Concluding Summons

James 5: 16b - 20

In the last meditation we stopped at verse 16a, but we have not talked about 16b yet. I gave a comment that often verses 17-20 are taken out of context. If you read verse 16b carefully, ‘The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.’, it is very much connected with the previous verses, especially verse 15 and 16a. Verse 16a talks about confessing sins to one another and praying for one another. We already mentioned that a community who does not pray for one another will find it hard to forgive and confess sins to one another. Once again I want to encourage you in every place to have a prayer fellowship as a church at least once a week. Of course this is in addition to your daily prayers. Sometimes, however, we see a lack of interest in prayer fellowships, as if it has no meaning. Some people, having studied Reformed theology wrongly, think that all things are under the sovereignty of God anyway, so they do not need to pray. There is not a single Reformed theologian who teaches this. This is not Reformed theology but our own misunderstanding that we do not understand how important prayer is. The church is seen from the liveliness of its prayer fellowship. If we are not interested in a life of prayer, then that is where God knows us. If Satan wants to attack a church, he will attack the prayer fellowship and each person’s own prayer life. A church may have other problems and weaknesses, for example, I am not convinced the position or timing of the words of the third song’s lyrics just now was right. Maybe this needs to be corrected, but the prayer life needs much more correction and priority. I hope you have a prayer fellowship every week. I may not be physically present in every place, but every Saturday at 2 PM you can always join remotely. It is also good that in every place there is a routine face-to-face prayer fellowship.

Many churches and christians seem content with a poor spirituality. They live in poverty spiritually but think it is fine. Through prayer, God has opened the access to spiritual blessings in Christ. However, christians may not realize how precious this feast that God has provided. We do not seem to have sensitivity towards the spiritual world. Instead, what is more important to us are perhaps material or physical things. Perhaps we are scared of wars in Europe that have not ended, but we are not scared of being spiritually poor, prayerless, without spiritual blessings, spiritually dry. We feel fine with those. In Stockholm you are looking for a worship place, and of course it is urgent. However, I am not too worried about this. I am more worried if we do not live in the fullness of spiritual blessings in Christ. I am worried if our prayer life is very poor, because that means we do not know the spiritual riches in Christ. This is similar to an illustration of a homeless person who has actually been invited to a restaurant to eat freely and anytime, yet does not appreciate it and chooses to remain in hunger and cold. This is so foolish. Why are there so many christians like this? They say they know God, but they do not know the feast of spiritual blessings that God has provided. Why? Some people in church have not been born again. They do not see the kingdom of God and are never interested in it. They need to be saved in Christ. The Holy Spirit needs to open their eyes so they can see the beauty in Christ. Christianity is radical in the positive sense. Once you know the beauty and glory in Christ, all other things in this world will pale in comparison. It is like a person has tasted delicious food and no longer wants to visit another restaurant that provides food that is less tasteful. Once we taste the sweetness of Christ, everything else should become tasteless or even bitter. The access that God has opened is through prayer. When a person wants to enter a restaurant, he or she must go through its door. Maybe we are so lazy that we become like the homeless person, who, instead of entering the restaurant, asks the restaurant owner to come out and bring the food. This is like christians who do not want to pray. By the way I am not talking about a homeless person in particular. This is just an illustration. I want to talk about the spiritual dimension. Let us celebrate the access that God has opened by boldly approaching the throne of grace.

This is what Elijah understands, as James quoted. In the Old Testament, Elijah is a great figure. Why does James say in this passage that Elijah is a man with a nature like ours? This is an interesting depiction. Relating this with the previous part, where a sick person calls in an elder to pray over him. It is as if a prayer from an elder is more effective, powerful and magical. However, this is not the case. The elder comes to show compassion and mercy, but the healing happens not without the sick person’s prayer. It does not depend on the elder’s prayer, but it is the prayer of the sick person himself. In the Old Testament, praying for others is a priestly office. A priest mediates between God and Israelites in a way that the priest prays to God on behalf of Israelites. The culmination of the priestly office is in Christ, who is the Great High Priest. Christ prays for us and brings us before His Father. Christ the Priest above all priests.

In Reformed theology, there is democratization of the priestly function. The priestly function is passed to the church, in a way that every believer raises intercessory prayers just like Christ. You might have heard the term from Luther ‘the common priesthood of all believers’. This means every believer has the priestly function. In relation to this, what James says in this passage is correct as it is about democratization of prayer. In the Old Testament, those considered to have powerful prayers are people like Elijah, Samuel, Moses, the great intercessors. However, James then says Elijah is an ordinary man. He is not trying to demean Elijah, but he wants to tell ordinary christians that they also have the same access to God as Elijah. Instead of dragging down Elijah, James is saying that other christians are as great as Elijah because the access in prayer is also given to them. How miserable we are if we do not realize this! Instead, we get interested in Elijah’s fiery chariot, his coat, or riches, security, health, etc. We do not see Elijah’s access to God that is opened to us, as if we are not interested in it. I believe the modern church has a poor life compared to the early church because we do not pray like the early church. We do not think spiritual blessings and riches in Christ are important. Because of this, our struggles are not about the spiritual matters, but about unimportant matters. In the end we live our lives serving our anxiety over unimportant matters, spend all our time on them and finally pass away. There is then no more opportunity. Once more, James’ writing on Elijah here aims to encourage the community to appreciate prayer because the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. This is not only for Elijah but also for James’ congregation.

