We were never meant to walk out our faith alone. James ends his letter with a section that really spells this out. He paints a picture of believers that are so interwoven that they can pray for each other, confess sins to each other, rebuke each other in love, and help each other on their faith journey. What a beautiful picture of the church! 

But often, this is not the picture we see when we look at the modern-day church. Instead, there is a separation between people, and independence that causes us to push away from dependency on each other. We cringe at the idea of confessing our sins to someone or asking for help. It’s awkward and weird sometimes to ask for prayer when we are sick or hurting, especially by someone in a place of authority in the church.  

The community that James paints in this last chapter is one that requires vulnerability, grace for each other, forgiveness, and humility. And it requires surrendering our image and our striving for control. It means letting go of pretenses and preconceived notions of what success really looks like. It means being willing to let others in close and show them the more broken, hurting, and weak sides of ourselves.  

And that’s incredibly scary. 

Some of you reading this have been hurt by people in the church before when you’ve tried to open up and been burned in return. Can I just take a second here and say, I’m so sorry! That was not the way it was supposed to be. 

Each of us has a part to play in making our churches places of healing, forgiveness, and grace. It starts with us. We get to choose to make the first step, to be vulnerable and let others in. We get to choose to extend grace to people who stumble and fall. We get to choose to be longsuffering and keep a short list of wrongs. We get to choose… and it’s so worth choosing! 

And little by little, as we all consciously make the choice to embrace the model lined out by James, by the early church, and by Jesus Himself, we will start to see this hope become a reality. We will start to see churches where people come to heal instead of walk away wounded. We will see churches that bring hope and freedom instead of condemnation and shame.  

It’s up to us to be the change.