Asking for prayer

I can't believe it's so long since I blogged...Pamela is off in Thailand and has been asking for sermons again. So here we go for this week!

This morning I’d like to talk with you a little bit about prayer. That reading from James 5:13-20 – the very last verses of the book – seems to portray a real community united in faith and mutual support….
…call the elders to pray over the sick
…confess your sins and pray for one another…

Prayer is such an important part of our lives, eh? However we do it – wherever, whenever, using whatever words: grand, beautiful prayers we’ve found in books, or simple words of our own, as they rise up in us! It’s our communication with God. It’s that relationship I talk about often – and we know that relationship doesn’t exist without communication…we know that (many of us have learned it the hard way). Where there is no communication, no exchange of praise and thanks and request and concern, there is no relationship.

And clearly prayer IS something that people think about – and worry about, I’d venture to say. If you ever get into a Christian bookstore, or see a catalogue of books, you’ll see more about prayer than anything else! We want to get it right. Perhaps we fuss too much about getting it right, rather than simply DOING it …

And of course, there isn’t just the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ and the ‘what words to use’, there’s also the ‘why’ question. And the ‘does it work’ question…
Why do we not always get what we pray for?
Why did our parents not always give us what we asked for?
No, it’s probably not that simple…or maybe it is. In any case, what James seems to be talking about in this passage is praying for each other, and particularly for the sick, and those who have sinned.

Being sick, I’ve noticed, puts us out of relationship. If we have to be isolated at home, or go to the hospital, we’re out of contact with our usual social group. If it’s just a few days, family and friends may fuss over us and we may seem to get more attention that usual, but if it takes us away from our regular routine for weeks or months – there’s definitely a sense of estrangement. Communication lessens; we seem to fall out of relationship. People who have lingering sickness often feel shut out, cut off, perhaps even guilty that they haven’t taken proper care of their bodies… There’s definitely a “dis-ease”, an unhappy sense of aloneness.

When I visit people as chaplain, I sometimes ask if I can pray for them. I don’t think anyone has ever refused. And most people express great relief and appreciation that someone has prayed for them. I think it gives them a sense of being re-connected to the community: someone cares about them. The interesting thing is how rarely folks take the initiative and ask me to pray for them. James says the sick should call for the elders of the church to pray over them – we need to take the first step for ourselves, it seems, and ask for prayer. We need to ask for relationship, communication…we can’t just expect it to happen.

And so it is too, says James, with the forgiveness of sins. When we have sinned against someone we must confess, ask for their prayers, and we will be forgiven. Sin takes us out of relationship too. It cuts us off from each other and the community. And when we confess, and ask for prayer, we are brought back into relationship. We are “healed’, you might say.

So - enough talk! When I was preparing for this morning, I had pages and pages of notes, and finally I realized we just need to experience being prayed for. So this morning I want to take a few minutes and invite you to come for prayer, for healing or forgiveness, for whatever you need. I was going to go around to each of you and pray over you, but I noticed that James says that we should ask for prayer. So I’m going to stay here, quietly, by the font for a few minutes. I’m going to turn off my mic, and if anyone would like to come forward and have me pray over you, I would be delighted to do that. (Those of you who are sitting in your seats can also pray silently for the people who come forward, or you can just rest quietly in God’s presence.)

[You can tell that this is what I'm saying in a church, with several people present. I encourage you, too, to find someone and ask them to pray over you. Fancy words are not important - it's the feeling of relationship and healing that comes from being present, together, before our God.]