James 5:13-20

Wise Community 

I have always been a Detroit Lions fan for as long as I can remember.
 
But I have to confess that I am a fair weather fan.
 
No doubt, some of you will remember those years when the Lions went 2 and 14. There was even a year when they went 0 and 16. I never admitted to liking the Lions during those times.
 
But since coach Dan Campbell turned the team around early last year, I have watched every game.
 
So you will understand when I tell you that I eagerly anticipated the season opener against Matt Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams on September 8.
 
I drove to meet my sister and brother-in-law at Buffalo Wild Wings on 28th street in Grand Rapids to watch it on the big screen TVs there.
 
What was most memorable for me about the game was the talk we had during the half. My sister and brother-in-law told me of a friend about whom they were concerned.
 
He and his wife had a son with special needs. In addition, the couple has served as foster parents to a younger child. Over time, the man’s wife has become attached to this child, and urged her husband to adopt him.
 
Much to the frustration of his wife, the man has so far refused. He feels too overwhelmed by the burden of caring for the special needs son they do have.
 
I felt for the family. I asked my sister and brother-in-law if they had adequate support. I asked them if they belonged to a community that could help them bear this burden.
 
They did not know. But it seemed to me that the answer was probably “no.”
 
This is all too common today. Everywhere we hear about the loneliness epidemic. Too many people are isolated, disconnected. Whatever the causes, which are multiple, the fact is that this is not a good state of affairs for anyone to be in.  
 
We do not do well on our own. We need one another; we need strong community. This is how we are made.  
 
Augustine was right when he wrote: “There is nothing more social by virtue of its nature than human beings.”
 
For the past several weeks, we’ve been considering what makes for strong community. In sum, it is wisdom. Indeed, wisdom is the art of living well together.
 
Now wisdom, as we’ve already learned, shows itself in speech.
 
Incidentally, I had a friend who used to say: “I’d rather keep my mouth shut, and look foolish than to open it and remove all doubt.”
 
The wise person knows when it’s good to keep his mouth shut, because he knows what to say and when to say it. The wise person knows how to build up people with his well-chosen words.
 
But wisdom also shows itself in mutual submission. The wise person knows when to step aside to make room for another. The wise person knows when to yield to another so that that one will have a chance to speak or to act.
 
In a community of wise persons, each one yields to the other. If one yields to another now, he can expect the other to yield to him later.
 
This reciprocity ensures that each may appreciate the gifts the other has to offer. This is what it means to be gracious to one another. In sum, wisdom consists in taking turns, as we pointed out.
 
On reflection, these are good practices for any community to follow. Whether we are talking about a scout troop, a book club, or an AA meeting, these practices, when observed, will make for strong community.
 
Whatever we have said applies to the church certainly applies also to these communities as well.
 
But the church is different from these communities in one important respect. In the church there is not only a horizontal dimension. There is also a vertical dimension. We look across at one another. That is the horizontal. But we also look up to God together. That is the vertical. 
 
God is a part of the community, the wise community that is the church. Indeed, he created it and is ready and willing to make it wise, as James has been teaching us.
 
In 2:18, James writes that God chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
 
This helps explain why the Reformed tradition, in which the Presbyterian churches stand, has defined the church as the creation of the word.
 
In the church we can expect to encounter God’s living Word. About no other community can we say the same thing.
 
That is why James exhorts us in 2:21 to get rid of all the moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word implanted in us, which can save us. 
 
So God is at the very origin of the wise community. He gives birth to it through his living Word.
 
But we are not to imagine somehow that once God created the community, he turns away from it.
 
On the contrary, by his grace, by his infinite patience, God is with us, and will never leave us, even when we are undeserving.
 
God wants to be actively involved in the community. He really wants to be a part of our lives if we let him. God has access to our lives when we open them up to him in prayer.
 
James is convinced that God wants to be involved in the whole of our lives, both the good and the bad times, both when we are up and when we are down.
 
This is what he says: Is anyone of you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone of you happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
 
Later in our liturgy we will have a time where we are invited to “share our joys and concerns.”
 
When I was reflecting on this lesson, I wondered if those responsible for creating this moment in the liturgy were inspired by this verse.
 
We share not only those joys for which we want to give praise to God. We share also those concerns about which we feel a deep need to pray to God.
 
For James both are right and appropriate in the church, as those who first introduced “sharing our joys and concerns” into the liturgy were well aware. 
 
Prayer is that activity of the community that is directed towards God. That is obvious.
 
But prayer is also an activity that we do with and for one another. Prayer in this sense is an activity motivated by love for one another.
 
I was thinking of that couple with a special needs son and the foster child that needs a family. I wanted so badly for them to be enfolded with the prayers of a community that loved and supported them.
 
When do we need this kind of love and support of the community? When we are suffering, as this family is.
 
But James also speaks of those who are sick as well as those who are burdened by a guilty conscience.
 
We tend to see these two classes of people as distinct. But recent advances in medical science have given us deeper insight into the sensitive interface between mind and body, the interdependence between our emotional and our physical health.
 
We know better how the stress that we bear in our bodies can literally make us sick.
 
Can it be that we are making ourselves sick when we keep to ourselves that which we should confess to God?
 
