Healing Prayer

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

October 1, 2006

James 5: 13-20
After telling us what a problem the tongue can be, James finally begins to tell us some good things we can do with our voices, with our words. We can pray for ourselves when we are suffering, sing praises to God when we are happy, and pray for others when they are sick.

I confess that I must have inherited a prayer deficiency gene. My grandfather, a leader in little Methodist churches all his life, was reticent to pray in public. It was the custom in those days for the pastor, without warning, to call upon laypersons to offer a prayer. Every new pastor would call upon my grandfather only once. The reason was that my grandfather, in response to the request, would say, “Let us all join the Lord’s Prayer.” No extemporaneous prayers from him! It was not that he did not pray. I am sure that he did. But he would offer his prayers in private. I have inherited my grandfather’s reticence, though my occupation has required that I learn to offer more than the Lord’s Prayer when I am called upon.
 
I must confess to you that I have always struggled with prayer. So it helps me to think through what is going on when I pray. So, a few thoughts about this before we go to James’ advice.

When I use my voice to say something, I have to assume that someone is listening (unless I am talking to myself---but then I hope I am listening to myself!). If no one is listening---if they have gone to sleep, for example, or hung up the phone----then I am wasting my breath.

If I am talking from my heart to someone, out of my need or on behalf of another, it is not only necessary that someone is listening, but that they care. You may have experienced someone asking you, “How are you?” Then you discover that they really did not care to know about any troubles you might have. 

To pray is, at the least, to talk with someone. It is to talk with someone who listens and who cares. Jesus, the risen crucified one, has shown us a God who listens and cares.

Our prayers may seem to be one-sided conversations, because God does not respond to us as a mortal does. So the act of praying requires of us an “assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 10:1) In order to pray, we have to believe that God exists and we have to trust that this God has time for us.

This is really a big order! We cannot get our minds around some one who cares for and listens to everyone. Each of us can only care for and listen to a finite number of people. But by faith we trust in the God who has been revealed in Jesus Christ, the One who is intimately related to every person----not to mention the sparrows!

Prayer is a gift from a good God. It is a means through which we can be honest about our needs and desires, in the presence of this One who knows us through and through. St. Thomas said that prayer is the articulation of desire. In praying, we are free to be honest with God about what we feel we need. God hears and God will answer. We speak. God listens. God speaks. We listen.

JAMES: THREE TIMES TO PRAY

SUFFERING?
So James tells us to pray when we are suffering. He does not tell us not to find a doctor. But he tells us to pray.

Paul Tillich once wrote that the most convincing option to a hearty faith in God is stoicism. The stoics believed that whatever will be, will be, and the best response is to learn to suffer when suffering comes, without complaint. My uncle has told me of a person in one of his little churches who, when asked to share her favorite scripture verse, said that it was “grin and bear it.” Now stoicism is a heroic option, and, in some form, gets many people through very difficult times. But Christian belief is different. (Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be)

When we are suffering, we are invited to trust that God is not far off but close---intimately involved in all of the concerns of our lives. When we are suffering---in body, mind of spirit---God is accessible to us. Our suffering may take many forms. We are complex creatures, and our mind, soul and body are intimately linked. Sometimes our suffering is a result of our own actions; sometimes it is inflicted by others; sometimes we are not sure where it has come from. James tells us to “draw near to God, and God will draw near to us.” A part of the answer to our prayers may be friends who help us through. Sometimes we need forgiveness (an aspect of healing, the bridging of a rift) as well as healing.

Roberta Bondi has told the story about a man who lost his adult child. The man later said that it was not his own faith in God that got him though; it was the faith of his friends which helped him heal.

CHEERFUL?
James tells us that when we are cheerful, we should sing praise. Praise is prayer. Though we do not often think about it, most of our hymns are addressed to God. Now some people are more readily cheerful than others. I have a friend who told me, “I can take no credit for my positive nature, my sense of joy most of the time: this is just the way I was made.” (I told him he did not have to feel guilty about being cheerful.) Others have to have cheerfulness sneak up on them. But when we are cheerful, (happy?), we can bless God for it, instead of saying how lucky we are. So, we can use our tongues to sing to God, while we listen in.

SICK?
Then James tells us that when we are sick, we should call for the elders to come and anoint us and pray for our healing.

Notice that he says that the sick person should call for the elders to come. The sick person takes the initiative. The sick have dignity. And, notice, that the elders do not run the other way---which would have been a common response in the first century. Like Jesus, they are called to minister to the sick. See Matthew 10 for the commissioning that Jesus gives the apostles. Why? It is because God desires healing, salvation and wholeness of life for all people.

RECOVERING HEALING
We are recovering, finally, the ministry of healing. After being turned off by charlatans who preyed on the sick to line their own pockets; and after hearing of the theatricality of healing services of others, we are daring to reclaim the gestures, OILS and words which convey God’s healing presence to suffering people.

