By The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
September 30, 2012
Text: James 5:13-20
I received an invitation, like the invitation that some of you would have received today, to attend a church with a friend. This wasn't an ordinary invitation. It was to go to a church in the denomination that I had never set foot in before, although I knew a bit about it. It was more than 30 years ago in the Transvaal in Southern Africa. My friend invited me to go to his home church, which was known as an African Zionist congregation.
The African Zionist congregations are those that mould and blend traditional African music and rites of passage with the Christian faith and gospel. They're unique, one of the fastest growing denominations in the world, and can seat many people at a time. This church was a relatively small one, nestled in a small town outside of Pretoria. I went gladly with my friend, though, with a little fear and trepidation.
I thought I was very well prepared. I thought I would come across as an exemplary Christian. I had read my Bible passage for the day. I said my morning prayers, and I had an open mind. What more would the Lord ask of me I thought?
It was everything that I thought it would be and more. The music was lively. The testimonies were spellbinding. The whole service was electric, fantastic, very African, very joyful. I had a sense of peace. I was at home there. Everything was going marvellously until the senior pastor got up and said, "Now is the time for prayer." I bowed my head and I clasped my hands and I was ready to pray, but they don't pray like that in the African Zionist church. No. Everyone prays at the same time whatever is on their mind: Hundreds of people praying out loud asking God for everything - for their next meal, to care for their elderly mother. It went on like this for a while, prayer like you wouldn't believe.
Then the pastor said, "Now it's time for a prayer of confession. Every one of you is now going to confess your sins." So one by one different people expressed their sins outright before the whole congregation, things I didn't think I should be hearing.
Finally it seemed that it was my turn and all eyes turned towards me. I did stand out a little bit in that church, let me tell you. All eyes came to me, the one who was prepared for this service. “O Lord,” I said to myself, “help me; I've got to confess something.” I confessed that I drove too fast. They all looked at me like: “He doesn't have problems at all, does he, really?” I was mortified. I wasn't prepared for this, to publicly confess my sins in front of a community of people I don't know. No, I much prefer our style of doing it with a printed order and a Kyrie.
But it was amazing. There was this glorious sense of release from everybody. Once they had expressed their sins, they felt good about it, liberated in fact.
Yusuf Turaki, who is one of the leading writers about African Christianity and has just written a splendid booked called The Trinity of Sin, says that one of the great characteristics of African Christianity is that it is communal and that it offers to the West, with all our individualistic introspection, something powerful and different, a communal sense of the faith. Turaki says this is something from which all of us can learn, but he makes the point that in fact it's a very biblical approach to the faith.
The pastor, who I spoke to after the service, along with one of the elders, when I expressed my concerns about the fact that things had been confessed in that service could be misconstrued or could lead to all manner of retaliations and problems, said to me, “You don't understand; confessing your sins is not about judgment and fear, it's about healing and release. Our people feel released when they've confessed their sins.”
I think the Book of James is implying the same thing. The earliest congregations, the earliest churches shared the communal depth of their prayers, both in good times and in bad. There's a sense in which James, writing to Jewish Christians around A.D. 50, is expressing what often happened in the synagogues, a communal confession and recognition of coming before God in prayer. James wanted those new Christians, who had committed themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, to remember their Jewish roots, to care for the widow and the orphan, to lift up the weak, to give alms to the poor, to support the stranger, to encourage the broken-hearted. James all the way through his letter wants the newly-formed church to follow Jesus Christ but to do it in a communal way.
Then in this incredible passage at the end of his book, he's imploring them to continue to pray. He's suggests borrowing very heavily from Abraham and Rahab and Elijah, many of the greats of the Old Testament, that the people should acknowledge prayer at every part of their lives. He starts off by saying that we should pray even in times of good and in times of joy. Now, that might not sound like a radical concept, to pray in times of joy, but let's be realistic about this. The vast majority of us have an active prayer life when things are going wrong. When somebody needs healing, when something is bothering us in our soul, when we see a problem in the world., so often it is at those moments that our prayers are animated and our desire to speak and to commune with God is at its strongest. In other words, when we have moments of great grief and doubt and pain, then we tend to pray the most.
