WE NEED EACH OTHER
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and then you will be healed. James 5:16, N.E.B.
"Don't you think it is possible," he asked, "for us not to be influenced by how other people act toward us? Do we always have to be hurt by their rejection?" A bright student in my Marriage and the Family class, he was perplexed by our discussion of the way in which we humans influence each other. He wondered if we shouldn't, as Christians, be above all that.
But the discussion that followed wasn't unanimous. The class agreed that, though we are often hurt by each other's smallness, we also find God's love made tangible through the touch of another human being. Also, to be open to another's love is to be vulnerable to that person's potential to hurt us.
Ever since Adam and Eve first donned the fig leaves in the garden, we humans have been busy bluffing each other about how wonderfully adequate and whole we are, while hoping that no one will discover how much guilt and how many naked fears lie just below the surface. We are afraid that if we honestly admit that we are having real trouble maintaining our devotional life our friends will have doubts about our integrity. As parents, we don't want to talk about our stress points lest our image as "the adequate father or mother" be tarnished.
We all know the tendency of the human mind, once it has started on the path of hiding the truth, to hide our needs even from our own selves. But a problem that doesn't get acknowledged will not be healed. James certainly understood this when he urged the early believers to form the habit of freely admitting their failing to one another. He wanted that young expression of the body of Christ to become practiced in open honesty and trust.
James was not, however, advocating some kind of "let's bare all" encounter sessions. He urged that whatever failings we might admit to one another be made an immediate subject of prayer. He anticipated that the combination of honesty and supplication would lead promptly to spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. The church, then, could conduct thrilling experiments in the kinds of healing candor and caring that our heavenly Father longs to share with us. By nurturing each other to strength rather than condemning each other's weakness, we reflect God's character. We need each other to reveal God's love in a tangible way.
Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and then you will be healed. James 5:16, N.E.B.
"Don't you think it is possible," he asked, "for us not to be influenced by how other people act toward us? Do we always have to be hurt by their rejection?" A bright student in my Marriage and the Family class, he was perplexed by our discussion of the way in which we humans influence each other. He wondered if we shouldn't, as Christians, be above all that.
But the discussion that followed wasn't unanimous. The class agreed that, though we are often hurt by each other's smallness, we also find God's love made tangible through the touch of another human being. Also, to be open to another's love is to be vulnerable to that person's potential to hurt us.
Ever since Adam and Eve first donned the fig leaves in the garden, we humans have been busy bluffing each other about how wonderfully adequate and whole we are, while hoping that no one will discover how much guilt and how many naked fears lie just below the surface. We are afraid that if we honestly admit that we are having real trouble maintaining our devotional life our friends will have doubts about our integrity. As parents, we don't want to talk about our stress points lest our image as "the adequate father or mother" be tarnished.
We all know the tendency of the human mind, once it has started on the path of hiding the truth, to hide our needs even from our own selves. But a problem that doesn't get acknowledged will not be healed. James certainly understood this when he urged the early believers to form the habit of freely admitting their failing to one another. He wanted that young expression of the body of Christ to become practiced in open honesty and trust.
James was not, however, advocating some kind of "let's bare all" encounter sessions. He urged that whatever failings we might admit to one another be made an immediate subject of prayer. He anticipated that the combination of honesty and supplication would lead promptly to spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. The church, then, could conduct thrilling experiments in the kinds of healing candor and caring that our heavenly Father longs to share with us. By nurturing each other to strength rather than condemning each other's weakness, we reflect God's character. We need each other to reveal God's love in a tangible way.
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