“Being Human Together”
James 5:13-20
In Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness, the author describes her tortured journey through ten years of extreme depression and bipolar disorder.
Concerning the importance of Christian fellowship while in recovery, she writes, “This is why it is so important to worship in community—to ask your brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for you…
…Sometimes you literally cannot make it on your own, and you need to borrow from the faith of those around you.
Sometimes I cannot even recite the Creed unless I am doing it in the context of worship, along with all the Body of Christ…
…When reciting the Creed, I borrow from the recitation of others.”
Our Scripture Passage for this morning from James is about healing.
And not just plain old healing, it’s about healing in community, in the community of faith.
There really is no such thing as Christianity outside the Church.
And when I say this, I’m not talking about institutions and dogma.
Nor am I talking about 4 walls.
I am talking about brothers and sisters in Christ.
Other human beings who are being human together by trusting, and hoping and believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—and by loving one another, lifting one another up in prayer, listening to one another without judgment, sympathizing with one another—just being there.
And in being together in Jesus’ name—Jesus is with us, the Holy Spirit is with us.
How many of you have ever been so broken, so hurt, so sick, so down that you either did not know what to pray for or you just couldn’t pray?
In Romans Chapter 8 Paul writes a most astonishing thing.
He says that “the Spirit comes to help our weakness.
We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans.”
And the Holy Spirit is with us, and works through the community of believers which is the Church.
I remember when I was going through a particularly tough period of time.
It seemed as if everything was crashing down around me, and I didn’t know what to do.
I felt that I was at the end of my rope.
I hadn’t shared my situation with anyone, but the next day I got a call from a fellow church member.
He said, “Ken, the strangest thing happened last night and I just have to tell you about it.
I woke up at about 1 in the morning and felt God calling me to pray for you.
I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but the feeling just got stronger and stronger.
God was telling me that you were in trouble and I needed to pray for you right that minute!!!
So I did.”
To say I was blown away is an understatement.
I don’t have to tell you that at about 1 a.m. the answer to my groanings had come, and when my brother was praying for me—through the power and knowledge and love of the Holy Spirit—that is when I was made well or healed.
Prayer is one of those great mysteries.
The world is in pain, groaning as in birth pangs.
And we, as the Church, are to be open to sharing this pain.
And one of the main ways we do this is to surround everything we do in prayer, whether we are happy or sad, suffering or cheerful.
You know, the Psalms are prayers, and they were often used as the natural prayers of Jesus’ earliest followers.
It’s powerful, not to just read the Psalms, but to pray with the Psalms.
And anointing with oil is mentioned in the Psalms.
It’s a very simple act, and yet is a profound and effective sign of God’s longing to heal.
Prayer is mysterious; yet for those who take what James, Jesus’ younger brother, says seriously, they will find it is filled with meaning and power.
Heaven and earth meet when, in the Spirit, we call on the name of the Lord.
And when we are praying we stand with one foot in the place of trouble, sickness and sin and with the other foot in the place of healing, forgiveness and hope.
Prayer is also taking responsibility for the larger world, for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And sure, there are plenty of times when we are able to articulate our prayers, but there are other times when all we can do is to be still in God’s presence and allow The Holy Spirit to plead on our behalf, with groans too deep for words, and allow the Searcher of Hearts to search and to recognize what it is we need to be praying for.
As the Church, we are called to be a “praying community.”
“Where two or three are gathered” in Jesus’ name, Jesus promises to be there.
Nowhere in the Bible do Christians exist in a vacuum.
Even when the Apostle Paul was in prison, he had Christian brothers and sisters ministering to him, praying for him and with him.
It has been noted that it is often in our brokenness that we can hear most clearly God’s reply to our prayers.
When we are too broken to speak our prayers, it is often through hymns, spiritual songs and congregational prayer that we continue our conversation with God.
As the body of Christ we are called to carry one another’s burdens, to pray for one another, as our Scripture Lesson teaches us…
…we are called to share one another’s suffering.
We were not created to be alone.
We all need community.
We need each other, and when we are in community—in God’s Kingdom—this is where we should be able to learn what it means to be truly human together.
In verse 16, James writes, “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other…”
A Christian Pastor—John Ortberg-- writes about the power of what he calls: “No-secret Friendships.”
“One of the most important moments in my spiritual life,” writes John, “was when I sat down with a longtime friend and said, ‘I don’t want to have any secrets anymore.’”
John continues, “I told him everything I was most ashamed of.
I told him about my jealousies, my cowardice, how I hurt my wife with anger.
I told him about my history with money and my history with sex.
I told him about deceit and regrets that keep me up at night.
I felt vulnerable because I was afraid that I was going to lose connection with him.