There's a wonderful parable told of two Irishmen who often prayed when there were bad things happening. But when good things happened, didn't. The two men, called Paddy and Mike are on a ship and the ship sinks. They're left out at sea, holding onto a plank. Paddy says to Mike, "You know, Mike, I think that throughout my life I've used some terribly bad, obscene language. If I'm going to die, I think I'd better confess it to the Lord and ask him to forgive me." So Paddy pauses for a moment and is just about to begin his prayer of confession when Mike says to him, "Don't commit yourselves yet, Paddy, there's a ship on the horizon."
In other words, just stop praying now. Don't need to confess your sins, something good is going to happen. You don't need to say anything more to the Lord and commit yourself because things are going to be just fine. James says the exact opposite. "If anyone is happy," wrote James, "let him sing songs of praise”. If anyone wants to acknowledge the goodness of God, they should sing their praises to God.
Just this week I received a Facebook note from one of my longstanding friends who lives in Cape Town. We've known each other for I guess nearly 35, 36 years. There were a group of friends, young Christian men, who I associated with who belonged to Intervarsity and we'd go to the same churches and we'd go to the same fellowship study group. We were very, very close. When I left them, returning to Canada, I left behind one of the nicest group of friends that you could ever have. It's only recently, with great excitement through Facebook, that we've been able to reconnect.
Well, these guys are still involved in their church and they're still involved in helping others. They're very devout. One of the things that they did last weekend was go on a 30 kilometre hike around Cape Town, up the Table Mountain, down the other side, and off towards False Bay. They did this to raise money for a charity that helps the very poorest people in Khayelitsha. They're tremendous men.
One of them sent me a photograph that he posted on Facebook. It is tremendous, from an area that the ordinary person would never see, overlooking the ocean from the mountains, with gorgeous pristine waters down below and a white sandy beach, and the hills outside of Cape Town on the horizon. It is simply spectacular. The caption is what really got me though: "Look what God is up to today!"
"If you," says James, "have a moment of joy and happiness, praise and pray. Sing to the Lord for the good things that he has done." Don't just pray when there are bad things. Pray when there are good things and let the Lord know what those good things are and that you are the recipient of them and you are thankful for them. "Look what God is up to today." They saw the magnificence and the beauty of Llandudno in South Africa through the eyes of faith.
That's what we do in the church. It's the reason why we sing our songs of praise. It's the reason why on our plaques we put "To the glory of God." We recognize that prayer and praise go hand in hand. Although sometimes there are moments when things are just so dark that the song goes from our soul, doesn't it?
I was reading about a synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem that existed well before the time of Christ. When the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Romans, the congregation of the synagogue decided that they would never sing until the temple was rebuilt. For more than 2,000 years not a song has been sung by a cantor or by the congregation and they will not until the temple is rebuilt. Sometimes your heart breaks so much that you cannot find the place to sing and to praise, but someday it will. James knew that.
Sometimes there is a need to pray when the very worst things happen and when you're in the deepest part of your need. He says that if any of you are sick, you should go to the elders in the church and ask them to pray for you. James knew that the ministry of Jesus was inextricably tied to the gift of healing. Healing was one of the signs of his great messianic power - the healing of the paralytic, the healing of the woman who was bleeding, the healing of the epileptic, the healing of the outcast, the healing of the broken woman with the many marriages, the healing of the blind beggar, and on and on it goes, so many healings. Because it was a sign of what God does and prayer is the release of what God does in the heart of both the person who prays and the person who is prayed for.
The great Clement of Alexandria, one of the great earliest members of the Christian church and a great leader, said that there are three things that Christians should do: They should pray for the healing of the sick; they should pray for the lifting up of the weak, and they should pray for the cheering of the broken-hearted.
Early on in the life of the church healing was an important ministry. It was an integral part of what we do and who we are. Dr. Hunnisett, Reverend McMaster, me, any pastor who is here in this congregation knows firsthand how powerful praying can be for people. Oh, indeed it often appears that some prayers are not answered and it's a mystery, but there are many times when prayer gives great courage, great sustenance, great help to those who are broken-hearted and need the assurance that someone is praying for them. If the church does not do that for one another, who does? If this is not something that we offer from the very depths of our faith for the world and for each other, what do we have and what do we possess, and why do we exist? We pray for the healing of others.
