September 15, 2024

” Prayer and Fasting” – The 17th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19

Preacher:
Passage: Mark 9:14-29 "And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Dear Friends in Christ:

 

A woman called her husband because a wolf had attacked the chickens. The first question he asked was, “Did he jump the fence or did you leave the gate open again?” Seems the husband was more interested in assigning blame than solving the problem. Sometimes we confuse problem solving with scapegoating, as if we could blame the suffering on the sufferers and not trouble ourselves further. This is why we are reluctant to admit our problems, weaknesses and failures to others who would add the insult of blaming us for the injuries we have suffered, whatever the cause.

 

Crowds came to Jesus during his ministry because of His compassion. He pointed out that God's kingdom was for all, and that the poor who knew their sin were closer to the kingdom of God than those who looked upon their earthly fortune as the sign that they were right with God. Jesus rejected the common attitude that viewed the unfortunate as cursed, or at least unlucky, whose curse or ill-luck was catching. Hang around with those who curse and you might pick up their language; hang around with those who smoke and you might take it up yourself; spend time with those of loose morals and your own weaknesses in that area will be encouraged. Now, it is wise to recognize our own weaknesses and avoid such temptations. But the problem is, we are often tempted to make ourselves out to be morally superior, instead of humbly viewing sinners with compassion.

 

In today’s text a father brought his son to Jesus because the boy had seizures. In Jesus' day, one's spirit was in control of one's body and if your body did what you did not want it to do they would describe this as an alien spirit taking over your body. This is actually a useful way to describe our experience because at times we all feel such conflict within ourselves.

 

Some Bible translators have been too quick to describe the boy in our text as suffering from epilepsy, which is the most common source of seizures, but not the only source- seizures can be caused by viruses, bacteria, sleep deprivation, injury, drug use, alcohol withdrawal, congenital factors, fever, and still other causes. An evil spirit, or in modern terms, a nervous dysfunction, could utilize any one of these avenues to torment this boy and his family.

 

Christ asked the boy's father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.” Early Church fathers pointed out the connection between this circumstance and original or inherited sin. This boy had not committed sins that led to his condition or made him vulnerable to the evil spirit that afflicted him; he had been born with the common human condition of being infected with sin. Just as babies inherit the craving, the suffering, and the damage from their drug-addicted parents, so we inherit sin which manifests itself differently in each of us.

 

In Christ's presence the spirit threw the boy into another seizure. The spirit recognized the presence of the Son of God and felt judgment in His presence. Like a trapped horse thief who tries to ride through thorn bushes to escape, so also this spirit made a scene to impress the crowd, the family, and even Jesus' disciples with a sense of helplessness. Their lack of faith led Jesus to speak in frustration, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? “ He spoke the spirit's name, which is not a secret moniker that had to be figured out, but simply that spirit's reputation: “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.

 

Death is the separation of body and spirit. It was a kind of death for that evil spirit to be cast out of his host. The boy's body appeared dead, but Jesus' touch restored the boy's spirit, restored the boy's life. In turn, the boy was restored to his father and family, his health a living witness of the power of Jesus over evil spirits that would seize control from us and make us slaves of sin, degeneracy, and death.

 

Afterward, when alone, the disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” And Jesus said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” Many ancient copies of Mark's gospel include the words “and fasting.” The parallel account in Mathew adds the teaching that whatever we ask for in faith we will receive.

 

St. Augustine recognized the connection between faith and prayer. “We believe in order to pray; and we pray that we might believe.” He was echoing the doctrine of the epistle of James who wrote, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person (the doubter) must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” The father of the boy himself had confessed, “Lord I believe; help me with my unbelief!” But what Faith is, is often misunderstood.

 

Many get the impression that our faith is in the action we want accomplished. It is as if you wanted to lose weight, a good thing, and you wanted your doctor perform a liposuction operation. If your faith is in the liposuction rather than the doctor then your faith is ultimately in yourself and in getting your own way. Your doctor may realize that liposuction is more dangerous and painful than you realize and that there are better solutions to your health needs. In In a similar way, Christ teaches not to have faith in the object we might pray for, as if we were to insist that God should do it our way, but our faith, our trust is in God to decide what is best for us. This may be why fasting is associated with earnest prayer in the New Testament, for in denying ourselves we are saying in the strongest possible way, Thy will, not mine, be done.”

 

When I was a child, I prayed earnestly, even frantically, when it was time to get a vaccination, wanting to avoid that pain. I could not know that that momentary sting would protect me from hours of fever, pain and even death. But as I grew, I learned to trust my physician and undergo various procedures sometimes at great cost, inconvenience and discomfort.

 

Can we trust our God in the same way? Our physicians treat us to add a few years and comforts to our temporal life, but Christ, our Great Physician prescribes for us the medicine of eternal life in bliss. Believing this, must we not pray, “Lord, you know what is best for me; let your will be done, not mine.” And if we are troubled as was that possessed boy's father, should we not also pray, “Lord, I believe, help me overcome my unbelief!” 

 

What a blessing when we pray in such faith! We can be confident that God will give us what we ask for or He will give us something even better! We can exult with St. Paul, that whether we live or die we are the Lord's! What a boost to our prayers it is when we realize that God wants us to share with Him and to bless us through that sharing, and that we can ask in Jesus' name, knowing that He who cast out the evil spirit from that possessed boy will deliver us from evil, every evil or body and soul, property and honor.If you read on in Mark 9, you will see that the next thing Jesus teaches His disciples is that He must go to Jerusalem, be betrayed into the hands of sinners, be crucified, and die; but on the third day rise. It was a challenge to their faith, and they did not understand at first. But later they saw that this was His victory over the prince of evil spirits who possessed the world in hopelessness. Let that victory over sin, death, and the devil give your prayers the power that comes from faith in the Almighty God who loves us and frees us from every evil. Amen. 

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