Psalm 19:8
James 5:13-18
13 Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any joyful? They should sing songs of praise. 14 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. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.
16 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a human like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded its harvest.
James Intro
• Date still is unknown. One source said it even night predate 1 Thessalonians that's considered the earliest NT book. A friend's study bible said well into the second century, which feels far too late to me.
• Author almost definitely wasn't Jesus' disciple James Zebedee; it well could have been Jesus bio bro James.
• Written to diasporic Jewish Christians who lived either fairly nearby or relatively far away—take your pick.
James definitely is an "insider" document addressed to people established in their faith, encouraging them to greater compliance to the demands of the commands and – by extension – to The Way of Jesus of Nazareth. As doers of the words and not merely hearers (James 1:22), James' intended audience is reaching for a level of maturity that encompasses their economic, political, social, intellectual, and everyday life. In short, every aspect of all of life.
James carries echoes of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, texts the Jewish Christians would have been familiar with. James knows Matthew's Sermon on the Mount and Luke's Sermon on the Plain; James throughout is about doing the word. Remember the community's Jewish roots!
In style and content, like Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job (Psalms sometimes gets included) James also is in the tradition of OT Wisdom literature. Wisdom in scripture is the fruit of spiritual maturity and deep life experience. Biblical wisdom discerns actions with an open heart and an open mind, makes space for mercy and grace. As we've seen in psalms and proverbs along with other OT writings, wisdom makes a place at the table. Wisdom trusts resurrection happens out of death.
James Content
Life never has been about a supposedly autonomous individual; no one live by themselves or for themselves. James writes about being connected to my neighbor whose neighbor I become. We live in communal interdependence under the commandments (law!) and under the prophets (grace!). Just as God's nascent people Israel learned, obedience that regards the neighbor's good as my own good leads to a life of freedom.
This isn't about works-righteousness or about becoming human doings rather than human beings. As Paul of Tarsus, church fathers and mothers, the Reformers and those of us in their lineage knew and still affirm, salvation is God's gift without human cost, yet the gift demands human response. Theologian of grace Martin Luther said he'd love to be called Doctor of Good Works; John Calvin said there is no knowledge of God without obedience.
Reformer Martin Luther famously did not at all care for this letter by James. He called it "an epistle of straw, with nothing of the nature of the gospel about it."
But given all of its life-giving and life-sustaining content, why didn't Luther love and admire James? I wish I'd written down the source, but someone somewhere suggested just maybe Pastor Martin wasn't crazy about the idea of serving some of his more rustic, less civilized nearby neighbors.
Today's Second Reading
This passage is mostly written to church leaders, particularly those in what you might call more active, direct service ministries: pastors, ruling elders, evangelism committees, Stephen Ministers (not that prayer isn't a vital activity).
This short scripture is an excellent description of faithfully doing the word, especially within the community of the local church. It presents is a brief capsule of James ongoing concern for relationships of individual to community, community to individual and their intertwined interdependence.
If you're suffering—pray! If you're happy—sing praises. 5:13
Pray for the sick; anoint them with oil—a practice inherited from Hebrew Bible times. Throughout scripture, oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and therefore of being set part as holy for a purpose. Monarchs and prophets were anointed with oil. Priests were anointed with oil. A person being baptized is anointed to follow Jesus into the threefold ministry of prophet, priest, and sovereign. Although (to my knowledge) there are no recorded instances of Jesus or his disciples using oil in addition to praying or laying on of hands, nothing in scripture forbids it, so oil comes under the category of adiaphora or indifferent things, neither commanded nor forbidden. James most likely assumes oil as a natural gift of creation will supplement the spiritual offering of prayer.
Confess your sins to one another? James doesn't explicitly acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ of God (is that one reason for Luther's reservations about the book?), yet this admonition hints at Jesus bestowing the office of the keys on his followers on resurrection Sunday evening, recorded in John 20:21-23.
James offers an example of answered prayer by citing Elijah's plea to heaven for rain. What's your take on that?
"All the words the Lord has spoken
we will do!"
Exodus 19:8
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