A sermon based on James 5:13-20 and Jeremiah 8:18-22
Don Friesen
September 27, 2009
Ottawa Mennonite Church
Our reading from the New Testament Epistles asks the question: "Are any among you sick?" (James 5:14) I would like to examine this passage, but in case you wonder where I'm going, I'm going to start with today, and walk backwards, toward New Testament times.
Are any among you sick? It's a timely question, given the present North American focus on health concerns. In both Canada and the United States there is a growing concern about a looming pandemic, and in the United States there is also an intense discussion about health care reform. Churches are very involved in these preparations and in these discussions, as Dennis Gruending pointed out last week in his Adult Sunday School presentation.
In the United States, Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners community in Washington, praised President Obama for making "the commitments that a broad coalition in the faith community had asked for reform as a moral issue, affordable coverage for all, and no federal funding of abortion," although there is an ongoing debate about the latter. Others in the evangelical community want a more explicit commitment in that regard. ("Where the Health Care Debate Lies," Christianity Today, September 22, 2009, by Tobin Grant)
In Canada our own denomination has done a great service for all churches by pulling together resources to help churches prepare for a pandemic. (www.churchpandemicresources.ca/) The consensus among health care professionals and others is that the question of a pandemic is not if, but when it will happen, and when it happens Canadian health authorities estimate it will kill between 11,000 to 58,000 people in Canada and that two to five million will get sick.
The Church Has Invested Heavily in Health
Only a few years ago (2003) the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crisis created fear, social disruption, sickness, and death. In 1918 the Spanish Influenza pandemic was responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people, 50,000 in Canada. It was about that time that Dorothy's father, then only fourteen, contacted poliomyelitis (polio), another viral infectious disease making the rounds. My father-in-law fell ill the very day his brother died of the disease.
Churches were certainly affected in these situations; many of them closed, others were used as hospitals. The daughter of a woman who offered her services as a practical nurse at such a hospital in a Methodist Church in Saskatchewan recalls: "I remember seeing three coffins, piled one on top of the other, sitting outside of the church awaiting burial in a common grave." In fact, there were few funerals. Dead bodies were literally stacked up, with grave diggers working around the clock. Some families lost track of their loved ones forever, because bodies were buried as quickly as possible in the nearest cemetery. (Joan Champ, "The Impact of the Spanish Influenza Epidemic on Saskatchewan Farm Families, 1918-1919, January 13, 2003, page 6)
No one welcomes a pandemic, and Christians are as subject to fear as anyone, but the Church has an historic stake in public health and considerable experience with it. In Canada many of our hospitals were founded by the Church. At the time of Confederation (1867), governments relied heavily upon religious orders to build hospitals. Roman Catholic orders opened hospitals in Quebec City and Montreal as early as the seventeenth century. The Catholic Church had a huge impact on the development of our health care systems. Hospitals were also established by other denominations, like the Salvation Army, and the Mennonites, who established, for example, the Concordia Hospital in Winnipeg in 1928.
The seventeenth century saw great devastation wrought in Europe by the plague, and pastors like Martin Rinckart (1586-1649) were overrun with the demands of caring for and burying their parishioners and townspeople, sometimes burying as many as fifty a day! In that case the plague was exacerbated by a severe famine.
Today marks the anniversary of the death of Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), another citizen of the seventeenth century, who founded the Sisters (or Daughters) of Charity (1633) During a civil war in France (The Fronde, 16481653), the sisters sheltered almost a thousand women, distributed soup every day to well over a thousand people, assisted 5,000 poor, and supported many others who would otherwise would have died. (St. Vincent's letters, Catholic Encyclopedia) Their work expanded to include the care of the aged and infirm, a hospital for the insane, orphanages, industrial schools, public schools, normal schools, and a home for women ex-convicts! The Sisters of Charity also gave care to the wounded on battlefields, a dangerous work for which they became known as the "Angels of the Battlefield".
Three hundred years earlier (fourteenth century), the Black Death decimated Europe, killing 30-60% of its population. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. The death rate was almost 50% in isolated populations such as monasteries. There were not enough clergy to offer last rites or support the victims, and, in fact, trust in the Church suffered because of its inability to adequately minister to the situation.
Our Response to Illness Brought us out of Obscurity
One can trace the Church's heavy investment in health right back to biblical times not surprising, of course, for our Lord performed many acts of healing. The Gospels tell us that when "Jesus saw a great crowd ...he had compassion for them and cured their sick." (Matthew 4:14) Jesus' compassionate response to illness became embedded in the mind of the Early Church, and so when James asks "Are any among you sick?" (James 5:14) we know why he's asking.
