Song of the Drunkards

JESUS FACED A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF OPPOSITION FOR HIS HARD WORDS AND UNFLINCHING DEVOTION TO YAHWEH. NO SURPRISE THEN IF WE FIND OUR NAME FESTOONED IN BARROOM BALLADS (CF. PS 69:12).

Praying and Singing the Psalms

November 1, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations

James 5:13 (NKJV)13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.

What are we to do when facing the ups and downs of life? When we are suffering and weighed down, heavy of spirit – what are we to do? On the other hand, when cheerful, full of joy and wonder at the world in which we live – what are we to do? Today James tells us. “Is anyone among you suffering – feeling poorly, enduring trouble? Let him (an imperative, a command – this isn’t simply good advice) Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him (again, an imperative, a command), Let him sing psalms.”

James tells us straight that when we are suffering we are to pray. We are to take our troubles straight to the Lord. Lord, I don’t understand; God help me; Father, lift me up; My God, my god, why have you forsaken me, why are you so far from my groaning? When we are suffering it is not simply a good idea to take our pain to the throne of God, we are commanded to do so. Cry out to God; He wants to hear; He wants to be the one to whom you direct your cries.

Balancing this imperative comes James’ imperative for times of joy. When we are cheerful, we are to sing psalms. Why? Because singing enables us to funnel the joy that we are experiencing in the right direction – in praise and thankfulness to our Creator and Redeemer. When we are joyful there is only one proper response in James’ mind. What is it? Praise and thanksgiving.

Note then that the role of the psalms, in James’ mind, is first and foremost an expression of wildly exuberant joy and gladness. When joyful, James tells us, that which should first come out is the psalms. But as you think about the psalms, you will perhaps remember that some of the psalms are expressions of grief and longing for God’s presence – how do they fit with this theme of thanksgiving? It is here that we are directed back to James’ command to pray when burdened. James’ exhortation to pray also directs us to the psalms – for the psalms embody for us what despairing cries to God look like.

Notice then the priority that James places upon the psalter for the life of the people of God. What are we to do when suffering? We are to pray. And where do we find examples, patterns of prayers offered up in the midst of suffering? In the psalter. What are we to do when joyful? We are to sing psalms. And where do we find these psalms to sing? In the psalter.

So here’s the question for us – do we know our psalter well enough to fulfill James’ exhortation? How well do you know your psalms? Do the psalms, when you are burdened and weighed down, come to your mind and fill your soul with cries to God? Do the psalms, when you are cheerful and lifted up, come to your mind and fill your home with praise and thanksgiving?

I dare say that if you are like me there is some lack in this regard. Not many of us grew up singing the psalter. This is a new experience for us. Many of the psalms may be strange and foreign to us. Some of the tunes that we have in our English psalters are hard to learn. Some of the words of the psalms are difficult to understand and believe. But is the problem with the psalter? Hardly. It is with us. We need to grow in our ability to sing and to understand the psalms. And so, one of the things we are committed to do as a congregation is to become more excellent in our ability to sing the psalms and more knowledgeable of their content. And one of the things that we do every month to enable us to fulfill this duty is hold a psalm sing. The psalm sing is specifically geared to help us fulfill the exhortations given to us by James – is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.

Reminded that in our suffering and in our joy God expects us to cry out to Him with the psalms and to praise Him with the psalms, let us kneel and confess that we have neglected to do so.

The Lord will Raise Him Up

November 1, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Meditations

James 5:14-15 (NKJV)14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

When we are sick, to whom do we look for deliverance? Particularly today, in our technologically and medically advanced society, to whom do we direct our eyes? Certainly, we must confess, we direct our eyes primarily to pharmaceutical companies and doctors.

But today James directs our attention elsewhere. He commands us to look first and foremost to the Lord rather than to physicians for our deliverance. This, of course, does not mean that it is wrong to consult physicians – James’ imperative does not exclude other imperatives alongside it. But James tells us first and foremost to seek the blessing of God in our illness.

Why is this? Two reasons. First, God is our Healer and Savior. When anyone recovers from illness, it is fittingly and appropriately ascribed to the hand of God. Physicians themselves will very often be the first to acknowledge this. The healing of illnesses is a great mystery accompanied by all kinds of unexpected complications. Frequently, treatment plans don’t do what they are supposed to do. And this is our reminder that healing comes ultimately from the hands of God – whether we are healed from a minor cold or a severe case of cancer.

