Courage for Community -- A Message for September 26, 2021

 

James 5:13-20

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 

Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 

remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Here ends this reading of the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

            When I was a little girl, my siblings were taught to memorize two prayers at home.

Before breakfast, lunch and dinner, we prayed:

Thank you God this day, for food and rest and play.

Each night before bed, we prayed:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

Guide me through the starry night.

And, wake me up with the morning light.

These were my first poems we memorized and these were my first prayers to our God.  Easy to remember, short and sweet.  – We thanked God for our meals and we asked God to watch over us while we slept.

            Along the way, I learned other prayers. At church we were taught the Lord’s Prayer. I remember memorizing the 23^rd Psalm because an open, illustrated Bible with its words was kept in our Sunday school room.  I memorized the UCC Statement of Faith because we said it every Sunday. When I was a freshly minted minister, my first church said the Apostle’s Creed every week, so I memorized the words of the creed.

              One of the reason we memorize prayers, and we memorize creeds, and we memorize hymns is that these words stick with us. When we are totally stressed out, sitting at the hospital bedside of someone we love, and our brains feel so broken we don’t know what to think, we can pray the Lord’s Prayer…we can pray the 23^rd Psalm….we can pray the Apostle’s Creed over and over again. These memorized words comfort us in the midst of our trials. They comfort us when all seems lost. No matter what happens in our lives, God is with us. God’s Holy Spirit is constantly present to support us, guide us, and comfort us.

            In our reading from St. James’ letter this morning, we are reminded to pray.  We pray when we are in trouble. We pray songs of pray when we are happy. When we are sick, we ask the people of our church to pray for us. When we have wronged each other, we are called to confess, ask for forgiveness, and pray for each other. When friends from church wander away from their faith, we are called upon to pray for them and pray that the spark of faith will be ignited in their hearts again.

            There is a famous story about Dwight L. Moody and his prayer life.  Rev. Moody was a famous evangelist and pastor.  He founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, our own Ralien’s alma mater.  Rev. Moody talked about his prayers, and how he prayed each day for 100 of his friends to become believers and become Christians.  Over the years as Rev. Moody prayed, more and more of his 100 non-believing friends became followers of Jesus. And, at the end of Rev. Moody’s life, 96 of the 100 were Christians. The last 4, it is claimed, gave their life over to God at Rev. Moody’s funeral service.  So, because of the prayers and the work of God’s Holy Spirit, 100 people who once were not believers became Christians.

            So, not only are we called upon to pray for ourselves and the members of our church family, we are called to pray for everyone: our Christian and non- Christian friends, people in our community, people in our country, people throughout the world.  We pray for missionaries and Christians facing persecution. We pray for victims of natural and man-made disasters. We pray for hungry people and homeless people and widowed people and orphan people. We pray.

            Sometimes, we feel like we don’t know how to pray. Or, we know how to pray in private, but not with an audience. One of the parts of being a minister that sometimes makes me giggle is that people act like I am a “praying professional.” Yet, I know the people I h learned my faith from, and who made perhaps the largest influence on me as a Christian were not ministers. They weren’t trained in seminaries and hadn’t taken holy orders. They were just regular people, regular Christians, who did a good job living out their faith and talking to others about our shared beliefs.  My childhood Sunday school teachers, my parents, the ladies who filled the offering cups before worship when I was a kid, the faithful volunteers at my home church’s food pantry – these are the people who taught me how to be a Christian and taught me how to pray.

            And, despite our worries sometimes that makes us insecure to pray out loud in the presence of others, there are not rules about how to pray. Prayer is a conversation with God. Prayer comes in many forms. The most important part of prayer is our sincerity, not our words, not the formula. Prayer is a conversation with God: We pause and listen for God. We rejoice and thank God for the many ways God works in the world and works in our lives. We ask God to help us and help others. And, then we yield or wait for God to answer us.  Sometimes, God doesn’t give us what we want; God is not a genie who must fulfill our wishes. But, God listens to us and support us when we struggle.  God hears our prayers.

            The letter of James is chock full of advice for a church. James was concerned with how Christians worked together in community. James wanted us to be caring and supportive of each other, to work through disagreements in a healthy manner, to not be envious or boastful. James knew all Christians would face trials, and we need each other to help us through those trials. And, we need God to help us through those trials.

            That is where prayer comes in. We can always pray for each other. Sometimes, prayer is the only thing we can figure out to do to help.

            I hope we all start each day with pray and end each evening with prayer, and pepper prayer throughout our days. Prayer is a gift for us – we can talk to God whenever we want and whenever we need God.

            Let us do so in love. Amen.