The strength of this passion of the Church to minister to the sick can be seen in two epidemics that struck the Roman Empire just a century or two after the Church began. One struck in the year, 165, and another some eighty years later, in 251. A third of the Empire's population died. In one city, Carthage, people "threw out the bodies of their dead and fled in terror." Cyprian, the Christian bishop of Carthage, however, "gathered his congregation together and set them to burying the dead and nursing the sick...." (William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians) In fact, they saved the city, at great risk to themselves!
There are least two things that are interesting about this story. Firstly, the way Christians in Carthage, and throughout the empire, selflessly cared for the sick and dying left a powerful impression on their neighbours. One author contends that it was this experience that explains how a tiny and obscure messianic movement from the edge of the Roman Empire became the dominant faith of Western civilization. (Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History, 1996) It's an interesting observation, for within a century after the second epidemic Christianity was a powerful presence in the world.
The way Christians cared for the sick and the dying, the way they looked after each other, practising forms of mutual aid, enhanced the young faith's reputation. Unlike their neighbours, who discarded the infected onto trash heaps, Christian believers rescued them, giving them dignity in dying, often in the process contracting the disease themselves.
Christianity offered charity as well as hope to cities filled with the homeless, the sick and impoverished. Newcomers and strangers, orphans and widows, found a home within the Church. Christianity offered a new vision of community, as well as effective nursing services to cities overwhelmed by disaster. (Stark, page 161) Christianity grew because it "provided those who joined it with a more appealing, more assuring, happier, and perhaps longer life." (Andrew M. Greeley, National Opinion Research Centre, University of Chicago)
So the first thing that is interesting about how Christians responded to public health concerns almost 2,000 years ago, is the incidental growth of Christianity. The second interesting thing is that they responded at all! After all, it was risky! Many in the rest of the population fled when disaster hit, but a much larger number of Christians chose to stay, offering care to one another as well as to those outside their circle-of-belief.
There is a New Testament Greek word that may explain their response in this fear-infested climate. Saint Paul uses it in the book of Philippians to describe his assistant, Epaphroditus, explaining how Epaphroditus "...came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life...." (Philippians 2:30) The word (paraboleuesthai) used is associated with gambling, and, as a gambler stakes everything on a throw of the dice, so Paul observed that for the sake of his Christian faith Epaphroditus laid his life on the line and nearly died doing it! In the Early Church, in fact, there was an association of men and women who used this word to describe their work. The "Gamblers," as we might call them, took it upon themselves to visit the prisoners and the sick, especially those who had infectious diseases. (Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians ...)
James' Cluster of Concerns
James asks, "Are any among you sick?" (James 5:14) James was concerned with practical things. The book of James is not a complex theological treatise. His focus is on the everyday challenges of living the Christian life. Right at the outset, James reminds his readers that life may include an assortment of troubles (James 1:2, NIRV), and as we read through his book, James mentions a number of specific troubles: the issue of money, and people allowing their lives to be defined by their economic status; the issue of theorizing endlessly with no practical results; the issue of elitist congregations; the issue of uncontrolled tongues and he wasn't talking about pentecostal tongues; the very basic issue of getting along with others in a congregation.
1) Troubles of any kind
Then, at the end of his letter, James adds a cluster of concerns five additional concerns that affect the life of a congregation. And the first concern has to do with troubles, or suffering of any kind. " Are any among you suffering?" (James 5:13) "...in trouble?" (NIV) asks James. "They should pray," is his answer. This isn't rocket science! If you're in trouble, who do you go to? God!
Our initial response to trouble may be to approach it as a problem. Figure it out! Map out a solution to the problem. And God gave us a brain with some problem-solving abilities, so it makes sense not to neglect the gift that is in you, but James is suggesting that you begin with talking to God about it. If it's trouble of a cumbersome size, commit it to God. Doing so, at the very least, brings release, for having shared the problem, you are freer to work at it, to seek advice, and to do all the other things needed for the task at hand.
2) The Trouble' with Happiness
The second in this cluster of concerns is the problem of happiness. "Are any cheerful?" asks James (James 5:13), or as other translations put it, "Is anyone happy? (NIV) "Do you feel great?" (The Message) Is "anyone in good spirits"? (JER) Is "anyone ...flourishing"? (PHL) And James suggests that those experiencing these good things "should sing songs of praise". Again not rocket science and the same principle applies here: start with God. And if it's a blessing thank God for it!
