Depressed? Suffering? You could go to your doctor to get a prescription for Zoloft or Paxil, but if you were in India, you might get handed a Charlie Chaplin movie instead. On NPR this week I heard a story about how, in India, they take their laughter seriously. There are laughing clubs, not comedy clubs, but laughing clubs where people gather in parks to have a “collective guffaw.” The feature, written by Philip Reeves, was the story of Ashok Aswani, a practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine, who routinely prescribed a good laugh to cure his patients who were feeling blue. His Charlie Chaplin cure was beginning to gather not just a following but a full-blown fan club. (An Indian Doctor's Cure-All: Charlie Chaplin, by Philip Reeves)

Now western medicine has obviously made some advances we wouldn’t want to live without – antibiotics, vaccinations, and a whole variety of treatment methods that have been designed and frequently proven to fix just about everything that ails us. In the ancient world, though, finding a cure was more about listening to the whole person, and not just looking for how the disease or pathology presented itself. Are you suffering? Have you been sick? Do you have something sinful laying heavy on your heart? Have you been accountable to your community of faith? When was the last time you prayed to God? How far have you wandered from God’s truth?

Recent medical studies are going back to this model of listening to and treating the whole person, but for a while, fixing people was little different from fixing your car. You gave the person a check up every so many miles, exchanged old parts for new, and little or no care was given to the emotional and spiritual components of healing. Now, emotional links are being discovered not just with the overeating that leads to diabetes, but with the overworking that leads to heart conditions, and the sense of worry and dread that is linked to cancer. The truth is that it plays out all the way down to the common cold. One is far more likely to get the sniffles if he or she has been stressed out lately – whether that particular person has good hand-washing practices or not.

Amazingly, scripture does weigh in on this conversation, not only by linking prayer to healing like we might expect, but also in noticing how there is “healing for the flesh and refreshment for the body” when we live our lives centered in the holy. When we do not count ourselves as wise on our own, when we have appropriate fear of and respect for who God is, when we actively turn our backs on evil, the confidence and right-mindedness that comes from that leads to a greater sense of our health and well-being. When we are united in faith in a mutually supportive community like James describes – health is, in general, better across the board. Individuals fare better, and the community can make healthier responses to whatever it is that blows its way.

I’m not going to be naive here and think that if we pray together and sing “Kum Ba Yah” that we can all avoid catching something like H1N1. The more this strain of flu evolves, the sneakier it may be in getting around our bodies’ natural defenses. But because of texts like this one in James that say our “faith will save the sick,” sadly, there are communities that rely so heavily on prayer that they avoid medical treatments known to be effective for certain diseases. What I would prefer to say is that healing does not belong to the medical community alone. A great deal of healing does come from God, and it also comes from living our lives in ways that support healthy living. We may not be able to avoid every passing virus or ultimately beat the cards that we’ve been dealt, but we can participate in the kinds of activities and share the kinds of attitudes that allow us to strengthen our own health and the health of our communities. Those who are suffering can pray. Those who are cheerful can sing. Those who are sick can call on the elders of the church to pray over them, support them, and anoint them with the oil of healing.

The late Edwin Friedman, a rabbi who brought many people to greater health through his studies of family and social dynamics, acknowledges that there are three factors always at play in determining if one will survive any given scenario. One is the physical reality in which he or she happens to be at the time. The second is dumb luck. And the third is the response of the organism itself. Now he says that all three are like dials on an amplifier, you turn up the first two, and the third is likely not to have a chance at all. A toxic environment combined with someone pulling the wrong cosmic strings and the organism may fail under the pressure. But if the organism is strong, healthy, supported, courageous, and centered in God – the first two might not mean much at all. (Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of the Quick Fix, p. 153-154)

What Friedman noticed in his observations that can also be found many times over in scripture is that we are much healthier and much stronger in our faith when we take responsibility for ourselves and our own actions regardless of the circumstances playing out around us. Jesus took on that responsibility even to the point of saying that no one would take his life from him; he would voluntarily lay it down for us. I can’t imagine how tough that is to say all the while facing death at the hands of an angry religious mob and an apathetic government. So really, what we all know, but sometimes forget to take into account even in the minor details is that no one else can really solve our problems for us. No one can forcibly make us confess our sins to one another or force us to support one another, church or no church. No one else can live my life but me, which means that each of us alone is responsible for our own spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. And therefore, the only way to take responsibility for the health and vitality of our spiritual community is to work on myself first and then invite others to work on growing together with me. Blaming others for our own misfortune or downcast look on life is no more than sour grapes. And expecting others to function for us – whether that’s a pastor, a doctor, a therapist, or one’s spouse, sets up unhealthy imbalances that contribute to more anxiety in the long run even if they seem to solve issues short term.

Like James tells us, “If you’re suffering, pray. If you’re cheerful, sing songs of praise. If you’re sick, call for the elders of the church and ask them to pray for you. If you’ve sinned, ask for forgiveness. Allow for healing to take place in the context of the faith community. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.”

Or as James says earlier in his letter – “Be doers of the word, not hearers only.” If we do what scripture says, we will pray, rejoice, give thanks, sing, forgive and be forgiven so that we ultimately experience the healing that comes through God’s grace. James says, “Just do it.” I like that. It’s refreshing in today’s overly anxious world to go back to scripture and be reminded that we are not doomed by our circumstances. Over time, many have thought they were – some religious some not– but it just isn’t true. Jesus entered the human arena so that we might have life and have it in abundance. We are blessed as the church to be a blessing in the world. When we act like we’ve been blessed it begins to show on our faces and be heard in our voices. So when life begins to get you down, follow the James prescription and get out the funny movies, pray, find support in others, and be healed, my friends, be healed.

Amen.