James 5:13-20
First Congregational United
Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Sermon by the Rev. Caela
Simmons Wood
How
do you feel when someone tells you they’ll pray for you? Do you feel warm and
fuzzy and loved? Do you spiral into an existential and theological crisis
wondering just what exactly prayer can do and the nature of God and whether
prayer makes a bit of difference? Maybe you don’t notice much at all. After
all, here in Kansas, even in 2015 it’s not an uncommon thing to hear.
The
author of the Book of James certainly seems to be a big fan of prayer. It’s
kind of a cure-all for him. Are you sad? The answer is prayer. Anybody sick?
Pray. Feeling good? You should pray. I can imagine James getting into an argument
with John and Paul, “Okay. I hear you saying that all we need is LOVE, but I’d
really like you to consider changing those lyrics to ‘All you need is PRAYER.’
It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Big
fan of prayer. How I wish it were that simple for me. My relationship with this
core spiritual practice has been pretty complex over the course of my life. I
hope I’m won’t shatter any of your deeply-held-and-inaccurate views that
pastors are perfect Christians by telling you that I really struggle with
prayer sometimes.
I
struggle quite a bit when I hear the words from James’s letter: “The prayer of
the faithful will save the sick.” Because I’ve done a lot of praying over the
years for sick people that I love. And I have seen some of those people die and
some recover. And I’ve sat next to brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, fathers,
mothers, sons and daughters who have prayed fervently and without ceasing for
the salvation of their loved ones.
I’m
not entirely sure what James means when he says “save the sick.” If he’s
talking about something akin to being eternally with God, maybe I can get on
board. But often, when people we love are very sick, we are more like, “God,
SAVE THIS PERSON! Heal them. Don’t let them die!” There is often weeping and
gnashing of teeth and, depending on the person praying, no small amount of
cursing. And sometimes people get better. And sometimes they don’t.
So,
yeah. I find praying for people who are sick to be fairly problematic. I don’t
fully understand what good it does. And yet – when really terrible things are
happening to people I love or to me, I have been known to frantically beg God
for help. Even though I don’t think that makes sense.
Like
I said, it’s complicated.
And
beyond all the complex questions about the nature and efficacy of prayer,
there’s the basic “how to” of prayer that can feel confounding.
When
I was a child, I remember lots of adults telling me that prayer was just
“talking with God” or, sometimes, “listening to God.” Like most children, I
learned to pray with my eyes closed, head bowed, and there were always words
that were said. Sometimes they were memorized words – like the Prayer of Jesus or
“now I lay me down to sleep.” Sometimes I listened to someone else pray.
Sometimes I made up the words myself. Sometimes I said the words in my head,
other times aloud, but there were always words.
Over
time, I started to feel like this was a rather one-sided conversation and a
little pointless. I thought I might try listening to God for a change, instead
of talking all the time. This was nice. From time to time I would feel a deep
connection with the Holy. From time to time I would sense that God was present
and reaching out to me. It can be a really nice feeling, listening to God.
Problem
was, I am notoriously terrible at making time to do this. It is always so hard
to find a quiet moment. And often when I do find a quiet moment, I drift off to
sleep. I have no doubt that God continues to reach out to me in these times of
rest, but I’m not sure if my state of unconsciousness really counts as
listening to God.
Over
the years, I continued my quest to find something that would really resonate
with me and bring me closer to the Ultimate. Just a sampling of the things I’ve
tried in my attempts to find a prayer routine that works for me:
I’ve
had prayer journals – some typed, some handwritten, some just a list of all the
people and places I lifted up to God in prayer. These worked well, for a time,
but none of them ever lasted more than a few weeks.
I’ve
tried body prayer and silent meditation. I’ve tried prayer outside, inside, in
bed, in the shower, in the car, in the church, in the kitchen, on my bike, and
at the gym. I’ve read inspirational books on prayer. I’ve been in prayer with
lots of other people, both in big groups and small settings.
None
of these efforts have been a failure. But I feel like I’m still on a quest for
something more when it comes to my prayer life.
*******
Sometimes
I feel a little sheepish that I’m not “better” at prayer. Whatever that would
look like. I found comfort when I read that Barbara Brown Taylor, one of my
favorite preachers and theologians, also has a complicated relationship with
prayer. Like me….and maybe like some of you….Taylor’s never quite been able to settle
into a prayer routine and has been in search of one for years.