This recovery of healing ministries is really a recovery of a prominent part of Jesus’ ministry which we have neglected. Tillich wrote that the influence of Jesus on our lives depends on how we paint him---whether in “lines and colors” or sermons or theology books, or in our devotional imaginations. We have painted Jesus in the “grayish tones of a moral teacher, the tense expression of a social reformer, and the soft traits of a suffering servant….” But the gospels also paint Jesus as a healer. We have been worried about the miracles of Jesus. But “today we know what the New Testament always knew---that miracles are signs pointing to the presence of divine power in nature and history, and that they are in no way negations of natural laws.” In a world of such suffering, such disease of bodies and minds and spirits, and in the social systems of our world---in a world as disordered and fractious as ours, “have we received healing forces ….from the power of the picture of Jesus the Savior” and healer? “Do we go to physicians alone, or psychotherapists alone, or to counselors alone in order to be healed?” We should, of course, go to them, “but do we also receive the healing power in the picture of Jesus the Christ who is called the Savior?” In this good news that we proclaim, we trust that the healing and reconciling activity of God, “which was always at work in history, has appeared in fullness in Jesus the Christ, the Healer and Savior.” (Paul Tillich, The New Being, “On Healing.”)

We exercise this healing ministry for which we have been commissioned, with confidence in the God who cares, listens and does come to us with healing presence. We “paint” the picture of Jesus the Healer and we pray for God to bring wholeness of heart and life to the sick.

ALL HEALED?
I know that James says that those over whom we pray will be healed. We know that not all people who are physically or mentally ill are healed in this lifetime. I am sure that James knew this, too. And we know that we all finally shuffle off this mortal coil. It is wrong, I think, to make of James’ words a dogma on the subject of healing. Much mischief has been wrought by so doing. I know of people who have been convinced that, if they only had stronger faith, they, or someone they loved, would not have died. The truth is that, in the stories of Jesus, it is his faith that is the most crucial in his ministries of healing. I do not know why some sick people are healed and others are not. I agree with Ann: all are healed, finally. Some are healed in ways that we ask for. But God’s redeeming and saving grace always heals, finally.

It is important to know that the gift of healing is not a “tool we own and by which we can manipulate God into doing our own will”---or twist God’s arm to do what God did not desire to do!   Healing is something God does. We may participate in God’s healing work, but we are not the healers. So we can lay hands on (an ancient gesture of the gift of the Holy Spirit). We pray for the healing of our brothers and sisters in Christ; or for what they need. It is not ours to say what God will or will not do. But we do believe that God does minister to the sick person. We are blessed to be participants in God’s work. (Texts for Preaching, Year B)

Which brings me to state what may be obvious: The healing arts and sciences now available are a part of God’s healing ministries. Prayer, visitation, the laying on of hands---all of these work cooperatively with the scientific and therapeutic approaches  to healing. The Church’s participation in the formation of hospitals and clinics around the world is an outgrowth of the elders laying on hands, anointing and praying in the early church. Unexplained or miraculous healings do occur; but God’s activity in our world is not limited to these rare instances. God is present with all in the healing professions who seek the well-being and cure of sick people. God is active in this ministry, and so are we. Only let the church not abandon the field of healing; let us not neglect the gospel portrait of Jesus the Healer, who can bring a transformed heart and soul, a “new being” into people’s lives.

This brings me to say what may not be so obvious: the physical and mental health of our fellow citizens is God’s desire, and ought to be ours, too. The deliverance of health care to “those least served” should be our passion---not only because it is a human need but because Jesus’ gave us the example of his passion for the health and salvation of those least served. (This is the mission of Methodist Health Care Ministries, a ministry funded by the Methodist/HCA hospital system in San Antonio.)

So James exhorts us to sing our prayers of joy, pray for ourselves and others in our needs.

I came across an unlikely source for inspiration, a Catholic friar from England named Simon Tugwell. He has helped me understand that I can work too hard at praying correctly. It is more important that I pray as I can, not as I ought. He has written it in this way:

 “We must pray the prayer that we find in our hearts, in an attitude of humility and trust, and then simply leave the whole thing in God’s hands. We must never presume on any infallibility; we may have got it all wrong…… We must pray the prayer we find within us with all confidence and even with all the authority that we find there; but then we must let go of it, without anxiety, without any conceit, and let God be God.” (Simon Tugwell, Prayer in Practice, page 85 and 86)

I want to use my words to ask for help when I am in trouble, and to believe that I will not be ignored or shunned by a busy God. I want to sing, even if in the shower or the car alone, when I am happy. I want to be a leader in a church which prays for and ministers to the sick----and advocates for health care for all God’s people.

In the old liturgy for Holy Communion, we are asked to “draw near with faith and take this holy sacrament to [our] comfort.” As you come to the rail today, picture Jesus as your healer. Offer to him your own sufferings, or the suffering of others you bring in your heart.

For further reading:
Walter Wangerin, Jr., Whole Prayer: Speaking and Listening to God, Zondervan, 1998. A Lutheran pastor and author, Wangerin is one of the most creative writers on spiritual subjects.

Paul Tillich, The New Being, Scribners, 1955. This is a collection of his sermons. Two are on healing. Tillich created quite a stir when he recommended that modern Christians should recover an emphasis on Jesus the healer.

Simon Tugwell, Prayer in Practice, Templegate, 1974. He has many books still in print.

I also recommend books written by Roberta Bondi on the subject of the spiritual life.

Cokesbury will be able to get Bondi’s  and Wangerin’s books. The others can be found with a google search. Tillich’s may be available on line.