But there is another reason James urges us to direct our attention to God in our sickness – sickness is always a consequence of sin. Sickness is a consequence of mankind’s original rebellion against God in the garden. As a result of our rebellion, all evil things – sin, sickness, death – entered into man’s experience. But sin is also sometimes a consequence of personal sin. If we are engaged in sin and refuse to confess it, the Lord will – in His mercy – visit us with sickness to bring us up short and call us to repentance. Paul writes to the Corinthians that because of their scandalous conduct at the Lord’s Table, many among them were sick and suffering.

The second reason, therefore, to seek the face of God when we are sick is to keep short accounts with him. If we have committed any sins, James assures us, and we confess them, then our sins shall be forgiven.

Thus far our application of James’ words is fairly commonly accepted among God’s people. But note the central exhortation in James’ epistle that we find hard to grasp. James urges us to seek the face of God in our sickness by calling upon the elders of the Church. The elders, James implies, function as the representatives of God Himself. And in a service of healing, the elders proclaim to the sick person the blessing of God and the forgiveness of their sin.

Note this – they are to anoint the sick person with oil. Oil is very frequently a sign of blessing and favor. The elders in a service of healing proclaim to the sick person – as we put this oil on you, it’s not just us blessing you, God Himself is blessing you. And not only do the elders speak with the voice of God in blessing, they also speak with the voice of God in forgiveness – having confessed your sins, you are forgiven.

What does this mean practically? First, in every illness large or small, alongside seeking medical assistance, look to God – look to him as your Healer and Savior. Second, as the case warrants – I wouldn’t necessarily counsel in every illness, but certainly in serious cases – call upon the elders of the congregation to come and assure you of the blessing and forgiveness of God.

Reminded of the gravity of our sin and the way in which our sin has practical consequences in the world – causing sickness and death – let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.

Cross my heart and hope to die

October 6, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Meditations, Ten Commandments, Tongue

James 5:12 (NKJV)12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No,” “No,” lest you fall into judgment.

The words of James in our text today are very similar to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. It seems that within Jewish culture at the time it had become fashionable to redefine the nature of truth telling and lies in order to avoid accountability.

The Ten Commandments had specified quite clearly that in the taking of oaths, one was not to take the name of God in vain. In other words, one was not to swear an oath in the name of the Lord and then lie. Why? Because God would not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain. When we swear in the name of God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – God takes our oath seriously and holds us to it.

But God’s people had, as sinners, studied for years ways to avoid the thrust of God’s clear words and came up with all kinds of subterfuges by which they could avoid telling the truth. They argued that as long as they didn’t invoke the name of God explicitly then all was acceptable. We can swear by heaven, or by earth, or with some other oath based on some creaturely item and then later break our word. How so? Well, we haven’t explicitly invoked the name of God.

In our passage today, James, like Jesus, denounces such a practice in the strongest terms. He exhorts us to be men and women of our word – men and women who, when we say something, mean it and follow through with it. For what is the origin of added oaths? When Billy is sharing some outlandish tale about martians landing on the roof of the supermarket in Buffalo, New York and his buddy expresses skepticism, Billy has to reinforce his word. He has to get his buddy to believe. So what does he do? He swears an oath. “I swear, I’m telling the truth – cross my heart and hope to die.” In other words, the origin of frequent oath taking is a propensity for lying and stretching the truth. And this doesn’t just happen with martian stories. Why do you think we are so burdened with legalese in the writing of rental contracts, sale contracts, employment contracts, etc? Because we are not people of our word.

So James exhorts us – let your yes be yes and your no, no. Be a man or woman of your word. And beware; if you aren’t, James warns us – just as God did in the giving of the commandments – if you aren’t a man or woman of your word, God will judge you.

So how are we doing? Are we men and women of our word? Or have we too resorted to various means to avoid responsibility for our speech and our commitments? Do we make promises to friends and family and then fail to keep them? Do we make frequent excuses for failing to fulfill our obligations? Do we endeavor to avoid our responsibilities under contracts that we have signed or handshakes that we have exchanged? There was a day in our culture when one’s word meant something – what does your word mean?

The righteous man “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Ps 15:4b). Reminded that we violate our promises, that our word means little, let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.