The next time you’re in Springfield or Decatur, stop by a bookstore like Barnes and Noble or Waldenbooks and take a look at the “self-improvement” section. You’ll see hundreds and hundreds of books – all intended to help you live a better life or achieve financial independence or be more successful or be happier or be healthier or – well, you get the point. They’ll have catchy slogans like “what you believe, you can achieve” or “the art of making your dreams come true” or “powerful lessons in personal change” or “discover your inner strengths” – again, you get the point. No matter what aspect of self-improvement any specific book may cover, you’ll quickly find that all of them – every last one of them – has something in common. All of them ultimately tell you what you have to do. All of them say that you are in charge of your ultimate destiny, that you determine your ultimate achievement, that you are responsible for your ultimate success or happiness. They tell us that the path to achieving your dreams is based on trusting your inner feelings, on doing what is best for you, on taking charge of your life to get where you want to be and do what you want to do.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says, “All things are possible for one who believes.” Unfortunately, many people take these words out of context, thinking that Jesus is telling us to believe in ourselves, to have confidence in ourselves that we can achieve and do anything we want to achieve or do. The problem is that when you start looking toward yourself, you stop looking toward God. When you think that you can do everything if you only try hard enough, you cut God out of the picture. If you think can do it all by yourself, you begin to think that you don’t need God. You don’t need faith.
Our Gospel reading from Mark chapter 9 shows us just how wrong that kind of thinking is. This same story about the healing of a boy who is demon possessed – who exhibits all the symptoms of severe epilepsy – is recounted in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four Gospels included in Scripture, but here he provides much more information than do Matthew or Luke as we are carefully guided through a lesson on faith. Specifically, we see what happens when people put their faith in themselves and put their faith in other people but don’t put their faith in God.
The first kind includes those who claim to have faith in God but actually reject Him – specifically, the Scribes whom we are told in verse 14 are arguing with Jesus’ disciples. These are the people who refused to believe in what Jesus said or did. They refused to believe that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. They had seen His miracles and they had heard His teachings, but they didn’t believe in Jesus. They had no faith in Jesus. In fact, their faith in their opinions and their beliefs was so strong – and so wrong – that they rejected Jesus. They looked for ways to trip Him up, to make Him look bad, to lead those who did believe in Jesus away from Him.
And so Jesus scolds them: “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you,” He asks. “How long am I to bear with you?” It’s interesting that they never answer Jesus – no response of any kind is recorded. Scripture teaches that all of us are sinners and that Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. But there’s one sin that cannot be forgiven – the sin of unbelief. The Scribes claimed to be faithful followers of the one true God, but did not believe when the Son of God was right there with them. They were sincere in their faith that Jesus was absolutely not the Messiah, not the Son of God. But they were sincerely wrong.
The second kind includes people who appear to have faith in God – who show signs of having faith in God – but who replace that faith with their own self-confidence. We read in Mark 6:7 that Jesus sent out the disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, and six verses later Mark tells us that the disciples “cast out many demons.” In Luke 10:17 they joyously report to Jesus that “even the demons are subject to us in your name.” But this time, when a father approaches them with his demon-possessed son, they can’t get the job done. This time, the demon wasn’t leaving – and their efforts have apparently attracted a large crowd of people wanting to know what’s going on. The words that Jesus used to scold the Scribes are meant for the disciples, too. “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you,” He asks. “How long am I to bear with you?”
The disciples had fallen into a trap that is as old as creation itself. The disciples had become so excited and proud about their successes that they began to believe that they were responsible for everything that happened. They began to take for granted the power that Jesus had given to them. They turned inward. If they were alive today, they might very well be writing or reading some of those self-improvement books we find at the bookstore. The object of their faith had switched from God – to themselves. They had driven out demons before and they had faith that they – and I emphasize the word “they” – could do it again. They were sincere in their faith that they could drive out demons. But they, too, were sincerely wrong.
And finally we meet the father of this poor, demon-possessed, epileptic boy. The boy had been suffering – suffering greatly – since childhood. When our children suffer, we’re willing to do anything and everything we can to end that suffering. We can only imagine that this father had tried every remedy and gone to every doctor that he had available to him. But everything he had ever tried had ended in disappointment. He had put his faith in people before – and they had always failed him. Even the disciples of Jesus – those men who had publicly been driving demons out of people just like his son – had disappointed him.
So when the father finally speaks to Jesus, you can tell that he’s prepared himself to be disappointed again. “If you can do anything,” he tells Jesus, “have compassion on us and help us.” The father wanted to have faith – but he was struggling with doubt. He wasn’t quite sure that even Jesus could heal his son. “If you can,” he says.
But listen to Jesus’ response: “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” The question here is not whether or not Jesus had the power to heal the boy – but whether the father had the faith to believe it. When Jesus says that “all things are possible for one who believes,” he doesn’t mean that someone who has faith can do anything he chooses to do. But a person who truly believes – a person who has faith in Jesus Christ – will put no limits on God’s powers. A person who truly has faith will not define God by what man can do – but by the infinite powers and authority of what God can do.
The forces of evil can and will do everything possible to separate us from God. They will look for every opportunity to spread doubt – to look for ways to weaken our faith – even ways to turn our faith from God to our own self. The forces of evil will always try to convince us to put our faith in ourselves and not God. Or – as we see with the father of this boy – to put limits on what God can do. But as Jesus reminds us, “All things are possible for one who believes.”
The comfort of the Gospel is that in spite of the fact that Jesus called the disciples faithless – in spite of the fact that the father’s faith was so weak that he doubted Jesus’ power – Jesus still cast the demon out of the boy. When Jesus spoke, the demon had no choice but to obey.
Out of all those people who were there, it’s interesting that it’s only the father who realizes that there is a problem with his faith – he’s the only one who confesses that he is struggling with doubt. His words come straight from the heart: “I believe; help my unbelief.” Even though he readily admits that his faith is weak, the father makes it clear that his faith – and his desire to strengthen his faith – is sincere.
Only then does Jesus work His miracle of healing. The boy is healed – the demon is driven out – and everyone sees it. There can be no doubt about what Jesus has just done.
And yet, the Scribes still don’t believe. The disciples are still confused. They don’t understand why they could not drive this demon out just as they had driven other demons out. So they ask Jesus about it, and He gives them an answer that probably surprised them. “This kind cannot be driven out,” He tells them, “by anything but prayer.” By serious, heartfelt, faithful prayer, the devil always can and always will be routed. But prayer requires faith in God and His powers – never faith in the powers or abilities of man. The disciples had previously driven out demons in the name of the Lord, but here they attempted a cure based upon their own human abilities – their own flawed and imperfect human powers. Trusting in their own abilities is what caused them to stumble and fail. The devil can be conquered only by prayer rooted in faith – receiving its power from God alone.
The Scribes of our Gospel lesson and the disciples who tried and failed to heal the demon-possessed boy were sincere about putting their faith in their own beliefs and their own abilities – but they were wrong. The father of the boy had put his faith in men and the cures of men who were unable to help his son – and he was wrong, too. But when he put his faith – his weak, struggling faith – in Jesus, then everything was right.
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