/fairfaxs-website/image-f878f-i65ab.png "Fairfax Presbyterian Church")
Like Hebrews, the letter of James was written to Jewish Christians, and his focus was the proper relationship between faith and action. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers,” he said to a group of Christians outside of Palestine (Jas 1:22). “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (Jas 2:17). At the end of the letter, he turned his attention to prayer and asked, “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. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven” (Jas 5:14-15).
James called for prayer when people were suffering, cheerful and sick, promising that “the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (Jas 5:16). He was convinced that prayer could have a significant effect on our brain, body, heart, and soul — in bad times and good. And today, medical researchers are catching up with him. Dr. Andrew Newberg of Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia has been studying the effect of prayer on the brain for over 20 years. He injects radioactive dye into people and then watches for changes in their heads when they pray. He does not claim that prayer is a cure-all, but he believes that it can be every bit as important as science in helping patients to heal. By praying, he said to NBC News, “you can cause a lot of different changes all the way throughout the body, which could have a healing effect.”
So how does prayer actually work? What makes it powerful and effective? The power of prayer is not that it changes disease but that it changes us — the people who pray. When Newberg studied a group of Franciscan nuns who joined together in meditative prayer, he discovered that the area of the brain associated with the sense of self began to “shut down.” He saw that in this type of prayer, “You become connected to God. You become connected to the world.” Prayer deepens our connection to God and to the world around us, which is related to the insight of James, “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up” (Jas 5:15). Prayer connects us to the sick people in the world around us and raises them into the presence of God.
Prayer changes the people who pray, making them more peaceful and accepting and aligned with their Christian convictions. One of the most well-known modern prayers is the Serenity Prayer, said first by Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr during World War II and now central to the recovery from addiction being achieved in thousands of 12-step groups: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Notice that God is not being asked in this prayer to heal anyone miraculously, but is being asked to give people serenity, courage and wisdom so that they can become well and live life more fully. And since part of the healing process is going to include forgiveness, there needs to be an opportunity for honest confession and pardon. This is why James says, “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (Jas 5:16). The Serenity Prayer is said in 12-step groups across our country and throughout the world, and the result has been sobriety for millions of people.
People who pray for serenity, courage, and wisdom will be given the help they need. Eileen Flanagan, who has written a book on the Serenity Prayer called The Wisdom to Know the Difference, quotes a study which found that wise people “are able to step outside themselves and assess a troubling situation with calm reflection. They recast a crisis as a problem to be addressed, a puzzle to be solved. They take action in situations they can control and accept the inability to do so when matters are outside their control.” Prayer helps us to step outside ourselves, assess troubling situations, and take action when we can. But it also helps us to accept the inability to act when situations are outside our control.
In the face of various challenges, prayer helps us to make a positive difference in the world. In his second chapter, James wrote, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” (Jas 2:15-16). Faith without works, he said, “is dead” (Jas 2:17). That is why faithful Christians do more than simply offer hurting people their thoughts and prayers — they summon the courage to provide decent clothing, food and shelter to the poor of their community. Prayerful people tend to agree with James that faith, without loving actions, is a dead faith. This passage from James is one of the Bible’s greatest hits because it tells us that prayer is powerful and effective, capable of connecting us with God and with the world around us. “The prayer of faith will save the sick” (Jas 5:15) by raising them into the presence of God, where forgiveness and healing can be obtained, and also by turning us into people who can make a positive difference in the lives of people around us.
Questions:
1. In your experience, what is the power of prayer?
2. How has prayer changed you as a person, if at all?
3. Where do you see a connection between prayer and action?
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