Righteousness and Prayer
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
Scripture
Semi-continuous: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
Complementary: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Psalm 19:7-14; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
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Prayer
O God, our guide and help in alien and contentious places: as Esther prayed faithfully and worked courageously for the deliverance of your people, strengthen us to confront the oppressor and free the oppressed, so that all people may know the justice and unity of your realm. Amen. (Revised Common Lectionary)
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Reflection
Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded its harvest.
My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you 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 (James 5:13-20).
As James conclude his letter, one of the matters he turns his attention to is prayer—prayers of thanksgiving, and prayer in the midst of suffering and illness. James says two things about the effectiveness of prayer. First, a prayer offered in faith will make a sick person well. Second, that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. In reference to the latter, James uses the prophet Elijah as an example who prayed earnestly for drought and it happened for 3 and 1/2 years; and then praying again for rain, and rain flowed freely from the heavens producing much needed relief.
But what happens when prayer goes unanswered, or when prayer is not answered in the way we had hoped? If I pray for someone’s healing, and they are not healed, does that mean I am not faithful? Does that mean my prayer is not offered in faith? Am I not a righteous person? We‘e told that a righteous person’s prayer is powerful and effective. Can I be like Elijah? James seems to think so. What do we say to people whose prayers are not answered?
As a pastor, I have sat, listened, and consoled those whose prayers have not been answered. They wondering why, it seems, that God did not hear. They had been told that if they just had enough faith, their prayers would be answered. Now they feel as if their faith was lacking, or the faith of others who prayed was insufficient. How are we to take James words here as he closes out his letter?
I don’t think we can understand the way prayer works, at least as we can understand it as human beings, until we have a larger understanding of prayer. We fall into a trap when we think of prayer only as the wish list that a child may offer to Santa at Christmas time. “God, here is what I want. Please give it to me.” But prayer is much larger and more complicated than that.
First, prayer is an attitude. Our lives should be one of prayerful consideration. That doesn’t mean that I spend every moment of my day in prayer. It does mean that as I go through the day, there are always moments of contemplation—moments where I stop, and perhaps utter a short breath prayer to God—or even in a moment of gratitude—I pause. It seems to me that prayer a daily posture.
Secondly, prayer changes the one praying. There is a Psalm that says delight yourself in the Lord and God will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). The psalmist doesn’t mean that God will give whatever we ask for in prayer. It means that if we delight ourselves in the ways of God, and seek to live in God’s ways, over time our desires will be changed and shaped and molded so that what God desires, we will desire as well. And just like Jesus, we will desire nothing other than the will of our Heavenly Father.
None of this denies James’ point. The closer we are in relationship to God, the more prayer matters and can be effective. Our prayers should be offered in faith. I’m not sure what it would look like for a prayer not to be offered in faith, but prayers uttered in faith are powerful and effective, even when the answers to those prayers may not unfold in the way we had hoped.
So, we continue to pray. We continue to offer our petitions before God. God’s faithfulness to us and our faithfulness to God will mesh together, and we will understand more deeply the will of God for us, and the ways of God in the world
PRAYER: Raise us up, O Lord, for it is you alone who restores life and health to the suffering and to those who wander from the truth. By your grace, may we offer powerful and effective prayers for one another and the world, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. (Revised Common Lectionary)
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