NOTES for Jam 5:13-20

We often do not even remember that our whole life actually unfolds before the eyes of the Lord, and that in any situation we can turn to Him and He will hear us, because He is always near us. Prayer is abiding in God’s presence, listening to God, and speaking with Him. In suffering, we can ask God for help, or we can simply weep with Him. In joy, we can thank Him for it, or simply rejoice beside the Lord. In illness, we can implore God for healing and ask our friends to pray for us, or we can patiently accept what the Lord has given us. Both paths are beautiful; both are with the Lord. The main thing is always to remember God and live in His presence. The season of the Holy Forty Days is now approaching, a time when the Church invites us to remember precisely this, when all the texts and all the services lead us to remember that God created time as well, and that time belongs to Him. During these days it is easier to remember that we live constantly before the face of the Lord and, perhaps, easier to live in such a way that it is not very painful for the Lord to look at us.

Why should we confess one to another the faults we commit? Isn’t sufficient the fact that God knows them? Well, it would have been clear again, if it was about a fault towards this person, - so this fault lies between us, as a barrier for genuine relationship, relationships are darkened by the hiding of this fault and its burdensome possible consequences. Confession opens the road for forgiveness, which deletes all barriers. It is clear. But why is it necessary to confess the faults, which do not concern this person?

May be, because in the Church we are members one another and sin in one of us affects the entire body. And again confession leads to forgiveness and the healing of the spiritual disease of sin as well for the sinner, as for the entire body. Moreover, faults result from spiritual problems, and their knowledge allows other people to pray "aiming" for these problems, which means for healing.

It is still probably necessary to say that the expression used here by the apostle James should not mislead us: it is not the prayer that heals, it is not the prayer that "availed much" – only God can avail much and heal, and prayer is the testimony of our will to accept His Grace, His healing.

Recalling Elijah's prayer in connection with confessing sins to one another, James points to the simple fact, forgotten by many, that God not only hears a person but also comes to meet him, in the case, of course, when two wills, God's and the human will, coincide. Outwardly this looks like a miracle, but in reality we should speak here of divine-human co-creation, without which neither the world nor human life is conceivable.

After all, the Bible is not accidentally unfamiliar with such a concept, so widespread everywhere in antiquity, as fate, destiny, or fatality: God's will and fatalism are incompatible; where one exists, there is no place for the other. It would seem that there is an external reality in relation to the human person that is often partly or completely beyond his control, yet in fact reality is not so simple. Indeed, today even scientists are increasingly inclined to think that any existing reality can exist only as observed reality.

Without an observer it ceases to exist. Such a view requires the postulation of an absolute Observer for the existence of the universe, and here we have another version of the cosmological proof of God's existence. What matters, however, is that the human person is also an observer, creating his own reality, which is real to the extent that the being of the person creating it is spiritually whole. Only God can create absolute reality; any other will by definition be relative. But what will happen if two wills, God's and a human will, begin to create one reality?

In such a reality, everything possible to God will open to the human person and include the person with his freedom to the extent that such inclusion is possible for him. The person finds himself in a world of miracles, in a world of higher reality created by God, but in the creation of which his human will also participates, for example through that same prayer. Within and in the context of such a reality, called the Kingdom of God, Christ acts, and every one of His followers is also called to act there, if he is a Christian not only in name.

The intensity with which James denounces the rich reaches its peak. But next we see an appeal to those being oppressed to be patient, and here numerous opponents of Christianity have often exclaimed: “Aha, working people must endure oppression! So you Christians are on the side of the exploiters!”

Yet an attentive and unbiased reading does not permit such an interpretation. Just protest against social evil does not contradict the apostle’s words; the epistle itself bears witness to this. Nor is patience required in order to encourage oppressors, but because they are already condemned if they do not repent. A violent protest against earthly evil has too often turned into a destructive revolt which, after bloodshed, ended in defeat and renewed enslavement. But persistent and patient defense of justice has often proved more fruitful and victorious. This, too, is labor, and it is impossible without patience. Labor is necessary under every social order, and therefore we must be patient until the coming of the Lord.

Here James also reminds us of the power of prayer, something every Christian knows in principle but which in practice is all too often underestimated. To those of us who do not consider ourselves capable of boldness in prayer, he points to the great prophet Elijah, unexpectedly calling him a man like us (rather than calling us people like him!). This means that the spiritual power the Lord gave Elijah He can give to us as well. If only we will receive it.