The Psalmist attests that when he remained silent, his bones wasted away and his strength was sapped, as in the heat of the summer. Then he confessed his transgression to God, and God forgave the guilt of his sin.
 
As the wise community, the church is careful to avoid two extremes with respect to sin among its members.
 
On the one hand, it is not pollyannish about sin. It does not pretend it does not exist. It does not turn a blind eye to it or sweep it under the rug.
 
It has a realistic enough view of things to know that its own members fall into sin, many of them repeatedly.
 
Let’s not be hypocrites. No one among us here is perfect. And none of us should pretend to be.
 
On the other hand, it is not punitive. It does not stand there ready to condemn the one who falls into sin. Rather, it always desires the repentance and restoration of that one.
 
Indeed, James assumes that the members of the church will care enough about each other to go after those who are straying.
 
They should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner's soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
 
Therefore, James calls them to confess their sins to one another, so that they may be healed.
 
Can we imagine a church in which people feel free to confess to another what they have done, how they have lived, without fear of betrayal or condemnation, without risk of rejection?
 
Then the members become channels to each other of God’s grace, of God’s forgiving and reconciling love. 
 
Of course, we know that not all sickness is due to sin. But James does not distinguish between sinners and saints when he invites those who are sick to call the elders of the church who will pray over them and anoint them with oil.
 
In the ancient world, olive oil was believed to have healing properties. In the Bible, it can be also seen as a symbol of God’s unceasing interest in his people during times of distress.
 
It is still used in some churches to this day in special services dedicated to healing. In any case, it is the prayer offered in faith that makes the sick person well.
 
Evidently James is confident that this prayer for healing will be answered. That is, the sick person will recover from his illness as a result. But it is clear that not all sick people prayed for in this way will recover.
 
That becomes a painful pastoral problem for pastors who find themselves in the rather unenviable position of having to say something meaningful to a parishioner who comes to them with the anguished question: “why doesn’t God answer my prayers?” “Why isn’t God healing this person I have been praying for?”
 
Under these circumstances theological speculation can be less than helpful. More helpful is to follow James’ lead and focus on what can happen when God’s people pray. James does this with the help of an example. He refers to the prophet Elijah.
 
Elijah lived during the time of Ahab, an evil king who ruled over the northern tribes of Israel in the 9th century BC. Elijah prophesied a drought would occur.
 
Later, in a contest with the prophets of Baal, a rival god in the kingdom of Israel, Elijah prayed for rain. God answered his prayer and proved that Israel’s God has the power to do what Baal could not do, because Baal is not a living god.
 
Now James anticipates an objection that we are all bound to raise. “But I’m not Elijah. I’m not a powerful prophet set apart by God for a special mission.”
 
To this objection James responds: But Elijah was a human being just like us. The implication here is that if God listened to Elijah’s prayer, then why wouldn’t he listen to us?
 
The conclusion that James draws is that the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.
 
The power is not in the person praying. James makes this point clear by telling us that there is no essential difference between us and Elijah.
 
Nor is this power to be found in the act of praying itself. Rather, the power is displayed in its effects. When God answers prayer, it is God’s power that is revealed and displayed.
 
This is meant to encourage those of us who experience frustration over unanswered prayer. It gets the focus off ourselves and onto God, with whom all things are possible.
 
This sense of possibility was certainly experienced during the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, as the opening verses of our Gospel lesson for this morning show.
 
Even those outside the circle of Jesus’ disciples were participating in the power of Jesus’ name. This power was revealed and displayed in its effects. The demon-possessed to whom they went and ministered experienced release in Jesus’ name from what once bound them.
 
This is not to claim that the frustration of unanswered prayer is alleviated here. But perhaps reflecting for a moment on the phrase “participating in the power of Jesus’ name” can help us.
 
To follow Jesus is to participate in what God is doing in the world. Are we sensitive to what is God is doing around us?
 
If we are, that will give direction to our prayers. Are we sensitive to what God is doing in us, in our loved ones, among our neighbors in our communities? If we are, that will give direction to our prayers.
 
But to develop this sensitivity, we have to spend time with God. We have to wait on God. That means, among other things, that in our prayer time we have to listen as much as we talk to God.
 
That is why I pray with an open bible on my lap. I read a few verses, listening for what God is telling me in them. I then try to pray in accord with what I hear.
 
As we do this, we get attuned to what God wants for us, and begin to ask him accordingly.
 
James has been teaching us about the wise community. It is a community in which the members build one another up through wise words. It is a community in which each member takes turns, so that each may appreciate the gifts the other has to offer for the benefit of all.
 
Finally, it is a community in which God himself is involved—a God who is present to each member of the community; indeed, a God who is so present that he hears and answers the prayers of each one who offers them.
 
This is a community that the lonely, the isolated, and the disconnected—of whom there seems to be so many in our world today—need.
 
In sum, they need the church.
 
Let’s not deny the people around us this need. Let us help them meet it.
 
Augustine wrote to his own people these words.
 
“Do not begrudge God to anyone. Grab someone else, as many people as you can, everyone you can get hold of. There is room for all of them in God; you cannot set any limits on him. Each of you individually will possess the whole of him, and all of you together will possess him whole and entire.”
 
Amen.