James opens his passage with a series of situational questions. My own paraphrase of his opening is: "Are you suffering? Pray. Are you cheerful? Sing prayers of praise. Are any of you sick? Call up the other members of the church and have them pray with you." James’ answer to any life situation is prayer.

When I was in elementary school, I read a couple of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Now these books begin with laying out a general plotline. Sally and her friends were going for a walk in the woods when they came across a basket lying on the side of the path. Then the reader is given a choice. If you want Sally and her friends to look inside the basket, turn to page 10. If you want Sally and her friends to keep walking, turn to page 37. So you as the reader got to decide where some of the plotline was going in the book.

Now I have trouble starting a fiction book and not completing it. Even if I feel as though I get bogged down, I still want to know where to story ends up. With these "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, you can follow your own path of adventure and through your choices actually not read some of the pages, because they belonged to plotlines that you did not choose.

This bothered me and so with one of the books, I decided that I would try to follow all of the possible plotlines. So I would read and choose different options at the different choice spots. But one thing that I noticed is that a lot of the plotlines took you to the same ending! Even though you had made different choices along the way, you would end up at the same ending, a lot of the time. Different routes took you to the same destination.

But then as I continued my most unscientific dissection of the structure of the book, I realized that there were other places where plotlines converged. It wasn’t just at the end of the story that many of the plotlines came back together but there were also places of convergence in the middle. So, for instance, no matter if Sally and her friends looked into the basket or if they kept walking down the path, they would probably end up at some point in their adventure at an abandoned cabin in the woods. And from that cabin, the plotlines would spread out again from that next choice-point.

[Use drawing to illustrate point.]

Right about now I’m guessing that there are some, perhaps many among you that are wondering what in the world "Choose Your Own Adventure" books have to do with the scripture lessons we have before us today. What in the world does this have to do with James’ instructions about prayer?

James is addressing people who find themselves in a variety of situations. Just, like in any gathered community, there are a lot of different things going on in the life of different members of the community. Some are suffering – maybe they are suffering from a physical condition, a crisis of faith. Maybe they are suffering from the loss of a loved one. Others in the community are having it pretty good about now. Things seem to be falling into place and they are joyful. Yet others are sick – they are suffering in mind, body, or spirit. So you have all this mix of people all jumbled up together in this gathered community. And James gives the same prescription to all of them – prayer.

Those who are suffering should pray to the one who can offer comfort. Those who are joyful should pray their thanks to the one who created joy. Those who are sick and unable to pray for themselves, should ask others in the gathered community to pray for them.

So prayer is like at cabin in the woods in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories. You choose different paths to get there and each of us has our own story to tell about how we ended up here today. For some the path was direct, for others it is a struggle just to get out of bed in the morning. But nevertheless we are here in this clearing house. And here in our own cabin in the woods, we gather to pray. We pray out of our joy. We pray out of our sorrow. We pray out of desperation. We pray for those who cannot pray for themselves. We pray for those who are not here. But at the heart of what we do here, is prayer.

Even within the Directory of Worship, part of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) we read, "Prayer is the heart of worship." Prayer is powerful and important. James is saying that prayer is the response to any situation in which we find ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago, the Thoughtful Christian class worked on a lesson on praying the Psalms. As part of that lesson, we looked at the worship bulletin for that day and circled all of the prayers. From the opening hymn to the benediction, there is very little that is not prayer in our worship service. Prayer is what gathers us together. Prayer is what lifts up our concerns and thanks to God. Prayer is what sends us out from this place.

Sometimes the prayers are said with flowing, beautiful and poetic words. Sometimes the prayers are filled with anger and confusion. Sometimes our prayers are desperate pleas. Sometimes our prayers are just silent groanings to God.

If I can push my little illustration a little bit further: So with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, when the characters reached the "clearing house" – the cabin in the woods in this case, they were each sent out in different directions again.

So if prayer is our clearing house, our cabin in the woods, then from our prayers were are all sent in different directions. Many of these different directions all lead to the same ultimate destination. Though there are many paths and variations to get there, the destination remains the same.

In the passage that we read from the Gospel according to Mark, John complains to Jesus that he and the other disciples saw another person who was casting out demons and using Jesus’ name. That was all well and good but the disciples didn’t know him. He was not part of their group and so they tried to stop him. He hadn’t walked down the same path that they, as part of the twelve disciples, had walked down. Since they were unsuccessful in stopping him, they want Jesus to stop him.

But, Jesus tells his disciples that they shouldn’t try to stop this other exorcist. Just because he didn’t follow the same path that John and the other disciples had walked down, didn’t mean that he was not "with" them. Jesus seems to back up this idea that there are different paths that lead to the same destination. By using Jesus’ name in casting out demons, this other exorcist was using a different pathway to get to the same destination of healing that the disciples were getting to.

I admit that I am as guilty of this as the next person but how many times do we get upset at someone when they do something positive but don’t get there the same way that we would get there. I’ll admit it that there are people out there who are doing good things and using Jesus’ name. They’re doing good things but they aren’t doing them the way that I would do them. They aren’t following the same pathways that I follow but they are reaching the same destination and using the same clearing house to get there.

My GPS does not like Plum Branch Road. No matter where I’m going, it always wants me to take Spring Mill. But if I’m going to Lynchburg, I prefer to take Plum Branch. So even though the voice of the GPS tells me to get off Plum Branch and go on Spring Mill, I’m still going to end up on 460. I’ll just take a different path to get there. Both the GPS and I have the same destination in mind, we just have different ideas about how to get there. But sooner or later we both get together on 460.

James calls the people to use prayer in every situation. Joy, sorrow, sickness – the response is prayer. We each have different paths of coming to prayer but the destination in God is the same.

Glory be to God who leads us each on our own paths of adventure.