"Let them . . .": How the Bible, brokenness, and Jewish women taught me about confession and forgiveness ~ James 5:13-20 (Life Together Sermon Series, No. 5)

¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. ¹⁷ Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. ¹⁸ Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. ¹⁹ My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, ²⁰ remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. ~ James 5:13-20

James and I are not cut from the same cloth. He’s pithy, precise and hard hitting. He wrote one of the shorter letters in the New Testament and has no problem getting straight to the point. Now, you’re getting to know me. I can make anything sound difficult and my wife always loves to point out when I get a bit wordy – which basically is every time I open my mouth.  Our back and forth always reminds of a criticism leveled against Mozart. In the film Amadeus, Mozart plays a new piece for the emperor and when it’s over asks him if he liked it.

EMPEROR: “Of course I do. It's very good. Of course now and then - just now and then - it gets a touch elaborate.” MOZART: “What do you mean, Sire?” Mozart asks. EMPEROR: “I mean occasionally it seems to have, how shall one say? [he stops in difficulty; turning to the royal musical director] How shall one say, Musical Director?” ORSINI-ROSENBERG: “Too many notes, Your Majesty!” EMPEROR: “Exactly. Very well put. Too many notes.”

The letter of James cannot be accused of “too many notes.” However, one commentary I read was 500 pages. That’s 166 pages for every page in my Bible. So don’t be surprised that I’m not using a watch today – just a calendar. Ha! No, with James as our spiritual guide this morning defining our life together – my prayer, and I know your prayer – is that I might be as pithy and straight-forward as he is and not use too many notes. Three quick points for our passage this morning:

1.    First, we need to “let” the broken be broken [and “let” the encouraged one sing], vss. 13-15

Right off the bat I felt myself convicted in this passage by one simple, three letter word: “Let.” 

We are instructed by James to “let” the troubled or sufferer “pray.” To “let” the encouraged one “sing.” To “let” the sick “call.” And I will be perfectly honest – this word might be the most prophetic for us this morning. Do we let and allow people in our midst to encounter God where they’re at?  Do we “let” the broken come and pray? Do we offer freedom for others to celebrate and “let” them sing?

For the broken – James tells us – should be acknowledged and known, capable of sharing their suffering, trouble, disappointments, even health problems. And that in that state of trouble allow them to reach out to both God and us. We must “let” them do that in this place. And yet I’ve been a pastor long enough to know that it is often in this place that people feel the least able to themselves be. And I wish to say as your pastor, “You can dare to be a sinner among us.” We will “let” you. We will not offer judgment but the forgiveness that James states in such a matter of fact sort of way. And church we must be very careful that in our desire to avoid sin we don’t jeopardize who we are as a fellowship. Bonhoeffer is right that in many churches . . . 

“the final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.” Bonhoeffer, Life Together

So we will never have a breakthrough if we can’t allow ourselves to be a fellowship of the undevout in need of confession. If the story of Jesus in the Gospels has any warning for us it is this. Nothing is more toxic, more dangerous to the work of God than good people who refuse to welcome sinners and pious people who never admit their sins. We will “let” you be a sinner here so that you can be forgiven and “sing.” We will never be able to encourage one another, sing, offer prayer in faith, if we don’t let each other first be sinners in need of forgiveness, healing and hope. Otherwise, we would be as irrelevant as a hospital who forbade sick patients to enter. You are free to be sick and troubled in this place.

2.    Second, we need to confess to be free, vss. 16-18.

In the first season of the HBO drama True Detective, Matthew McConaughey’s character wisely admits: “Look – everybody knows there’s something wrong with them. They just don’t know what it is. Everybody wants confession, everybody wants some cathartic narrative for it. The guilty especially. And everybody’s guilty.”