We also pray for the power of forgiveness. James writes, "If any of you wish to confess your sins, go to the congregation and tell them." Why? Because forgiveness is a release and we all have within our souls something that holds us back from being true ourselves and being completely free. Everyone in the world has something. No one actually believes they're perfect.
Origen, one of the great early Christian writers, said that there are six things you need to do if you want to practice forgiveness: You need to be baptized. You need to give alms to the poor. You need to be willing to be a martyr for your faith. You need to forgive others who have wronged you. You need to love your enemies, and you need to save those who are being lost. If you do these things, any one of these things, or all of these things, then the power of forgiveness is there. I would go even further than him. I would say to simply, fervently, honestly pray for forgiveness, simple as it is.
I love reading about William Wilberforce in William Barclay's commentary on Luke, that great social gospel advocate, who almost single-handedly brought slavery to its knees in the British Empire. Wilberforce, who was a devout Christian, was approached by two hyper-evangelical women on day who said, "Mr. Wilberforce, are you saved?" His answer to them was clear. "My dear ladies," he said, "I have spent my whole life fervently trying to save others that I haven't given a thought to myself." Hmm, who's saved there, I wonder? Wilberforce was concerned for the well-being of others. That's what Origen was getting at in the last of his suggestions, to not cause the weak to stumble but to lift up people who are in trouble and try and save them.
Oh, you'll be laughed at if you do that sometimes, you'll even be accused of being self-righteous. If you stand for something when you see somebody falling into sin and trouble, you will be accused as the one who is pointing a finger, when all you're trying to do is to help lift somebody up for their sakes. It's not to say that forgiveness is an easy business. It's not an easy business, but it's God's business and it's what James said the church should pray for.
We also need, though finally, to pray for others. He uses the example of Elijah. Who cannot like Elijah? For three and a half years he prayed that there'd be no rain and there was no rain. Then he prayed for three and a half years that there would be rain and there was rain. I think the Blue Jays need to hire him. I really do. There's something about Elijah. The man was awesome, just face it. He had faith. He actually believed that when he asked for something it could happen. He wasn't just wrapped up in himself. He was praying for people. He wanted the people to be saved. He was more concerned with others than he was for himself.
So often our prayers start off all very nice and for others, but soon they get wrapped up and all we're doing is spending time praying for ourselves. I love the story of a young teenage girl who was an only child and was rather introspective. The pastor and she had a conversation one day in a confirmation class, the pastor asked her what does she pray for, and so she told him. And he says, oh, you're spending way too much time praying for yourself; you really need to pray for others. So that night she went home and she was committed and she had said some initial prayers. Then finally she got on her knees and said, "Dear God, I pray that my mother will have a handsome son-in-law someday."
Wow. Even praying for others can be praying for yourself. But is that altogether wrong? No. It's the time in which you pray for yourself, but in praying for yourself you know that it will have a positive effect on someone else. And on praying for someone else, you lift yourself up. There is a mutuality there.
That is why James says I want you to pray as a community. When you pray as a community, even when you're praying for yourself you're praying for your neighbour; and when you're praying for your neighbour, you're praying for yourself.
As many of you know, I've always put a high premium on praying for political leaders. You're probably aware that I've been involved in ministries to politicians of all political stripes at the federal level. Praying for them and praying with them. There are whole ministries that do this, Nation at Prayer being one of the most notable. Everyone who partakes in this partakes in believing that when you lift up and you pray for the other, a politician, for example, you're not giving your assent to everything that they do, but you're recognizing that what they do affects others and, therefore, lifts them up in prayer. Paul said to do that, to pray for the leaders. James says you are to pray in good times and in bad. As a community of faith, you become a faithful praying community.
Timothy Eaton Memorial Church has to be a praying community or else it's not a church. There's something about that Zionist church. When I think back, as uncomfortable as I felt that day when I left, I realized there's still something profoundly Christian about what they're doing. It might not be my style and I'm certainly not going to initiate it next Sunday here, so have no fear, but I do think there are some things they do that James would say to us we should. We should pray when we're full of joy. "Look at what God's up to." We should pray when people are sick, for it gives them courage and healing. We should pray for forgiveness and for the forgiveness of others. We should pray for those in positions of leadership and power. We should pray for the other. We should pray for ourselves, humbly, quietly even, recognizing that you can pray at all times. Amen.