We then enter the concluding summons in verse 19-20, which end the whole epistle. However, I still want to relate these two verses with the previous passage. Verse 16 says, ‘Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.’ I explained this last week and do not want to repeat too much. Here it talks about healing that is not only physical but also spiritual. What is the disease? From the saying, ‘confess your sins to one another and pray for one another’, it is clear what the disease is. It is self-righteousness, never wanting to confess sins, never wanting to feel guilty. Self-righteousness also makes one not want to be prayed for, and not want to pray for others. Can you imagine a christian community who blames and accuses one another? There is no intercessory prayer, no confession of sins, no forgiveness of one another.

We then continue with verse 19-20, ‘My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.’. What does wandering from the truth mean here? It is about not wanting to confess sins and not wanting to feel guilty. It is also about not willing to forgive others. It is also about not wanting to be prayed for and not wanting to pray for others. What does James mean by bringing back a sinner? You can interpret this broadly, but I am more interested in interpreting this in relation to the previous verses. How does someone bring back a sinner? It is simple: to have the courage to confess sins, to forgive, to be prayed for, and to pray for others. A church that does not prioritize prayer fellowship is an ill church. In this case, bringing back a sinner means making the church see how important it is to pray for one another. James then says such an act saves the person’s soul from death and covers a multitude of sins.

Sometimes we are unaware of things that do not happen due to God’s providence. We take those things for granted. For example, in our daily lives, we do not get accidents, do not get illnesses, and do not go to emergency hospitals. We think those are normal and take them for granted. We may think it is normal that pipes in our house do not leak. However, as soon as they leak, we realize that it is very costly. When you become sick, you then find out how expensive health is. We consider many things as normal but actually they are all under the providence of God.

I would like to connect this with what James says about covering a multitude of sins. If there were someone like Hilter, we would realize how wonderful it would be to bring back such a sinner, as we know from history that he did many horrible things that would have not happened if he were to repent. However, maybe we miss to consider that people who have been won for God could have been big criminals as well if they did not repent. Historically the crimes of those did not happen because they repented, but we fail to see this as something beautiful. Referring to the part ‘covering a multitude of sins’, maybe we do not realize how many sins that can be covered when a person believes in Christ and lives righteously before God. We only see things that are going well but actually a multitude of sins have been covered because someone repents and knows Christ.

We know Europe has been struggling with an influx of people, not only immigrants but also refugees. As you read in newspapers, some of them (hopefully a minority) commit murders, stabbing, etc. They are not grateful to the country that receives them. Instead, they commit violence. What is then the influence of christians? Are we interested in winning them over for Christ? It will cover a multitude of sins. If only they knew the love of Christ, they would not commit the violent acts. Maybe this example is rather dramatic. We can talk about a simpler example. We might not be aware of the damage we cause when we do not pray. When we do not confess sins, when we feel self-righteous and do not want to forgive, maybe we are not aware of the damages. We are not aware how slow the work of God proceeds just because we do not pray enough. We do not realize how lacking the growth of the work of God is because we are not interested in supporting and giving offerings. Instead, we keep being anxious over daily things that never end. A multitude of sins that are covered include not only stabbing, murder and other violent acts, but also hindering the work of God. While God waits for us patiently, we remain oblivious and become people who slow down the work of God. There is a radical sentence that is probably unpleasant to hear. We can see problems in society, be it in Stockholm, Switzerland, Berlin or anywhere. Who are to blame? Perhaps our spontaneous response is that it is the government, be it central, federal or municipal, as they are responsible for these things. There is a christian author, however, who has looked into problems in society such as racism, violence and injustice, and says that christians are to blame. We have the Gospel that is liberating. We have the good news to share with other people, but we do not share it and keep it within our exclusive fellowships. What do we then expect in society in the dark world to help themselves? There is no help. Does God not entrust His help to the hands of christians, you and myself? It is a huge responsibility to share the Gospel, the good news, with the world that is full of violence, fear, anxiety, depression, loneliness, etc. Your and my responsibility are huge. I hope you do not become depressed upon hearing how huge our responsibility is. Instead, we should see this as an invitation from God to do it, and together with God, we can do it. I hope we all grow, be it in Stockholm, Berlin, Switzerland and other cities.