Sermon - The Rev. Leah D. Schade
Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA
Sun., Oct. 1, 2006
The Letter of James, Part Five (Chapter 5) – The Prayer of Faith

For the last four weeks, Pastor Smoose and I have been basing our sermons on the Letter of James, and today we are on the fifth and final chapter.  If you’ve been able to listen to the previous sermons, you’ll recall that we’ve learned that the author is very concerned with how we, as Christians, live our lives in light of our faith.  We’ve covered living out our spiritual truth (even while driving), doing good works as a reflection of our faith, taming our tongues, and God’s wisdom which spans across the religious spectrum.  Today we’ll conclude with the act of prayer as a manifestation of our faith.  I especially want to look at how our worship service is an act of prayer, and how we can make our worship and prayers even deeper and more meaningful for our lives.

What I really like about these verses about prayer in this passage is that they coincide so nicely with the different types of prayer that we teach our students in Sunday School and Confirmation.  We teach them that there are 5 basic types of prayer, and you can see them listed here in James: 

The first type of prayer is Petition or Asking.  And you can see that in verse 13: “Are any among you suffering? They should pray.” – Asking for relief.  Also verse 14, “Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” – Asking for healing.

The next two types of prayer are  Praise and then Giving Thanks.  This we have in the verse that says, “Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.”

The fourth type of prayer is that of Confessing talked about in verse 16 “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”

Now in Confirmation we also include a fifth type that James does not mention - the prayer of silence or meditation.  This simple act of being still in the presence of God prefigures all the other four types of prayer. 

In fact, you’ll notice that that is often how we begin our service.  Think back to when you first sat down in the chair this morning, how noisy it was in here.  Of course, it’s a good kind of noise - friends greeting each other, music playing, children chattering.  It’s the sound of the assembly gathering themselves together.

But then after the announcements and the passing of the pew pads, I’ll say, “We’ll begin with a moment of silence to center ourselves for worship.”  Now remember how noisy it was in your head when you first entered that quietness.  Perhaps you were still thinking of a conversation you had before you came in.  Or the class you just came from.  Or maybe your mind was roiling with a conflict between you and another person.  Or maybe you were just making a mental list of everything you have to do today after the service is ended.

In any case, it is important to enter the space of worship by intentionally clearing out the physical noise around us and the mental noise within us.  Remember - this time is not about you.  It’s about God.  It’s about your connecting to God.  And the Spirit of God is like a fluttering bird that will only hover around you if you are continually raising a ruckus, rushing around, and flailing your arms.  If you want the Spirit of God to alight upon you, you must be still.

Once you have emptied yourself of yourself, you open a way for God to move into you.  You become receptive to the transformative power and spiritual insight that comes through prayer and worship.  This naturally leads to the next movement in our service - the prayer of confession and forgiveness.  The need for repentance is essential.  I know that when we say these words over and over each service, they can begin to lose their impact because it seems like we’re just doing things by rote.  But this is the time for you to let go of your self-satisfaction, your arrogance, your heedlessness.  It is the time of metanoia - turning around, coming around to face what needs to be changed within you and turning it over to God.

Having been released, then, through the promise of forgiveness, we can certainly feel the lightness and joy of entering into God’s presence with cheerfulness, as James describes.  Our opening hymn is often one of praise, telling God how much we love God, expressing our joy at being in God’s presence.

And then we quiet ourselves once again for the reading and hearing of God’s word.  You see, the movement of worship is not just a linear one.  It is like a spiral, circling back around to different themes, allowing God’s Spirit to penetrate our layers one by one.  In listening to the scripture readings, we should do so prayerfully, asking for God’s wisdom to speak to us in whatever way we need to hear it. 

Sometimes it may be a word of judgment, holding a mirror up to ourselves, urging us to again confess our brokenness and ask for forgiveness.  Other times it may be a word of comfort that we so desperately need to hear.  On other occasions, it may be a word of curiosity, inviting us to explore a deeper meaning in the text, perhaps from a point of view we had not entertained before. 

But no matter what may lay in store for you in the readings and in the sermon that day, I would implore you to pray both for the person who reads the lessons, that they may be able to properly express the intention of the Spirit. And pray for the one who gives the sermon.  Especially those of you Confirmation students charged with the task of filling out sermon outlines - your prayer for the preacher may make the difference for you in how you understand and relate to the sermon.

