The letter of James ends with an apparently absurd description of prayer:
“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. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain in the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit” (James 5:16-18). Elijah prays that the rain would stop, and the rain stops. He prays that rain would return, and the rain returns. James makes clear that Elijah isn’t a special case— rather, he has ‘a nature like ours’. Which means that every Christian who reads James’ letter should expect their prayers to wield the same kind of power as Elijah’s. Except that’s not how prayer works, and James’ persecuted 1st-century audience knew it. Maybe some early Christians wished they could control the weather through prayer. That would’ve been a convenient way to stop the Roman Empire from killing their friends and family. But it’s not that simple. So what is James talking about here? The reference to Elijah isn’t just an isolated example of the power of prayer. Instead, it references the broader context of Elijah’s story— a story intimately familiar to first-century Jews. To understand the point James makes in his letter, we need to go back to Elijah’s first appearance in the Old Testament. ”Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1). Notice that this verse gives us no reason to assume Elijah that is relaying a message from God. He warns that a drought is as certain as the fact that the God of Israel lives (pretty darn certain), but he doesn’t say “God told me to tell you this.” The text isn’t shy about telling us when God speaks directly. The very next verse reads, “And the word of the Lord came to him: Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan” (17:2-3). God tells Elijah where to hide after confronting Ahab, but he doesn’t tell Elijah to confront Ahab in the first place. So what makes Elijah so certain? How does he know this drought is coming? To answer that question, we need to go even further back in biblical history. Because Elijah is a prophet— a fiery prophet devoted to God with all his whole being. I imagine that this dedicated, passionate servant of God has spent a good deal of time studying the words of God, particularly the Mosaic law given at Mt. Sinai. And in his studies he likely came across this passage: “If you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full” (Deuteronomy 11:13-15). That’s the first half of the promise in this passage— blessings for obedience. But there’s a flip side: “Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you” (16-17, emphasis added). Back to Elijah. Remember, he doesn’t deliver the warning of a drought to Israel in general. He delivers it to the king. And not just any king— Ahab, who “did evil in the sight of the lord, more than all who where before him” (1 Kings 16:30). Ahab has led all of Israel into idol worship. He’s done everything he could to break the covenant between Israel and Yahweh. He’s killed any who remain faithful to Yahweh, so much so that at one point Elijah thinks he’s the only survivor (19:14). If the warnings of Deuteronomy were meant for any king, they were meant for Ahab. When Elijah warns Ahab about the drought, he’s not trying to control the weather through prayer. He’s not making up his own plan to deal with the evil king and expecting God to go along with it. Instead, he’s calling on God to fulfill a promise he made hundreds of years ago. Elijah sees the evil of King Ahab. And he knows that God promised not to let such evil go unchecked. So he makes a bold move based off the utter trustworthiness of God, and he invokes the promise in Deuteronomy. The prayer of Elijah isn’t “God, I want it to stop raining, so please make it stop raining.” It’s “God, you made this promise, and I know you are always faithful, so I know that you will fulfill it.” That’s the prayer James is talking about when he references Elijah in his letter. The prayer of righteous person isn’t effective because we can pray for whatever we want and get it. It’s effective because God loves his children, and always, always fulfills the promises he’s given them. Elijah’s confrontation with Ahab displays a gutsy faith that’s based on an intimate personal relationship. Elijah doesn’t just know that God keeps his promises. He expects it, demands it, because anything less would be out of character for the God he knows and loves. God honors Elijah’s faith. The heavens are shut up. Israel receives no rain for three and a half years. But Elijah’s story isn’t over yet. He loves God, and he’s full of zeal for righteousness. He longs to see good triumph over evil in the land of Israel. But I think he’s missing something— something that explains why God didn’t send the drought earlier. After all, Ahab’s been doing evil for a while by the time Elijah comes to him. And he’s not unique. Rather, he’s the latest installment in a whole dynasty of evil kings, kings that have been building idols and murdering each other ever since the reign of Jeroboam. Generation after generation of ruler has given God more than enough reason to put the curses of Deuteronomy into action. But God waited. Waited until one of his servants invoked the promise. And as soon as it begins, God sends that servant away. Elijah leaves the evil king, leaves the halls of power. He leaves all the places where idolatry and corruption need denouncing. He leaves, I suspect, because God wants him to learn an important lesson. But that lesson is the subject of another post.
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