Many of us get his point, at least in part. We understand the problem of sin, that everyone’s guilty but we haven’t been able to find that cathartic narrative or at least cathartic practice. We’re told that Jesus loves us, forgives us of our sins but the idea that we could find some actual release feels so elusive. We all need confession to feel free, James tells us. Yet, because we don’t practice confession, because we fear it, we have something far worse. We no longer have a guilt problem – we have a shame problem. Guilt is feeling bad about what you’ve done. Shame is feeling bad about who you are. Sin doesn’t want you to confess because it wants you to never let it go. It wants you ashamed. It doesn’t simply want to hurt you, it wants to take you captive, muzzle you, and torture you. A biblical synonym for sin can’t simply be “rebellious,” James reminds us. Sin is far more sinister than that. Sin is a disease that wants to keep you alone. Sin is that power that seeks to harm your relationship with God, your relationship with others, your relationship to yourself, and your relationship to all of creation. It’s not merely a volitional act but an utterly possessive one that seeks to imprison and silence you.

So vs. 16 commands us to confess our sins not secretly, only to God, but one to another in order to receive the liberating message that we are free in Christ. Why? Because the Christian message is always a message of incarnational love. Just as Jesus came in the flesh and demonstrated the love of God we continue to do so as a community. That’s why the act of confession is so important. Confession is to be as physical as the Son of God taking on a human body. Confession is an incarnational act of speaking to another brother or sister: “Jesus died for our sins. Including that one.”

But we have one more confession to make. And we should remember that the word confession has an important double meaning in the church. It’s not simply what we do with sin but it’s our declaration of what we believe to be true. 

And here’s the confession: Sin is not the most important thing about you. 

Be like Elijah – James argues in vs. 17 – and our face falls because Elijah seems like the LeBron James of the spiritual world. We feel the weight of our sin and don’t even want to try. But then our heart quickens because James goes on: he “was a human being, even as we are.” We can live our Christian lives heroically because God loves human beings, uses human beings, invites human beings to anoint and forgive each other, to prayer earnestly for one another. We can do these things as human beings because He is the Lord who hears our prayers, forgives our sins, heals our hurts, who raises people up and saves them from their sins.

We can be human, require confession, and still be like Elijah and used by God. 

3.    Third, we need to learn to cover each other like Jewish women on Air France, vss. 19-20.

My wife loves to tell us of a flight to France that she took by herself with our youngest daughter Lea, who was an infant at the time. The flight was notable for two reasons: 1) the drunk guy who was sitting across the aisle from my wife and 2) the large group of Hasidic Jewish women on the flight. In fact, the second reality was what led my wife to have sit by the drunk guy in the first place because the Jewish women were not allowed to sit next to any man, let alone an inebriated one. So Marianne was struggling to comfort Lea on a very full flight and then found herself needing to change her at her seat because of a long line for the bathroom. And what happened next was both so shocking and mysterious that she tells it with a certain delight. As she began to undo Lea’s clothes she was unaware that the Hasidic Jewish women began to slowly and silently surround her, separating her from all of the other passengers. When she took off her diaper – in an utterly startling motion – the Jewish women all grabbed their skirts and fanned them out to cover her and the baby making a human changing room to hide them from prying eyes. 

 They κεκαλυμμένον(ed) her. That’s the verb in Greek that James uses to describe “[to] cover a multitude of sins.” It means to cover; (figuratively) keep secret, hidden; to coat or dress (its antonym is the apocalypse – to reveal or uncover).

Friends that’s the image I want to leave with you today and that’s the admonition of James for us. That we are to cover one another, to protect, to care for, to pray for, one another in our sin. But I wonder if that’s what we’re doing or what we’re known for. It feels like in this day and age we’re not likely to help someone “turn” from sin as James commands. We’re more likely to point and laugh, or shame and frown, but to silently cover, to protect without judgment – that’s what we are called to. So this morning I invite you to grab your skirt and do it.

Is anyone among you suffering? Is anyone happy? Is anyone sick? Is anyone troubled? Is anyone encouraged? Does anyone need to be anointed? Does anyone need to confess?  We will let you come.