Here at Peachtree we do a James 5 healing prayer service for those who request it.
We have prayed together using this passage for the healing of men, women and children, and babies—people with pancreatic cancer, and other kinds of cancer—with heart problems, with bleeding issues, with back pain, with many other things. I’ve prayed for children in the hospital. I’ve prayed for babies in my office and in the hospital. The last time I did this was a week ago, and I prayed with and anointed a woman whose cancer has come back and spread widely.
Sometimes it’s a church member, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s someone who has heard we do this, and wonders if we would do the prayers for a friend. They bring their friend to us like the paralyzed man’s friends lowered him through the roof to Jesus.
We pray for people before they seek medical treatment, or after, or during treatment, but we always pray alongside medical treatment. We are not fighting with medical treatment but praying along with it. We read this passage, we come around the person, and we do what it says.
It is best to do it all together as a group or community, the way we do a sacrament. We meet in the Williams Center or the chancel of the Sanctuary. The sick person or the person facing surgery sits in the middle, and family friends, pastors, and elders gather around them.
We’ve had very small groups; we’ve had huge groups. Some people only want their immediate family; some bring their extended families, office friends, church friends, everyone. (During the pandemic, we did it by Zoom. Some surprising silver linings have come from that, as we saw increased numbers of people praying from many states and international places.) I’ve done this in Nairobi, Kenya, in the Mathare church. Because the other pastor was a retired military man, most of the men went to him, and I had the women and children; because he sort of popped this on me, I used some hand lotion I had in my purse that I hastily consecrated. I will never forget that one of the children I anointed was burning with fever.
Here are the things I bring: my Bible, my anointing oil, which is mentioned in the passage—and my box of Kleenex, an important pastoral tool.
The sick person sits in the middle and looks around at all their family and friends and their pastors and elders, with the box of Kleenex on their lap, and they tell their story and why they want prayer. This is important: it’s important for them to do that work of putting their deep desire into words. We listen hard. We hear what they want prayed for.
Then we confess our sins together, since the passage asks us to do that—not because we think their sin brought their illness, but because it is good to be lighter and freer before we come to the throne of God. Then we put our hands on the person, or we get as close as we can, putting our hands on each other’s shoulders. There are old hands and young; white, black, and brown hands.
We get closer than Presbyterians usually do.
Tears fall and our tears sometimes fall on someone else. I put the oil on my hands, and I anoint the person, and I ask Jesus to heal them. Then everyone who desires, prays for them. Some people are skillful; some are halting. There is a lot of love and thought in the prayers. Some are very simple. James 5:13-16 says that prayer does work; it is powerful.
We pray for healing. I always ask those who come to keep their eyes open for all the ways God might be bringing healing.
When it is over, if there were groups of friends from work, or family members who kept separate from the group because they didn’t really know anyone, they aren’t separate when we have prayed together. The prayer has broken down walls that were up before. The people talk; they share; they mingle and embrace.
When we pray, the Spirit who brings all of us together works. The Spirit works to link the group, to cheer them, to bring all of them hope. And for the person in the middle, work has been done too. I don’t know all the work of healing that happens in their bodies. But I know God loves to bring healing—to our bodies, our souls, our memories, our relationships, our emotions.
Sometimes the healing we prayed for happens after surgery and chemo and treatment. Sometimes it happens in heaven. This is still healing—just not where we had wanted it to happen.
Afterwards, I ask the person to look at all the friends and family who came to pray for them. “This is your community,” I tell them. “We are here for you, and so is the Lord.” We smile into each other’s teary faces, and we let God do the work of healing, trusting and believing in His power that is at work in our prayers.