In
her search, Taylor encountered the work of Brother David Steindl-Rast, an
Austrian Benedictine monk living in New York. Brother David was the first
person to tell Taylor that “prayer is not the same thing as prayers.”[1]
It’s not that he advocates throwing out
prayers altogether, it’s just that the practice of prayer is so much more than our
prayers.
Brother
David says that prayer is “waking up to the presence of God.”[2]
It’s not calling God to come and sit
with us. It’s not allowing our souls to fly away to some distant place in the
sky where we imagine God sits. Prayer is waking up to the reality that God is
already present all around us.
Compared
to finding the time to sit down, quietly, and say an official, “Dear God…” kind
of prayer, this seems like a piece of cake. All we have to do is wake up,
right?
Only
we tend to find that it’s not really that easy once we really get started. If
God is present in the laundry that I’m folding, maybe I should pay more
attention. If God is present in the warm dirt under my feet as I walk along the
trail for some afternoon exercise, maybe I should slow down a bit and feel the
sunshine radiating through the bottom of my sneakers. If God is present in the
hands of the cashier at Target, maybe I ought to make eye contact as she hands
me my change and thank her sincerely for her help. If God is present in the
voice of the friend who calls me to complain about a bad day while I’m in the
middle of making dinner, maybe I could at least sit down and listen.
If
God is present everywhere and we are supposed to be awaked to God’s
presence…this is really an overwhelming thing. Because, quite honestly,
sometimes I don’t want to be bothered by God.
Sometimes
I’m on a mission and I’ve got things I need to get done and noticing God just
slows me down. Sometimes I’m feeling cranky and I don’t want to let God into my
heart. I’d rather wallow in my own bad mood. Or sometimes I’m feeling really
good – enjoying life and the gift of being in this world – and I’m not in the
mood to be weighed down with thoughts of the Holy.
The
only way I’ve been able to reconcile myself to the reality that prayer is
waking up to God’s presence is to remember what it means to live and work and
cry and play and breathe and grow in the presence of the Holy.
It
means that we are not alone.
It
means that there is always some force of goodness and love that is with us –
holding us, laughing with us, cheering us on, urging us to be better versions
of ourselves. More than anything else, it means that we are always in the
presence of the One who calls us Beloved and claims us as Blessed Children.
So
just when I start to beat myself up about how impossible this whole “waking up
to God’s presence” bit is, I realize that opening myself to God is all I need
to do to make it a little easier. The very thing I need and want to do is made
easier by just doing it.
I
don’t exactly understand how this works. I just know that it does. I can only say
what my own experience is and I fully recognize that it might not be yours.
But, for me, at least, I am starting to realize that maybe prayer is mostly
just about being open.
Openness
is profoundly difficult and simple and monotonous and life-altering and
joy-giving and frustrating all at the same time. When I am open, I approach the
world in a different way. I am more likely to see God when I seek God. And I
find that most of my days go better with God.
Prayer
is beginning to feel less like something I actively choose to do with my time
and more like a way of orienting my life. Sure, I still sit down and pray in a
“Dear God, hands folded, eyes closed” kind of way from time-to-time. And I
still fall asleep when I’m trying to listen for God’s voice. I still pray when
I’m on my bike or on the trail. And you can be assured that many of your names
have been on various scraps of paper as I’ve reminded myself to sit down and
pray for you.
James
says a lot in today’s passage about the power we humans have to save one
another through prayer. When I think about prayer very broadly – beyond the
folded-hands-Dear-God prayers the most immediately come to mind – his words
begin to ring true for me. Because when we humans are trying to live a life of
prayer – open to the presence of the Holiness that Comes in Love, fully awake
to the presence of The More in each and every moment – when we live like that,
salvation is possible.
It
doesn’t necessarily look like physical healing from illness. More often
salvation looks like a little kid sitting next to the class outcast at lunch,
or a friend picking up the phone and listening to a deep, dark, shameful
confession and offering absolution, or a person quietly and anonymously
“working the program” day after day to find freedom from addiction, or people
coming together to dismantle systems of oppression while simultaneously
providing for the basic needs of those who are being oppressed.
Sometimes
salvation is a small as a kind word or embrace at the end of a very long day or
as big as a group of Germans cheering and holding up signs of welcome for
refugees seeing asylum.
Maybe
this is what James meant when he said prayer has the power to save. When we
wake up to God, we sometimes find ourselves doing amazing, awe-some things.
When we wake up to God through prayer, the very world is changed.
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