Every experience is an opportunity to connect more deeply with God every low point, every high point. Even happiness can distract us from God, and some of us, of course, have the ability to find a cloud in every silver lining. It's the mark of an ingrate, I suppose, but gratitude is not always my first response. We should also entertain the possibility that our cheerfulness, our good spirits, may be God's answer to the prayer we prayed about our troubles!
3) Illness
The third in James' cluster of concerns is illness. "Are any among you sick?" asks James. (James 5:13) Another practical concern, but the answer is the same as in #1 prayer, only this time James suggests we send for reinforcements. "Call for the elders of the church and have them pray over (the sick)." (5:14) Have them anoint the sick with oil, "in the name of the Lord".
Summon the doctor as well, but prayers for healing can help prepare one's mind and spirit for what is to come, and so summon the elders, those who have been given the ministry of prayer and intercession. One approach doesn't supplant the other! A woman who was going through a very difficult time in a toxic relationship was helped on her way to healing, she said, by the words and prayer of a church elder, who called her "a child of God" a phrase that reassured her many times that God would not forsake her.
4) Sin
The fourth in James' cluster of concerns is sin. "Confess your sins to one another," advises James, "and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." (James 5:16) Sin seldom comes up in our self-diagnoses, but we are sinners. We mess up, sometimes with grave consequences to our relationships, to our health, and to our faith. Sin can tarnish our spirits, overwhelm us with guilt, and deaden our souls.
On Thursday Dorothy and I went to hear Kim Phuc, the "girl in the picture," as she is often called, for it was the picture of her a naked, nine-year-old running away from the fiery blaze of a napalm bomb in Vietnam that caught the attention of the world and subsequently hastened the end of the war. Kim spoke of a number of lessons she's learned in her life, any one of them very difficult, like learning to deal with the pain that she still endures. She said that the hardest lesson was learning to forgive those who did this to her. She showed a brief clip of her moving encounter with the pilot of the aeroplane that dropped the napalm, and told how this forgiving encounter helped to restore her to wholeness.
5) Wandering off
James cites a fifth, and not unrelated concern, and that has to do with believers who wander away. (James 5:19-20) One translation utilizes an interesting choice of words in this regard, saying, "My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God's truth, don't write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives ...and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God." (James 5:19-20, The Message) This practical concern requires special measures, special initiatives.
Three Challenges for Congregations
As I bring this meandering meditation to a close, let me identify three challenges that James leaves with us, the Church.
1) A Call to Prayer
The first is a call to prayer. Whatever the concern, James' response is the same. Are any among you suffering? Pray. Are any among you sick? Pray. Have any among you sinned? Pray. Have any wandered away? James counsels we go after them, but it's probably a good idea to pray as we go in search of them and their redemption. James is convinced that "the prayer offered in faith will make (you) well (and) ...if (you) have sinned, (you) will be forgiven." (James 5:15, TNIV) He also cites the fervent prayers of Elijah as an example of the power of prayer. (James 5:17-18)
2) A Call to a Holistic View of Human Life
Secondly, underlying James' counsel is a holistic view of human life. James moves effortlessly from discussion of one's physical body to discussion of sin. The New Testament doesn't divide us into body and soul quite as sharply as we are apt to do. We can, for purposes of analysis, talk about ourselves as physical beings, emotional beings, and/or spiritual beings, but the best approaches of ministry and medicine treat human beings as an integrated whole. The biblical perspective on health is health in its broadest sense. James had a broad understanding of our overall well-being. The Church's response to trouble should address all of the factors that contribute to healing and wholeness.
3) A Call to a particular Vision of the Church
And thirdly, underlying James' counsel is a particular vision of the Church. When the human body detects harm or injury in one of its parts, it gathers its collective resources to deal with it. If you cut your leg, for example, your blood quickly begins to flush out any possible infection, the process of clotting works to stop the bleeding, and all kinds of other things happen that only a nurse could explain.
When sickness invades an area of our bodies, that area cries out and the remaining parts quickly respond to promote healing. James believed that the Church should function in much the same way. Our bodies would stop functioning if they adopted the individualistic attitude we often encourage, and so if some body-parts want to wander away, we would be apt to say that's their business! No "for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ." (1 Corinthians 12:12) We are called by the Scriptures to work "for the common good". (1 Corinthians 12:7)
It's essential in any crisis that each person think in terms of the common good. It's important that each body-part take responsibility for the common good. Since the last three sermons have been brought to you by the letter, "W," and by the word, "who," we could rephrase James' cluster of concerns in a series of who-questions:
And then ask: "Who among us is going to look after all of the above?" Indeed, the word, "who," can be an acronym for "Who Helps Out?" May our response be: "Here I Am, Lord. Send me."
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.