After having sung the sermon hymn and recited the creed, we now move to the next type of prayer - that of petition or asking.  The prayer of supplication and intercession is as old as the cry of the first human infant as it begged for its needs to be met.  There is an innate human desire for divine response.  You can hear this reflected in the prayers each Sunday.  We pray for the needs of the world, the need for justice, the need for strength for those in peril, the need to comfort for those in mourning, the need for healing for those who are sick. 

I’ve been particularly pleased with two recent developments during this time of supplication during our worship services.  One is the invitation to the congregation to offer their prayers aloud in the midst of the assembly.  The liturgy means, literally, “the work of the people,” and nowhere is this more evident than when we open the gates of liturgical formality and allow the voices of the people to be heard.  Sometimes 5 or 6 voices will lift their prayers.  Sometimes you hear only murmuring voices.  Sometimes it is completely silent.  All of those responses are appropriate.  But what we are doing is allowing the Spirit to move among the assembly, trusting others with this work of prayer, and not just those standing at the front.

The other development has been that of dedicating our prayer shawls once a month.  This prayer shawl ministry is one of the most tangible and potent symbols of the power of prayer among us.  It started with one of our members, Kathy Ewens, our Parish Nurse, Joyce McNally, and the Health and Wellness Committee offering some workshops on how to knit prayer shawls last year.  And since that time it has just blossomed in this congregation to the point where these shawls seem to just multiply like rabbits!  Every month at each service you see individuals come forward, their arms heaped with these shawls that have been knit by members of our church.  Then they are blessed in the midst of the congregation, in a sense, absorbing the prayers of all those gathered. 

Finally they are taken out and given away to our homebound members, people in hospitals, people who are grieving - often the very ones we name in our prayers each week.  One time they even took a stack of shawls to one of the nursing homes in the area and gave them to residents who did not have family to visit them.  The looks of joy and surprise on their faces as these warm shawls were wrapped around them were so poignant to those who brought them.

One of our young people is even considering expanding this ministry to become an outreach to nursing homes by teaching residents to knit the prayer shawls as well.  Stephanie Lucas was inspired by her grandmother, a nurse, who was able to avoid sedating a very agitated resident by teaching her to knit a prayer shawl for her roommate.  The rhythmic movement of her hands, the feel of the yarn in her fingers,  the creation of a network of colorful patterns growing before her very eyes, all combined to give peace and purpose to her life, where there was none before. 

This is often the way prayer can work in our lives.  Because, you know, prayer is not just something to be done at church.  Prayer can be woven into all facets of our lives.  Especially for those of you who don’t feel yourselves to be “spiritual” in the traditional, contemplative sense - there are ways to pray that can be a unique reflection of your gifts and personality.  Any routine task done with your hands or feet can be shaped for the purposes of prayer.  Pounding nails, picking weeds, plucking strings, can all be acts of prayer when the heart is properly prepared first with that centering silence and receptivity to the Spirit.

And the thing is, with prayer, you often have no idea just how far-reaching its effects are.  People have told me that when they were sick, there were prayer chains that extended across the globe for them.  And today, as we celebrate World Communion Sunday, we are reminded that our prayerful hearts are joined with Christians across the continents as they, too, join us at the table.  And this is the part of the service that most reflects the prayer of thanks – we give thanks through our offering, and for this tangible symbol of God’s love for us in the bread and wine.

And prayers reach far into time as well.  I’m thinking particularly of a prayer shawl that was given to one of our members who just died two weeks ago.  Gail Gigliotti was given a prayer shawl by our church as she became sicker and sicker with cancer.  She had it with her in hospice right up to the end.  Now that shawl is in the hands of her daughter, Nicole, who is about to give birth to her first baby.

That child will never know her grandmother, will never be able to feel a hug by Gail.  But she will be wrapped in that prayer shawl.  As Gail’s aunt said to Nicole, “You’ll be able to say to your daughter - Nana’s holding you now.”

That is what prayer does for us.  It holds us.  It holds us in each other’s thoughts.  It lifts us up to God’s embrace.  It’s arms reach across time and space, and penetrate into our deepest layers.  As James points out, it touches every aspect of human existence - our sinfulness, our cheerfulness, our suffering, our healing, our connectedness. 

Prayer is the Spirit’s way of bringing you closer to God.  It’s God’s way of saying, “I long for you.  I so desire a relationship with you.  Open yourself to me, so that we may enter into each other’s presence.”  Amen.