on our own wants and desires. In prayer, we testify to remind ourselves and to preach to those around us who is the source of all blessings. In prayer, we find hope for a better future beyond this present suffering. And when we pray, we are remembering that there is one who holds all our loved ones and even our own selves in perfect grace and perfect mercy,now and in eternity.
And when we praise, we provide the harmony for all those prayers. We say aloud and speak into the permanent records of our minds the reminders of God’s abundance and goodness, the things that will sustain us in those difficult times that call forth prayers down the road. When we praise, we tell the truth about God, which is itself a good thing. When from the pews we sing songs of praise, that incredibly counter-cultural act of singing together in public as an expression of our feelings, we say that this God has really done something of overwhelming impact on our lives.
All this to say: Prayer always works. Praise always matters. It works for others. And it matters for us. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
Our sojourn with James ends here for now. He has challenged our actions, our faith, our speech, our prayer life, our understanding of community, and our accommodation of the world. He has told it like it is. And for that we can say, “Thanks be to God.”
And if at any point that seems like too much. If we feel run over by James rather than propped up, well maybe that will only drive us go back to the beginning—in fact, to a verse that came before our first reading, way back at the start of Chapter 1. We’ll let this first word be James’s final word to us:
“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trails of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you” (James 1:2-5).
Thanks be to God for that, for it will be so. Amen.