PROPER 21 YEAR B

James 5:13-20 (New International Version)

The Prayer of Faith13Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. 16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Barclay says a wonderful thing in his comments on this passage. I love it! And it reminds me so much of our beloved Africa. He says, "The early Church was a singing Church. It was characteristic of the early Church that they were always ready to burst into song." It is the characteristic of the first Christians that they speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in their hearts. (Ephesians 5:19)

They are so grateful that they are compelled to sing! The word of Christ lives in them and there was a joy in the hearts of the early believers which came from their lips in songs of praise because God had been so merciful and gracious. The pagan world was sad and frightened and tired. And in contrast to that weary mood the Christian response was singing joy. Barclay remembers that that was what impressed John Bunyan when he heard the four poor old women talking, as they sat at the door in the sun: "Methought they spake as if joy did make them speak." Again, when Bilney the martyr grasped the wonder of God's redeeming grace, he said, "It was as if dawn suddenly broke on a dark night."

Always the church has been a singing church. When Pliny, the governor of Bithynia wrote to Trajan, the Roman Emperor, in AD 111, to tell him of this new sect of Christians, he said that his information was, "that they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as God."

What a beautiful reminder of what we Christians have inherited!

The next verses from the fifth chapter of James' letter describe a healing church.

14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

Here the Church inherited it's tradition from Judaism. When a Jew was ill s/he went to the rabbi, not the doctor. And the rabbi anointed him or her with oil - which (as Barclay points out) Gatlen the Greek doctor called "the best of all medicines" - and prayed over the person. The early Church was absolutely devoted to the healing of her members. Justin Martyr writes that numberless demoniacs are healed by the Christians, when all other exorcists have been powerless to cure them. Irenaeus, writing far down the second century, tells us that the sick were still healed by having hands laid on them. Then, Tertullian, writing in the 3rd century, says that no less a person than the Roman Emperor, Alexander Severus, was healed by anointing at the hands of a Christian called Torpacion, and that in his gratitude he kept Torpacion as a guest in his palace until the day of his death.

This may seem dry and boring to some, but one of the earliest books about Church Administration is the Canons of Hippolytus, which go back to the end of the 2nd century or beginning of the 3rd century. It is laid down there that men who have the gift of healing are to be ordained as presbyters, when investigation has been made to ensure that they really do possess the gift, and that it comes from God. That same book gives the wonderful prayer used at the consecration of a local bishop, "Grant unto him, O Lord...the power to break all the chains of the evil power of the demons, to cure all the sick, and speedily to subdue Satan beneath his feet."

A very early Church code lays it down that each congregation must appoint at least one widow to care for women who are sick. For many centuries the Church consistently used anointing as a means of healing the sick. In fact, the sacrament of unction, or anointing was, in the early centuries always used as a means of cure, and not as a preparation for death, as it now is. It was not until AD 852 that the sacrament of unction became the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, administered to prepare for death.

So, brother, the Church has always cared for the sick; and the gift of healing has always been present in the Church. The social gospel is not an appendix to our Faith; it is the very essence of Christian faith and life!

Now verses 16-18. Thoughts on a praying church.

These verses of James chapter 5 spell out three basic ideas of Jewish religion.

16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

1) There is the idea that all sickness is due to sin. The rabbis said, "there is no death without guilt and so suffering without sin." Therefore, before a person could be healed of sickness his sins must be forgiven by God. That must be why Jesus began his healing of the paralysed man with the words, "Son, your sins are forgiven."(Mark 2:5) . Today we would say that no-one can know full health of either soul, mind or body until s/he is right with God.

2) There is the Jewish idea that, to be effective, confession of sin has to be made to other people (especially the person who has been wronged) as well as to God. And we all know full well that, in a very real sense, it is easier to confess sins to God than to other people. But when we sin there are two barriers set up - the barrier between us and God and the barrier between us and other people. And if these barriers are to be removed then confession is to be made to both groups of people. You will know, brother, that in Wesley's earliest Methodist classes they used to meet 2 or 3 times a week to "confess their faults to one another and to pray for one another that they might be healed."

3) Above all, this passage helps us to see that the Jews set no limits to the power of prayer. They had a saying, according to Barclay, that he who prays surrounds his house with a wall that is stronger than iron. They said, "Penitence can do something; but prayer can do everything." To them, prayer was nothing less than contacting the power of God; prayer is the channel through which the strength and grace of God are brought to bear on the troubles of life. It is just the same for Christians.

Tennyson wrote (in his poem on the passing of King Arthur):

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

Mark