Embracing Prayer

James 5:13-18

Introduction

When I think about my spiritual journey, I can pinpoint a number of major events that helped shape how my faith would develop. Among those events, there is one that radically changed the trajectory I was on. That event was a dramatic answer to prayer. I will not go into the details at this time, but what I can say is that previously I had understood God to be out there somewhere and that prayer, like other religious activities, was something that you were just expected to do. It never entered my mind that God might actually respond to a prayer and it was only when I was in a very desperate situation that I reached out in prayer and God responded in a way I could recognize.

Not everyone believes this. When we hear that someone is going through a hard time, we respond with “Thoughts and prayers.” What we mean by that is that we feel bad for what they are going through and we hope for the best. That is not necessarily a bad thing but it is not what James is talking about in this passage.

I will confess that this passage is a difficult one and Christians are not agreed on how to interpret it. I attended a church that saw this as being primarily about physical healing and that it was a promise that if you follow the steps, you WILL be healed. However, even in that church, often people remained ill or even died. I had a friend in seminary talk to me about how their church looks at this passage and it was almost opposite of the previous example. They did not believe that God still healed today but they also believed in being obedient to the teachings of Scripture and so they would follow these steps without any expectation of a physical change. Within the Roman Catholic tradition, these steps have developed into what is called Extreme Unction and it is usually performed as a person is approaching death. So with all those different interpretations, what do we do? That’s what we are going to look at.

James and Prayer

As we read about the early church, we see that prayer was a very important part of their activity. We see that it was a time of great miracles by the apostles but what about the prayers of the regular people? One of my favourite passages in Acts is when there is a prayer meeting that is praying for Peter in prison and when Peter is miraculously freed from prison and shows up at the prayer meeting, the person at the door leaves Peter outside because she can’t believe that their prayers were answered.

Most likely, prayer was a bigger part of the early church than it is today. This is not so much because they were more spiritual but rather because they needed to rely on God more. Our medical knowledge and safety practices makes life much safer than it would have been, even just a couple of hundred years ago. 

However, as we look at this passage, we should remember that this includes but is not limited to physical illnesses. James mentions general suffering, physical illness, and spiritual struggles. This does not sound all that different from our experience.

So what does James tell the church they should do when people experience these things? The answer is prayer. And James offers this, not as an added ritual, but with the expectation that something will happen.

This is where we get hung up. What exactly will happen when we pray and anoint with oil? What did James think would happen? Oil was often used as a medical treatment at a time when more therapeutic treatments were not available. Anointing also had a spiritual element as well, and it seems as if these two things were blended in what we see here. But this was more than just a treatment. It was a calling out to God in a time of distress.

James says that if people do this, they will be healed. We then have to reconcile this with the many times we pray and a person does not get better. Are we doing something wrong? Are we missing some little detail?

There is a conversation within disability theology that I think is helpful. It is the distinction between healing and curing. We might think of them as being the same thing, but they are not necessarily. Curing is changing the situation so that the person no longer has the illness or injury. So when Jesus healed a person who was blind so that they could see, that is a cure. But isn’t that the same thing as a healing? A cure can most definitely be a healing, but a healing does not have to be a cure. What if healing is a broader category that can include but is not limited to a cure? For example, the Apostle Paul asked that the Lord would take away his thorn in the flesh. That did not happen and Paul was not cured. And yet if you look closely at that passage in 2 Corinthians, there is a change in Paul, one that perhaps could be considered a healing. We will talk more about this.

Ultimately what James is emphasizing is what is supposed to happen in the church and not so much what God will be expected to do. For James, this means a congregation gathering around and supporting a member in need, whatever that need is.

Cultivating a Culture of Prayer

So what do we do with all of this? As we consider our local congregations, what are the takeaways for us? If you are like me, you will want to develop a theology of healing and try to understand why God sometimes seems to heal and sometimes seems not to heal. The truth is that the Bible does not give us a full answer to this question. If we get focused on how and why God does what he does, we will get very frustrated.

Let us focus on building the kinds of communities that James talks about. They are places where what is happening to our brothers and sisters really matters. While not our only response, one of the things we must do is to pray. But do we dare hope that something will actually happen? I once was part of a Bible study and a woman who had no luck with doctors told me to pray for her and anoint her with oil. The next week when I talked to her, her persistent health issue was gone. I am not planning on starting a career as a healing evangelist but it is good for us to expect something.

Let us think back to the issues James mentions: general suffering, physical illness, and spiritual struggles. And then let us consider that distinction between healing and curing. Most likely, not every illness that we pray for will be cured in the sense that the illness is completely gone. But perhaps we could seek to see a more general healing in all of these areas. Healing rather than curing opens up space for God to do new and unexpected things in our life and in the lives of those we pray for. A healing may be a restoration of a relationship, it may be a renewed faith, it may be peace in the midst of suffering. I have seen God as work many times that may or may not have been the exact thing we were praying for. Here is the great thing, we do not have to determine how God will respond.

The heart of this passage is that of a community that gathers in all of its weakness and suffering, supporting one another and dependent on God. That is something that we can all do. Help each other in practical ways, as well as in prayer. Call out to God with faith that God will do something, even if we do not know what that is.

Conclusion

There is so much that has changed between the church that James knew and our churches today. If they were able to see how we do church today, with ordained clergy and special buildings and a huge library of worship songs and Scriptures available in every language we want, they would struggle to comprehend it all. But some thins have not changed.

We, like them, are people with all sorts of struggles. We have general suffering, we have physical illnesses, and we have spiritual struggles. Even with all of our clergy, counsellors, and doctors, life is not easy. Thank God for the supports we have but do not forget that which most often gets us through our suffering: the presence of God and the support of each other. We pray for one another, not just as a polite gesture or a religious obligation, but because the Father cares about us and we are adopted as his children. We may be tempted to figure out God and what the future holds but we need to focus on being the kind of community that supports one another and trusts in God completely.