Is Anyone Among You…? (A Reflection on James 5)

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Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. (James 5:7-10)

Patience is hard for Americans. We want everything immediately because our lifestyle is characterized by hurry. At some point, technology stopped making our lives better and just raised the expectations for how much work we could accomplish in a day. In terms of spiritual formation, we would like to get there today, without continuing to wait and walk through the cycle of seasons—plowing, planting, watering, and reaping. We would like to shortcut the process in our lives and want others to do the same. It is extremely easy to grumble about the lack of maturity in others as a way of distracting ourselves from self-reflection. We have little patience for the failings of others, and so they (and we) have learned to cover them up or withdraw from the community. 

However, we are on this journey together—something that James realized long ago. We are relational creatures made in the image of a relational God. So, we should not be surprised at the “Is anyone” questions in James’ epistle. 

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James 5:13-16, 19-20 

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 

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. 

And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. 

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working… My brothers, 

if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

As a seminary professor, I love to interact with students and hold it a high honor when they share something of their story with me. In the last couple of years, in a spiritual formation class, I have asked students to do an exercise entitled, Where Am I and How Did I Get Here? Our Journey with God. While I do not intend it to dredge up the pain and failure of the past, it does do that and exposes it to the light of God’s love.

I am amazed by two things: first, the level of brokenness many students bring with them from their families of origin, and second, their willingness to share their stories with me and others. I just finished reading this year’s batch, and they reminded me of the passages above from James 5 and of Paul’s statement in Romans 12:14-15,

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.                                 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

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Well, the truth is that there are many “anyone” people—not just around us, but among us, who might share their stories if we would listen without rejecting them or grumbling about them.

The list here in James 5 is not exhaustive but representative, so whether anyone is suffering, cheerful, sick, or wandering, the Spirit encourages us to help them draw nearer to Jesus rather than allow them to think they must shrink back in shame. What other "anyones" might we find in our midst? Those who suffer at the hands of others—the abused, the abandoned, the betrayed, the shamed, the falsely accused, the tormented, the lonely, the misunderstood, the unappreciated, the invisible ones. There are also those who, by their actions or inactions, are the cause of their own suffering and that of others. Compassionate comfort and correction should always be offered to others with great care to follow Christ’s example of not snuffing out the smoldering wick or breaking the bruised reed (Matt. 12:20). Jesus’ desire is to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free (Psa. 34:18; 147:3; Isa 57:15, 61:1) which, more often than we know, includes us and those near to us. And in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, this work is done. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, used an affectively descriptive name for God and offered the hope of healing.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Pastors and Christian leaders are no exception. Even in James' representative list—suffering, cheerful, sick, or wandering—only one in four examples might be desirable. We need to have our brothers and sisters come alongside us in our joy and in our pain, in our certainty, and in our doubt, no less than anyone else. If it seems that nobody cares, then check one of the first posts on this blog that touches on Psalm 142, A Cupbearer is a Brother (or Sister) in Arms.

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I would suggest that our spiritual formation/maturity is not about our curating an external “appearance of godliness” but about our enthusiastic response to the love of God that has been poured into our hearts by the indwelling presence of the Spirit (Rom. 5:5). Our repentance is not merely external/behavioral but internal/relational in that it is a return to the Father, Son, and Spirit who loves us completely. 

Is anyone among you… thankful? Yep, I am too.

5. A Cupbearer Is Both Ministry Coach, and Missional Incubator

The last two Cupbearer roles—the ministry coach and the missional incubator—are more common in our ministry culture. Many people call themselves coaches, and many want to plant the seeds of mission in others. However, the distinctiveness of the cupbearer approach is that it would encourage the minister to apply the humble-shared glory motif throughout all areas of their ministry. Similarly, the mission that ought to be incubated and released through their ministry is intentionally Trinitarian and relational. If there is less mission or orthodoxy than desired, the Cupbearer might use a problem-posing approach, asking the pastor to think about an answer and then follow up later.

Cupbearers as ministry coaches will encourage the development of kingdom values, building on the Trinitarian glory model (i.e., it is shared, humble, and invitational) in keeping with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and specifically the beatitudes. From these kingdom values, will come an analysis of the fruit of the ministry entrusted to them, not the false narrative of the numbers game, but the kind of fruit that issues forth from the presence of the Holy Spirit in a faithful believer. The role of a ministry coach is neither to hand out participation trophies nor is it to shame pastors into conforming to a popular model. It is rooted in the teachings, commissions, and promises of Jesus Christ and is motivated by the love of God poured into our lives, as Paul wrote to the believers in Rome,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)

In such an approach, God sees to it that nothing is wasted. We can rejoice even in suffering for it produces endurance à character à hope. At the very least, suffering is laboratory learning! Jesus, our savior and example, became human to identify with us, and in the process, the one who is omniscient in his divine nature actually learned obedience through suffering in his human nature. As Hebrews 5:7-10 says,

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Missional incubation is a natural function of the Cupbearer's calling, for they are as committed to fulfilling the missio Dei (mission of God) as anyone if thought is taken to do it Jesus’ way and in cooperation with others. In the West, we like strong leaders who get things done, but at the same time, we don’t like being told what to do. What we need are spiritual leaders who fully expect that their followers are hearing from God and are empowered by the Holy Spirit in their own lives, and don’t need the leader to tell them what to do in order to do what needs to be done. The late Rev. Ron Mehl once shared in a pastoral staff meeting,

“A strong leader says, ‘This is what we’re doing!’

 A spiritual leader says, ‘What are we doing?’ He has the willingness to release   

 leadership to [others so they can] do what they are called to do.”

I love the stories of a former missionary who never told national pastors what to do (“You need to plant a church in such-and-such town”) but simply asked them questions about what they might do (e.g., “If you were to plant a church where would you plant one?”) which peaked their imagination and incubated the mission already placed within them from the Lord. Cupbearers, like Jesus in his passion, do not seek to shout in the streets, neither adding to the bruising experience of life in ministry, nor snuffing out the smoldering wicks of your dreams and callings (Matt.12:19-21), but rather they desire to restore, rekindle, and release it.

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:6-7) 

Is there something that God has put on your heart to do, but the pressures of daily ministry and the fear of the unknown have kept you from doing it? Perhaps now is the time to revisit it.