Why Pray?

Passage: James 5:13-20

In this passage, James says some things about prayer that, I’m sure, will spark contentious debate until the end of time.  At first glance James seems to issue a simple exhortation to pray.  “Pray when you are in trouble; pray when you’re happy; pray when you’re sick…”  As Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually…”  It’s what James says next, however, that inevitably raises difficult questions:

…the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. 

James mentions that prayer will save the one who is sick.  Is James talking about physical healing, or ultimate soul-salvation?  Christians who conclude the former have applied “healing prayer” in the assumption that, issued with the proper attitude and fervency, prayer will sustain the life of the afflicted.  When the affliction is not lifted, the conclusion has to be that the faith or persistence of those praying was inadequate.  This in turn leads many of us to conclude that James is talking primarily about salvation and the promise of resurrection through Jesus Christ.  This is certainly a safer conclusion that explains why those for whom we pray still get sick and die.  But then James goes on to say,

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

The apostle unapologetically argues that the prayers of the faithful have a real-life impact on imminent realities.  To understand this we have to appreciate what James and his fellow apostles have seen and heard.  James, the brother of Jesus who became a follower of Jesus, witnessed water being changed into wine; crowds being fed; sick people being healed; the dead being raised.  This in response to the words of the Savior and the prayers of his disciples.  Were these miracles invasions of earth by heaven limited to the time in which Jesus walked the earth? 

In Early Christian Letters for Everyone, NT Wright argues otherwise.  Wright points out that Jesus’ life and ministry marks the advent of an ongoing invasion of earth by heaven – an era in which “the Kingdom of Heaven is not far off.”  When the reality of Heaven breaks into our current reality, miraculous and unexpected things happen.  Because we live in a world corrupted by sin, we’ve been conditioned to think of weakness, sickness and death as normal.  In fact, these are deviations from the way it’s meant to be.  The sign of the Kingdom of Heaven is restoration – the restoration of bodies, spirits, and relationships.  Wright goes on to argue that when we live in Christ, we live at the intersection of Heaven and Earth.  This is an intersection at which all things are possible.  The invitation to prayer is an invitation to appeal to a God who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine.  A God whose priority for us and our world is restoration, new life, and reconciliation.  When we pray for these, we do two things: First, we trust God’s timing and methods in answering our prayers; second, we trust his ability to fulfill his promises.  Our prayer, in turn, serves the purpose not of persuading God to do what we want, but of realigning our wills so that we begin to want – for ourselves and our world – what God wants.