Much to my surprise, he did not even look away.”
John continues, “I will never forget his next words.
‘John,’ he said.
‘I have never loved you more than I love you right now.’”
John continues, “The very truth about me that I thought would drive him away became a bond that drew us closer together.
He then went on to speak with me about secrets he had been carrying.”
When we keep secrets, we are only asking for trouble.
When we do things we are ashamed of, if we keep them all balled up inside ourselves, these things can cause mental illness or physical illness.
There is a great liberation and great freedom and healing in learning to be truly human with one another.
Of course, in sharing some of our most intimate secrets we need to be wise.
Don’t just confide in anyone and everyone unless you don’t mind the possibility that anyone or everyone will know.
But find a small group, or another Christian, a close friend, or even me—your pastor.
The acceptance you will receive despite your own self-loathing will help to bring God’s grace and healing into your life.
We all must admit to ourselves, to God, to one another that we are human.
And in being human, we are incredibly loved, incredibly important, incredibly wonderful, but also incredibly broken.
We all share these characteristics together.
Phillip Yancey wrote, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
Prayer offers no ironclad guarantees—just the certain promise that we need not live that mystery alone.”
In our Scripture Passage, James talks about sin and forgiveness.
He also talks about wandering away from the community of faith or from the truth.
There can be no doubt that both sin and illness can separate us from our brothers and sisters in Christ.
These things can be incredibly isolating.
While illness is no sin, plenty of sick people carry around guilt about their sickness nonetheless.
Maybe they didn’t wash their hands enough.
Maybe they didn’t get enough exercise.
Perhaps they ate too much, drank too much, smoked too much…whatever.
Many people suffer from shame due to illness.
And many sufferer from isolation as well.
Just ask a sick person how many of their friends disappeared when they became bed-ridden.
Sin and sickness really can heighten our vulnerability to the human condition.
In the case of sin, James recommends confession.
In the case of sickness, he recommends an audible call to the leaders of the church.
Of course, the remedy for both situations are the community of faith.
Flowers and soup are good medicine.
And it is our responsibility as the Body of Christ to be Christ to one another.
Something as routine as Wednesday night Bible study or the Sunday morning prayer group offers chances to pray with the suffering and sing songs of praise with the cheerful.
Again, James instructs us: “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
He also calls us to go search for the “wanderers.”
Would it be a good idea to routinely take plates from church suppers or lunches to those who are too sick to attend?
Is this something you can do?
Do you feel God calling you to minister in this way?
Do we go to the homes of those who are ill, and pray for them?
What concrete acts of faith are you engaged in, in the face of great suffering?
Ace Collins writes the following, “A close friend of mine had not one but two brain aneurysms.
For weeks she lingered on life support, growing weaker each day.
As her condition deteriorated, her children were called in to say their last goodbyes, and her church prepared for a funeral.
Then Linda suddenly snapped out of her coma.
As she came to, she looked over at her husband and asked, ‘where is everybody else?’”
‘No one else is her,’ replied her husband.”
“Linda persisted, ‘No, I heard them. They were all speaking at the same time, and there were hundreds of them, too. Some of them I knew; others I didn’t.
But they were all around me.
They were here!”
A few days after her miraculous recovery, Linda found out that a large prayer chain had been created to pray for her.
This group had been formed when news of her condition was sent out to local churches, and then it had spread to other groups throughout the area.
Within days Linda’s name had been put on hundreds of prayer lists and written in scores of prayer logs.
For weeks, thousands of people were praying for her each day.
Her miraculous recovery convinced her of two things:
1-The voices she heard were of the people who had been praying for her,
2-and those prayers had healed her.
Another person who recently experienced a horrible tragedy, writes about how his church enabled him to heal, “Their prayer support helped me begin the road to emotional recovery.
My community listened during long conversations while I tried to process confusing emotions.
When I wrestled with God—seeking to make sense of [my] experience—people offered reassurance and others—help.”
He continues, “I needed people to pray with me and for me, and I came to know what it is to have someone ‘weep with those who weep.;”
Relating this experience to the vital need for us to be part of a Christian Community, the man writes, “You need to invest in community today, so that you can reap the benefits during tomorrow’s seasons of deprivation and loss.”
Yes, it is so important to worship in community, to ask our brothers and sisters to pray for us and with us.
Sometimes we literally cannot make it on our own, and we need to borrow the faith of those around us.
We weren’t created to be alone.
We weren’t saved to be alone on this journey.
Despite all its faults, thank God for the community of faith, the Body of Christ, the Church.
Thank God for the privilege of worshiping together.
Thank God that we can be truly-human—together.
Amen.
