In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say, “All things are possible for the one who has faith.” We like to believe that this means that if we put enough mental effort into something, or if we believe something hard or long enough, it’ll come true. Our dreams will be realized and we’ll get what we want. This is a popular version of the gospel in America: the Prosperity Gospel. But this is selfishness and a sin. Approaching Christ so that we can get what we want is not the gospel at all. Jesus encourages true spiritual transformation and, in this same passage, he gives us something real to believe in. (Reflections on the 4th Sunday of Lent)
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Christ As Our Personal Genie
In the Gospels, we’re confronted with a reality: many people approach Jesus, not for any real transformation, but because they want something. They want to be “in the right.” They want something for themselves.
Very rarely do they ask something for someone else. The exceptions, perhaps, are parents and children. We have a few stories of parents asking Jesus to heal their children. But we have to wonder: are they asking for their children, or because they want to alleviate their own grief?
Today, we continue to be a “faithless generation.” We turn to prayer when things aren’t going our way – “there are no atheists in foxholes.” We also don’t want any real transformation in our lives. We just want our team to win, that good grade on a test, or our friend healed so we don’t have to grieve. We turn to prayer for financial security, to get that bill paid, or for that raise at work.
Hearing Christ and Stuttering: The Problem of Faith
In short, all we want is some sort of personal gratification or improvement in our lives. What we fail to hear in scripture is that call to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Like Christ, we are called to embrace our suffering and allow it to transform us for the better – not for the worst. We are called to empty ourselves and become Christ-like.
But when the demand comes that we should sell all we have and follow Christ, we stutter. We don’t know what to say. We thought faith was personal, a free and convenient choice. Why would Christ demand something of us? Why do we have to change? Why should we change?
Today’s Gospel (Mark 9:17-31) hits right at the problem of it all – the problem of faith
A father approaches Jesus’s disciples asking them to heal his son, who is mute. But they can’t do anything. Relenting, they finally bring the boy to Jesus, admitting their failure.
There are a few things going on here. Let’s start with the disciples.
The Disciples Are Called To Be Apostles: But Don’t Live It
Immediately before this passage is the story of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-13). Jesus goes up the mountain, he’s transfigured, and Peter wants to build three tents: one for Christ, one for Elias, and one for Moses. In other words, he wants to keep the gospel teaching contained. Instead of sharing it and going out to the nations – living their lives by Christ’s vision – the disciples were content to restrict it, leaving it “hidden” in the Law and Prophets, represented by Moses and Elias.
Yet, Jesus tells the disciples over-and-over-again that they must become apostles: men who are sent. They must go out and sow the seed of the gospel teaching. God is the god of all nations, not just Israel.
But, their refusal to live up to their calling – transforming from disciples to apostles – and sow the seed becomes their unbelief. The reason they aren’t able to cast mute spirit is that they don’t live their lives by trusting God.
Their Failure Becomes Obvious
Next, it’s interesting to note that the spirit is a mute spirit.
The gospel, above all, is God’s ultimate teaching: how we should live our lives, loving God and neighbor. But, if one is mute, then one can’t proclaim that gospel: it’s stopped up.
Later, in the passage, Jesus adds to the description of the demonic spirit. It isn’t just mute, but also deaf. This makes sense. In order to repeat a teaching, one must first hear it. If you don’t hear it because you’re not paying attention, or if you refuse to hear it because your own voice is too loud, then you might as well be deaf. The teaching will do you no good and you won’t be able to live a godly life.
So, we have a situation where this unclean spirit represents the disciples. They have not yet “heard” – and had faith in – the teaching of the gospel and, therefore, they are unable to repeat it; that is to cast out the unclean spirit. It’s like the Transfiguration, all over again. They again fail to understand that faith is a way of life.
Jesus’s response is, surely, one of frustration. How long must he continually repeat himself? How long must he explain the gospel? How long will these disciples, who should have already known the teaching from the Old Testament, continue to ignore him and do as they wish?
It is, with irritation, that Jesus makes a bold proclamation:
“All things are possible for the one who has faith.”
Rehearing “All Things Are Possible”
As Americans, we often mishear what Jesus is really saying. We tend to think we simply have to do some mental exercise and things will go our way or we’ll get what we want. If we believe in Jesus, say the correct creed, then we’re OK. If we simply hold a specific bit of knowledge in our minds, then we’re “good to go.”
However, we need to hear it as trust. “All things are possible for the one who has trust.” Put another way, to those who trust in God’s plan for the world (including our own lives), to those who trust in the gospel teaching, and live this trust out, then all things are possible… even rising from the dead.
But we first must live by the gospel, fully trusting that God’s way is best. This is the key: trusting in God’s way. This is hard to do. And it’s for this reason that the man responds in the best way possible.
“I have faith; help my faithlessness!” (Mark 9:24 DBH)
The man realizes how he’s fallen short of fully trusting God. Perhaps this is because he truly hasn’t seen something to truly trust in! Like the disciples, he’s been deaf, not having heard Christ. But now, he’s proclaiming that his ears are fully open; “Let me hear what you have to say. Give me something true to trust in.”
To this Jesus responds… dramatically!
And Jesus, seeing that the crowd is rapidly gathering, admonished the impure spirit, saying to it, “Spirit mute and deaf, I command you: Come out of him, and never again may you enter into him.” And, crying aloud and with many convulsions, it came out; and he become like a corpse, such that many said that he had died. (Mark 9:25-26 DBH)
If one is truly going to demonstrate trust, then it’s truly done in the face of death. Death is final because it’s the end of life, it’s the end of all things. It’s the definitive tragedy in which one has no choice but to trust in God.
Christ casts out the unclean spirit and the boy becomes a corpse. Trusting in the gospel teaching pays off. Christ grabs hold of the boy’s hand and lifts him up. (We can imagine the Christ grabbing hold of Adam and Eve in the Descent into Hades icon.) It says he arose; that is, he resurrected and was alive again.
Now, the lectionary, in all its wisdom, wants to make sure we’ve gotten the message. So, it ends by emphasizing what it is we put our trust in, and what is possible for us who do trust.
For he was teaching his disciples, and said to them, “The Son of Man is delivered over into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and having been killed he will arise after three days.” (Mark 9:31 DBH)
Brothers and sisters, all things are possible for those who trust. By placing our trust, our future, our lives, into the hands of God, and by living by his plan for our lives, all things are possible, including the resurrection from the dead.
But, if we remain deaf and mute, then we have an unclean spirit in us. We’ve not heard the gospel teaching and we continue to trust in ourselves, wanting glory only for ourselves. This is not salvation and spiritual transformation, but material gain and comfort. And, like the disciples, we won’t be able to cast out that unclean spirit.
Instead, let us approach in the hope of the resurrection and with the glory of God firmly in our minds, and let us humbly pray: “Lord we have faith, help our faithlessness.”
P.S. Trust in God’s Vision for You
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