James 5:13-20
Proper 21 (26) - Year B
If there is wisdom in seeing this as a passage about the community instead of an individual, might we not read it: "Are you among you suffering? The community is to be in prayer. Are any cheerful? Everyone is to sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? Call forth the healing elders.... The prayer of the righteous [another name for the people of the way?] is powerful and effective."
Like me you may have had pain beyond which one cannot pray, detachment is not that strong. Likewise there has been cheer and enchantment beyond limiting it by any particular expression of thanks. There is always the limit of death staring us in the heart and being connected with the elders who have gone before is a comfort - myrrh and frankincense and aloes, ahhh, what anointing for a life well lived.
Truly love covers all offenses.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/september2003.html
James 5:13-20
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 or Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Psalm 124 or Psalm 19:7-14
Mark 9:38-50
We have, all of us, been sold. We have sold ourselves and those dear to us. Pottage is that cheap. We have sold the children into the hands of boredom and violence. Our willingness to sell is that great. We have sold our enemies to death and hurried them on their way that we might get our bargain.
In our buying and selling of self and others we lose track of where deeds of power reside - outside of market economies. When we see a deed of power beyond our control we get jealous and covetous. It is so easy to forget that whoever is not against us is for us and when a deed of power is accomplished, not mater to whom it is directed or through whom it comes, we are benefited.
= = = = = = =
anyone sick
anyone anyone
its time for a day off
we will wander
and it will save our soul
a multitude of sins
will be blessed
and grown from[* With thanks to Ferris Buhller]
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Let's follow some parallels. Sufferers pray. Elders pray. Elders are sufferers – thus the reality of wounded healers.
Prayer of sufferers segues into prayer of faith or praise.
We started with sufferers praying for themselves and the cause/healing of their sufferings. We come full circle with a prayer of life binding sufferers and non-sufferers together with the cheerful and non-cheerful.
Prayer is also paralleled with praise and so we can hear a background of life that leads us to confess our suffering by and praise of one another. This is a community builder that is much healthier than catching another in their sin and praising ourselves for praying them into submission.
It is all too easy to see ourselves as modern-day Elijah's able to pray consequences into people's lives. As prayers we tend to see ourselves powerfully and effectively righteous. Praying through suffering and praising the possibilities of others is a good antidote to righteous pride.
Prayer and praise circle a tree of life so fast they merge into one another – yin and yang. Welcome to the joyful chase.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
This passage makes it easy to confuse what it attempts to clarify.
What is not clear is the distinction between “suffering” and “sick”. Our tendency is to equate these.
Suffering is affliction from the outside and this falls in the great prophetic tradition of dealing with evil as a systemic reality, with a falling away from best community practices. Prayer, here is not a quietism. Note the example given of Elijah and the elements. Why was drought seen as a result of prayer? or rain? It was to address systemic injustice arising as a result of breaking communal care (think Ahab and Jezebel). Prayer is an open-eyed engagement with the principalities and powers. We do prayer an injustice in making it a solitary appeal for a deus ex machina to be engaged. Prayer is bold and confrontative. Prayer is not head-bowed petition as much as an in-your-face claim or affirmation.
While being sick can be too easily equated with a lack of faith, it is in contrast to suffering by its internal orientation—something we do to ourselves (even if expressed as hurting another) and its source is from the inside out. Here we look to models of community that elders and shamans from every culture engage to reset a person’s relationships that bring meaning and strength. Here, too, prayer is active, is anointing, dancing, purging, etc.
A grand model responding to both is restorative justice. That which harms others, be it systemic or personal, can be redeemed, restored. It is this restoration that measures prayer.
If we had these two better paralleled we might better see their connections and distinctions.
A difficulty or possibility in making this connection lies with how we engage blessings. How does song parallel prayer?
Were I advising James on his letter, I would ask for another word or two about prayer and singing. This expansion might unpack deeds entrusted to reset broken relationships/covenants. This extension might clarify faithful work that engages not only past contracts but new potentials arising out of subsequent experiences.
As we continue to learn more about insides and outsides, prayers and psalms, hopes and dreams — lift up your voice.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/09/james-513-20.html