Sermon September 27, 2009 James 5:13-20 Would you look at the reading from James with me, James, chapter 5. Here’s how it starts: 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. This is a text with a lot of good news. And it’s also a challenging word. Look at the good news. It is great news to know that God is a God who heals. Heals us physically. Heals us emotionally. Heals us spiritually. It is great news to know that God loves you that much— --that you can be healed. We were talking about this in Confirmation Class a year or two ago. And I thought of something I don’t think I’d ever thought of before. When we are sick or injured— --we don’t always stay that way. Can you imagine, if you got a cut on your finger— --if God hadn’t created us to be healed, that cut would always be there— --for the rest of your life. But God has made us in such a way that we get better. The cuts on our fingers heal. And that’s good news. But that’s where we get to the tough part, too. Because sometimes we don’t get better. Or we don’t know if we will. And we wonder, why—when I’ve prayed, when others have prayed— --why am I not getting better? Or why is my loved one not well? Why? We pray for healing, and we’re frustrated by the seeming lack of response. And sometimes it seems that the explanations just make it worse. It frustrates me when people say things like: Your prayer for healing didn’t work because you didn’t have enough faith. Or: Your prayer didn’t work because you didn’t pray specifically enough. Those sorts of things really frustrate me. Because I don’t think they’re true. And they make it seem like it’s what we do that is central in healing. What we do is not central. It’s what God does. Think about Paul— --a great person of faith. He prayed again and again that his “thorn in the flesh”—whatever that was— --would be removed. And it wasn’t. Think about Joseph. Sold into slavery by his brothers, after they almost killed him. Falsely accused by Potiphar, when he was trying to do the right thing. Put in jail, and forgotten, forgotten for 2 years. And yet, when he was reunited with his family years later, he was able to say (eventually), “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Don’t you think that he prayed for God’s help? Don’t you think he prayed again and again? We see through the lens of time, that God was at work. But I bet it didn’t feel like it to Joseph at the time. Or how about Jesus himself? He prayed that, “If it be your will, Father, may this cup of suffering be taken away from me.” And yet, Jesus suffered, and Jesus died for you and for me. Were the prayers unanswered? Did things not go the way Paul and Joseph and Jesus hoped because they didn’t have enough faith? I don’t think so. Did they not go as they hoped because they didn’t pray specifically enough? I don’t think so. Is there another possibility? Is it possible, that God was choosing to act in another way? Is it possible that God saw things from a different, clearer, eternal perspective? And is it even possible that God hurt and wept with them in their pain? One commentator said this. He said: “Prayer, and especially the prayer for healing we read about in James, is a gift, not a tool.” It’s a gift, not a tool. It’s not something we use to manipulate God. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not something we use to get our own way. It’s okay to pray for what we want. That’s part of the communication we have with God. But it’s God who responds, not as our servant, but as our caring, loving, all-knowing Father. And a loving father (or mother) doesn’t always respond the way we want— --but always with love. That still doesn’t make everything clear in every circumstance. But for me, it’s a very helpful understanding. Our prayer is a gift, not a tool. And God’s love is there for us when our bodies are healthy, and when we’re sick. And so I’ve been reading this week about how people see this when they’re sick. I was reading an article by someone who has lupus. She says: “Sickness can make your relationships with God stronger in the strangest of ways.” One of those ways, she writes, is by giving us permission to be mad at God— --who takes our anger and finds ways to show us love. And then she talks about her favorite wildflower— --Queen Anne’s lace. And she says: “It’s beautiful big white blossom has a small red dot in the center of it. The rare thing about this flower is that it can’t blossom unless it is first infested with bugs. It cannot become all that the Lord created it to be unless the bugs come and coerce the blossom to open.” And then she writes, from the perspective of her sickness, “We are like Queen Anne’s lace. We cannot become all that God has planned us to be if we do not allow the bugs in our lives to help us blossom.” Interesting perspective. Sometimes God can be at work through our sickness, through our weakness, through our pain. Loving us, and helping us grow. There are times when we can give thanks that God is helping us grow in the midst of our sickness. And there are lots of times when what we need is the comfort and assurance of God’s promises and God’s love. I was also reading about a young couple expecting their first child. And everything seemed fine until the 20-week checkup. And then they learned that their baby had a fatal birth defect— --acrania— --where the skull never forms. They don’t know why. They just know that the babies usually live until they are born— --and then only a few minutes or hours longer. And this couple decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. And some of their friends are praying for a miracle. And sometimes God does bring a miracle. And we rejoice at such times. But the mom writes from a different perspective. They have named the unborn baby boy Ethan. She writes: I have not been praying for the miracle of his healing, but I have been taking great comfort in the miracle that is already assured— --the miracle that Ethan’s life will not end with his death, but will be joined to the eternal life of the God who made him and gave him to us. Sometimes this promise is offered to people who are grieving as if it is somehow supposed to take away the pain of burying a loved one— --and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t. Years from now, I will still feel the pain of his absence. But there is something about his life— --the life that God put in him --that is not fragile like his body. In this way, Ethan is in no way different from any of us. Our bodies are frail and fallible, too, and they will all die sooner or later— --but we all have the promise of resurrection into a life that is not constrained by our frailty and that comes from the One who breathed life into all creation. I don’t know exactly how, but when you are sick or grieving, God is at work in you. Sometimes God does things we don’t understand— --we often call them miracles. God heals in ways we can’t explain. And sometimes, more often, even in the midst of suffering and pain, God is at work in us. Changing us. There was an 11-year old girl, Eva. As Eva and her Mom were getting ready for bedtime prayers, Eva prayed for a girl named Amy, whose hair was mysteriously falling out. And Eva prayed simply, “Jesus, please hold Amy’s hair on her head.” The doctors eventually determined that Amy was suffering with alopecia— --and that the hair loss would probably be permanent. When Eve hear the news, this time her prayer was different: “Dear Jesus, if you won’t hold Amy’s hair on her head, would you please hold Amy.” What you know for sure is that God hears your prayers. And you can be sure, that even when the prayers aren’t what you hope, God is still holding you, God is still loving you, God is still caring for you. Because God wants only the best for you. In Jesus’ name, Amen