Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And one of the multitude answered and said, ‘Master, I have brought unto Thee my son, who hath a dumb [mute] spirit. . . . And I spoke to Thy Disciples that they should cast him out, and they could not.’ Jesus answered him and said, . . . ‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.’
Every year at this time in Great and Holy Lent we hear once more this well known story of the distraught father seeking healing from the only place or people he knew he could turn to. Perhaps Jesus and His Disciples were a last ditch effort. We’re not told. All of us who have been parents with sick children whom we could not help can empathize with this man’s pain and anguish. Indeed, anyone who has ever been unable to help another human being in great need can likewise empathize with his desperate situation.
I suspect the Church in her wisdom inserts this story here because we are beyond the midpoint of the wilderness called Lent. Although our diet is not nearly as restricted as the 40 year-wandering-Israelites, for many of us it might as well be. I suspect, the Church has us hear this account today to reinforce the power of prayer and of fasting for our faith. For, “’This kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting,’” Jesus tells us, the very spiritual disciplines the Church offers to us to practice and weave into our lives, not just seasonally, but always. Along with almsgiving, these are defining tried and true spiritual practices for the Christian soul.
If we’re honest, Lent can be a trying time, a difficult time. However, if we’re honest, the souls who strive to maintain the rigorous fast as faithfully as can be, also find Lent a time of great spiritual reward and blessing, a time of finding a strength we didn’t realize existed until we were compelled to rely, not on ourselves, but on God and His grace. Lent is intended to be a time of spiritual upheaval and the renewal of soul that can come from such a disruption in our lives. It can be a time to find the blessing of spiritual discipline, of coming to a deeper love for the Lord and His Church as together we embrace her ancient, time-tested wisdom. (There is a distinct difference when we enter the Great Fast in solidarity with our brethren than as isolated individuals, as is done in the Western Church.)
It can be a time of questions and of finding the answers in God (which is how we’ve been created). Spiritual renewal and reformation comes only when we begin to see ourselves honestly through the eyes of our Lord. “’Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!’” Now, there is honesty much to be coveted and emulated. Few of us have perfect faith, except for those saints recognized by the Church. There, beloved, is the humility we are called to eat as we fast from our arrogance and our pride, from our reliance upon man, upon ourselves. “Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.” Why not? Well, quite honestly, because “When his breath departs, he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish.” But, “The Lord will reign forever, thy God, O Zion, to all generations” (Divine Liturgy 2nd Antiphon). Only in Him dare we put our faith and our hope. He is the Rock of our existence, our Gibraltar! Indeed, how “great a God is our God? [He is] the God Who works wonders, [Who] has made [His] power known among all [His] peoples” (Ps. 76 [77]:13-14).
There is so much going on in this story recorded and preserved by all three Synoptic Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus is returning to the nine disciples left behind having gone up onto the mountain of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John. As so often happens when we leave for short periods or extended times, everything seems to go to Hades in a handbasket. And so, Jesus returns to His nine Disciples besieged by the scribes interrogating them, perhaps about why they couldn’t heal the sorrowful father’s child (Mk. 9:2-16). To be sure, it must’ve been perplexing, if not downright humiliating (spoiler: this humiliation is for their salvation, ultimately!) because they were able to do so just a couple of chapters before on their mission trip Jesus had sent them out on (Mk. 6:7-13)!
So, we have the ruckus, the argument, the mass of crowds being attracted by it all, the pleas of a distraught father, the bewilderment of impotent Disciples, and maybe even the violent demonic upheaval of the lad himself when he saw Jesus. I think you get the picture. And what is our Lord’s response? “’O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to Me.’”
It is here that we see just how longsuffering our good God Who loves mankind truly is toward us who are faithless, who act in unbelief, so often caught betwixt faith and unbelief. Jesus’ indictment isn’t solely directed to the scribes and the lingering crowd, nor is it aimed at the father alone. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, in reply to their question as to why they couldn’t heal the boy, Jesus plainly albeit bluntly tells His Disciples, “’Because of your unbelief’” (Mt. 17:14-21). Ouch! At this moment in time, Jesus isn’t there to be our Friend; He’s there to save our souls! Perhaps the Disciples – maybe even us – got a tad too comfortable. Such familiarity with Jesus and the Church can happen over time if we fail at humility. Remember, this is for their salvation . . . . . this is for our salvation when God has to upbraid us. Jesus’ response is just as compassionate and full of mercy as His healing of the demon-possessed boy.
Brethren, we have bought too much into the world’s version of God and what He should be about and be doing. We see that there is little or no distinction between the world of unbelief in this encounter and that of the Church embodied in the Disciples. The Church should look very different from the world because of her faith. The Church was as impotent in the face of evil as were those clamoring about, including the father and Jesus’ own Disciples! Yet, by the grace of God, by the mercy of our longsuffering Lord, he came to his senses and confessed, “’I believe; help my unbelief!’” Faith allowed this father to be humble so that God could do God-stuff. “Trust in God,” St. Paisius the Athonite tells us, “and humility will solve all problems” (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 153). How often are we powerless and impotent spiritually in the face of the evil one because we are faithless and do not comprehend that this kind comes out only by prayer and fasting?
Speaking to this, the same St. Paisius the Athonite, has this to offer us. He says,
The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God. He takes from them trust in God and begins to afflict them with self-assurance, logic, thinking, criticism. Therefore we should not trust our logical minds (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 153).
Maybe this is what happened here to the Disciples? The devil slowly takes from us our faith when we forget Who we belong to in the first place and Who is the Source of our faith. We begin to get filled up with self-assurance which leads us to either pride or despair. As the Fathers teach us, despair is just a variation of pride because self is at the center of it all, regardless. Faith in God, trust in Him, leads us out of that pit and places us on the Rock Himself (Ps. 39 [40]:1-5). It removes the mountain of pride and arrogance and restores us to sanity of heart and mind. It allows us to see more clearly as God sees. Faith in God enables us to hope in God, and to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, body, and strength. Faith is the foundation of our very life, the air we breathe, the matrix of God’s actions. Without faith, so St. Paul says, we cannot please God. “[F]or he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hb. 11:6).
It seems to me this captures the sorrowful father in today’s Holy Gospel. And God blessed his diligent search, his intercession on behalf of his demon-possessed boy. St. John Climacus (for whom this Sunday is named) puts this in perspective, reminding us, “A believer is not one who thinks that God can do everything, but one who believes that he will obtain all things. Faith paves the way for what seems impossible.” Without faith, however, we are powerless, dead in the waters.
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God,
have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
PROPERS:
Hb. 6:13-20
Mk. 9:17-31