Praying for Rain--March 23, 2022

Praying for Rain--March 23, 2022

"Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest." [James 5:17-18]

A lot of the time--maybe most of the time, honestly--it's hard to know if the effort you are giving makes a difference, you know?  It's hard to tell if the time you spent on a project made an impact on anyone, or if the words you spoke were of any help to listening ears.  It's hard to know as a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or a friend whether the lengths you went to in order to show up when you were needed actually stuck in the memory of the ones you love.  And sometimes it's impossible to see whether the gift you gave, or the donation you made to help war refugees, or the note you took the time to write, or the prayers you spoke into the darkness for the sake of someone you love, had its intended effects.  

But every so often you get a glimpse of how your words, your time, your actions, or your prayers, made a difference.  Or you can see how someone else's effort made an impact on your life.  Every so often, you can draw a clear line between the ordinary things we do and a difference that was made for good in the world.  Those moments remind us to keep at it, to keep on keeping on, as they say.  Those are the times that give us the courage and endurance to make the effort in all those other seasons of life when the effects of our actions remain unseen and unknown.

So when you get one of those epiphanies, where the clouds part and you can see clearly that your words, your care, your time, or your work made a difference somewhere, hold it in your mind.  Go back to it on the days you are not sure you have anything of value to give to the world.  Recall it in your mind in those times when it feels like your best efforts keep hitting into a brick wall.  And know that sometimes, yes, we mere mortals get to be a part something big and true and good that God is doing in the world.

All of that was part of Elijah's story.  I know that our writer James here has only given us the slimmest summary of one lone episode in Elijah's long and dramatic saga, but we need to remember that all of it is in his story.  Like with James' reference just a few verses ago to the prophets and Job, this reference to Elijah is a lot deeper than it might seem at first.  It would have been easy (but wrong) to take James' mention of the "patience of Job" or "the endurance of the prophets" as shallow scolding to fake a smile through suffering and call it silent strength.  But as we talked about, that's not really how Job or Isaiah or Jeremiah dealt with their struggles--they endured, but they were loud about it.  They called for justice while they were enduring, and it cheapens their memory to reduce their life stories to mere morality plays about having a stiff upper-lip.

The same is true about Elijah.  Yes, as James notes, he did pray for the end of a three-and-a-half-year-long drought, and yes, the rains came afterward, but he lived through times when he felt like he was frail and powerless, too.  Sometimes, Elijah's prayers brought forth immediate divine response, like a lightning bolt from the sky to consume a sacrifice with fire in front of all the false prophets of the king and queen.  And other times, Elijah was a suicidal mess, convinced he was the only one left who was faithful to God, and running for his life from the king's guard.  In other words, Elijah's faith story wasn't an unbroken string of successes.  He didn't walk around arrogantly assuming that the Divine was on a leash to do tricks for him whenever he said the right magic words of command in prayer.  Elijah often felt like his life's work was wasted, like nobody listened to him, and like all of his efforts made no difference for good in the world at all.  Sometimes he looked like a hero with superpowers... but then a lot of the time he felt like a helpless nobody.

I mention this so that we don't get the wrong idea from James about the reference to Elijah.  James' point isn't to put the old prophet on a pedestal, as if to say, "Look at how powerful Elijah's prayers were, that he could make the rain stop with a mere word!" James isn't telling us that God is there to be our genie or unleash a monsoon every time we pray for rain.  I think James knows his own Bible and wants us to remember that, despite those seasons of deep depression and fear his work was futile, there were moments when it was clear that he made a difference. There were times when God worked through his words--whether words spoken up against the powers of the day, or calling out the religious professionals approved by the state, or offered up in prayer--and it made a difference.  There were times when ordinary Elijah's ordinary actions were caught up in God's extraordinary movement in history.  And when those moments happen, and you are given the clarity to see it, you hold onto them to give you the strength to keep doing good even when you can't tell if you're making a difference to anybody else.  

I think James has the same honest counsel for us.  Look, there will be times when your best attempts blow up in your face, your words fall on closed ears, or extra effort was worthless.  There will be times when you can't see what effect your prayer has on the world around--the cure doesn't come, the war doesn't end, the marriage still ends, the prodigal still hasn't come home yet.  But when you get one of those moments when you can see that God used you--your simple prayer, your ordinary actions, your small choice for good rather than rottenness--you hold onto it, and you remember again why we keep on keeping on.

Sometimes in this life, you pray for rain, and you can't see a cloud in the sky.  Keep praying  for rain anyway.  Sometimes, you give your all, and you can't tell if anybody even saw you tried.  Keep giving your all anyway.  Sometimes, you doubt that God could ever use your small individual actions or words.  Keep acting and speaking in tune with the Reign of God.  And when you get to see how God worked in and through you, remember it for all the times it's hard to see.

I don't know what God has up the divine sleeve in your day, or your year, or your lifetime.  And I dare not pretend that prayer is some quasi-magic art by which you can make God do your bidding.  But I will say that it is worth doing what we know is good and true and worthy, even if we can't see the difference we have made while we do them.  And when God parts the clouds enough for you to see divine fingerprints through your handiwork, let it spur you to keep praying, to keep speaking truth, to keep risking love for the ones who need it.

Keep praying for rain.

Lord God, do your good work through us and give us glimpses of how you bring extraordinary things from our ordinary efforts.  And send a good rain on the thirsty ground and parched hearts.