Prayer Works: A Sermon on the 5th Chapter of James
Though our readings are from Paul’s letter to the Philippians and the Gospel of Matthew today, I would like to talk about the letter of James. Our Friday morning Men’s Bible Study has been studying this letter for the past several months, and we are going to finish it this coming Friday. We have had some really good discussions on the final chapter of James the past few weeks, so that has been where my heart and mind have been as of late.
Throughout history, many people have called for the Letter of James to be removed from the Bible. Martin Luther referred to it as the “Epistle of Straw” because of James’ seemingly anti-Pauline assertion that “faith without works is dead.” Personally, I’m glad that James’ letter wasn’t nixed from the biblical canon, because this short little letter tucked away in the back of the Bible challenges us – actually it provokes us – to live out the faith that we speak of. And James’ assertion that “the prayer of the righteous can be powerful and effective” is one example of how we are being challenged by James to embody our faith. As a people of faith, our prayer is our response to God’s prevenient grace. As followers of Jesus, our prayer is our faithful work.
As you may know, after I graduated from seminary, I completed a yearlong chaplain residency at Northside Hospital in Atlanta. On my very first day of work, I stayed late so that I could be trained for the overnight shift. I wasn’t there thirty minutes before the Code Blue alarm went off. Code Blue means that someone in the hospital is in cardiac arrest. Along with the obvious team of medical professionals, chaplains are called to the scene as well. I arrived on the scene to find about 10-12 nurses frantically working to revive a young woman named Monica who went into cardiac arrest after delivering a newborn baby. I was disoriented and scared. It was my first time seeing something like this, CPR being performed in real life – not on a dummy or on TV – and somebody’s life slipping away before my very eyes. And the tragedy of it all was overwhelming. As the nurses worked tirelessly to save Monica’s life, I felt a surge of inadequacy come over me. What was I supposed to do? How could I help? At that point, all I could do was pray. And so that’s what I did. I stood off to the side, I bowed my head, and I prayed fervently for Monica, her family, and the medical staff. And then it dawned on me – as a chaplain at the hospital, my work was to pray faithfully. And as Christians, our work is to pray faithfully, and James reminds us that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
An important thing to note in this last section of James’ letter is his emphasis on prayer within the church community. In ancient times, sickness was usually linked with sin. Since they didn’t have the advanced medical understanding of disease and illness, they attributed it to punishment from God. And oftentimes, those who were sick were cast out from communities - alienated until they either got well or died. But James takes this practice and turns it on its head. Rather than looking at sickness solely as a matter between the sick person and God, James asserts that the sick person should “call the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” James is inviting us to invite our church community to participate in the healing process.
You may have noticed the paschal candle, my white chasuble, and the white altar settings this morning, and wondered what that is all about. The paschal candle and white liturgical color are used on Sundays when there is a baptism. Given the current climate, we are now having to do small, family-only baptisms at 8:00am on Sundays. Today, we baptized Amelia Eleanor Futrell, a precious little three-month-old baby. One would never know by looking at her, but Amelia has a hole in her heart. This week, she is being taken to Sacred Heart, Pensacola for more evaluations. It is possible that they will have to air lift her to Shands Hospital in Gainesville for emergency surgery to repair the hole. If not, she will still go there in the near future for that surgery. Needless to say, the baptism this morning was particularly special given the circumstances. We as a church community were doing the good, faithful work of praying fervently for Amelia, as well as her parents Jonathon and Jennifer. As James calls us to do, “we prayed over Amelia and anointed her with oil.” And we grafted her into Christ’s Body through the sacrament of Holy Baptism, where she was sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.
Roman Catholic New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson points out that what James is saying when he talks about healing and anointing prayer is “There is no gap between physical and spiritual healing. They happen together. The [anointing] oil gains power from the human hands that apply it and that, by reaching across pain and loneliness, re-establish(es) the solidarity of the community. The prayer, likewise, is said “over” the sick person as a sign of the community’s commitment and support in the time of crisis.” That certainly was the case at our service for Holy Baptism this morning.
At Northside Hospital, I found that the threshold of pain and loneliness can be extremely wide, but reaching across that threshold to simply hold a hand in prayer can bring about profound healing in many ways. And I have found that here at Christ the King, among many things, we are a prayerful community. Even if many of us are praying via Livestream or Zoom, we are still praying as a community.
We are a church that prays for one another and with one another. I know that there are many among you today that can attest to the physical and spiritual healing power of prayer. Many of us have experienced individually and as a church community James’ claim that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
About a month after that harrowing first night being the “on call” chaplain at Northside Hospital I was getting on the elevator to go up and do my afternoon rounds. As I stepped on the elevator, I saw Monica’s mother, husband and eight-year-old daughter. They were headed up to see Monica, who after a month-long stay in the intensive care unit, had improved to the point to where she could be admitted to a regular unit. We smiled as we rode up the elevator, and I mentioned to Monica’s husband how happy I was that Monica was doing so well, and how glad I was to see them. He said that prayer had pulled her and pulled them through this crisis. I find it interesting that after a month of witnessing the cutting-edge, intensive care that his wife received in the hospital’s state-of-the-art critical care facility, that he attributed his wife’s survival to the ancient practice of prayer.
The doctors, nurses, and medical professionals did their faithful work, we in the Christian community did our faithful work, and God did God’s faithful work. Our work is to pray…God’s work is to respond. God’s response may not always be the one we had hoped and prayed for. But one result we can trust in is that prayer has the amazing power to draw people closer to one another and closer to God. And when that happens, a special kind of healing takes place. Prayer is the faithful work that we do. And I have become a firm believer that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.