Sermons

back to list

When We Pray

Date:9/26/21

Passage: James 5:13-20

Speaker: Rev. Dr. Stephen Graham

In his book, Wishful Thinking, A Theological ABC, Frederick Buechner defines and redefines words that have become so familiar that they have lost their power in our lives; become worn or tired from overuse when there is really no other word that can say what we most want or need. He writes this about the word, prayer: “Everybody prays whether he or she thinks of it as praying or not.” Push any one of us back far enough and the cry we utter is in its own wordless way a prayer. Take anyone of us to the heights of this world’s grandeur and the breathless sigh we release is a prayer. Buechner writes, “According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it!” [1]Like going to a friend to borrow bread at midnight. The friend may tell you to go away, but you go on knocking until your friend finally gives you what you want! (Luke 11:5-8).

Our vision is to be a beloved community in which people suffer and pray, rejoice and sing, become sick and are made whole, sin and are forgiven.

We can patiently pray because we know God cares for us down to the last detail of our lives (James 5:11). God is full of tender mercies. We cast our cares upon God because God cares for us!

When we are in trouble, when we are hurting we should pray as if our life depends upon it—because it does. Even a slight pause in worship for prayer is an expression of our utter dependence upon God. No words must be spoken to receive the gift of God’s presence. There are times when our collective silence reveals this truth about us:

“We need You, O we need You;
Every hour we need You![2]  

We pray not only for ourselves, but also for each other. James says, “If one is sick among you, that one should call for the church leaders. They will come and pray over you, and pour a little oil upon you, and lay a little love on you, and call for the Lord to heal you” (James 5:13—15, SDG).

Sometimes it is hard to tell if people want the church to pray over them.

Every unspoken sign says, “Stay back.” Their body language screams “Please don’t come over here and pray over me.” While everything within them cries out silently, “O, that this one who comes in the name of the Lord would come over here and pray over me.” Because when we pray, healing begins!

We pray, confessing our sins and admitting our faults to one another, so that we may live together whole and healed (5:16a). Confessing our worries and anxieties, we discover that God’s grace is sufficient for all our needs. A sense of being forgiven is related to a sense of health.

Tremendous power is made available through a good soul’s earnest prayer. We pray not because we can lay hold of what we pray for, but because when we pray God can lay hold of us. The effects of prayer are life changing.  Finding the personal agency to with effect begins with prayer. 

Because prayer is something powerful to be reckoned with (5:16b), we keep at it. We should not give up on prayer or try to explain away passages of healing and forgiveness because someone we know has yet to be made whole.. 

We called our grandmother, Nanny. As a young girl, she loved to tell Bible stories to the children of her family’s farmworkers. She was known for telling a good story; too good on occasion. Sometimes she needed to make up a better ending. Moses being forbidden from entering the Promised Land. wasn’t fair! She had Moses riding into the Promised Land on a great white horse!

Before we rush to explain away hopeful texts on prayer remember that the most important thing about prayer is to keep at it.

Late one Sunday night, I was about to crawl into bed. Jennifer and the kids were asleep, when the night silence was shattered by  the phone ringing. It was my sister, Nancy. She had horrifying news. Her husband’s nineteen-year-old niece, Shawna, had been killed in a motorcycle accident. She had been riding just down to the boat dock at the lake on the back of a motorcycle, going only fifteen miles an hour when a car towing a trailer cut through the curve and came over the line and swerved into their lane.   Shawna had died at the scene. Nancy asked me to come.

I was frightened as I backed out of the drive. There was our son’s jeep. This was all too close to home. I was sick at my stomach when I entered the Charles and Deanna’s home. What was I doing here? I couldn’t think of one single thing to say.

For hours, we welcomed those who came to the door or called on the phone. We sat with the family so deeply wounded by the shock and horror of their loss. I was speechless. I prayed and prayed, I confess, mostly for something to say. “God just give me one comforting word.” When  I cannot remember having said a word.

Ashamed of myself, I drove home in the dark hours of that morning with doubts that this family could ever be healed from such devastating pain. How could I ever forgive myself for not having one single solitary word to offer? What can you do  when the winds been knocked out of you?

A year later forgiveness found me. On the anniversary of Shauna’s death, her mother called and invited me to join them for a service . I didn’t want to go. I only wanted to apologize for my shameful silence. A thousand times, I had wished I had done better. Being there was like returning to the scene of that awful accident. 

That evening Deanna expressed her gratitude to those who had been strength for her. She read a list of names of those who had encouraged her to keep at it. Still beyond my understanding, my name was on her list. She said, “Thank you, Steve, for having the courage to be silent at a time when nothing could be said.” She knew I was praying for them and that had made all the difference. I am still humbled that those prayers, those humble, feeble prayers had any agency at all.

Be sure, the Lord is tenaciously committed to hear our prayers, to forgive us, and to bring us wholeness and healing.. “When we pray,” writes Rachel Naomi Remen, “We stop trying to control life and remember that we belong to life. It is an opportunity to experience humility and recognize grace.”[3]

It is so easy to be dismissive of the little we have to offer. We say, “I’ll pray for you,” and we have the idea that’s not doing much. But when we pray, they will know.

During this interim, I hope that we will experience humility and recognize grace. Royal Lane you have much to offer this harsh world. You are a blessed and gifted people. I know this to be true. We have known you by your prayers and love; that’s why we have a print of this painting by Martha Box on the wall of our study at home.

Day in and day out it this beautiful painting hangs in your narthex. It tells this strong story about you. “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

Maybe at the heart of our prayers we seek to know and to be known by our love! So, let’s keep at it.

[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Harper & Row, New York, 1973, p. 70.

[2] I Need Thee Every Hour, The Baptist Hymnal, Nashville, Tennessee, 1991, p. 450

[3] Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996), p. 271.