Help my Unbelief!

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is Possession, Pistis and Prayer. My focus is our Gospel (Mk 9:14-29). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

The word possess means to have and hold as property, or to have as an attribute, such as knowledge or skill. It also means to seize and take control. Its root is the Latin word possidere, most likely a compound of potis, meaning powerful, and sedere, meaning to sit.

Here, we’re not talking about knowledge, skill or real estate, rather, we’re talking about demonic possession. Of course, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod believes in the existence of Satan and demonic beings, and individual pastors have participated from time to time in rites of exorcism. Yet, the Synod has no official position on demonic possession, nor does it subscribe officially to any formal rite of exorcism.

There are no Lutheran exorcists, however, there are a few accounts of Luther being involved in exorcisms, apart from the exorcism found in Baptism. For example, in his “Letter to Severin Schulze, June 1, 1545”, Luther simply advised the exorcist to lay hands on the possessed, recite the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, a Collect for Deliverance, and Mark 16:18.[1]

More recently, Pastor Robert Bennett chronicled a fascinating first-hand account of the spiritual warfare found within the Lutheran Church of Madagascar in I Am Not Afraid. However, if we want to learn more about demonic possession and exorcisms, we have to go beyond Lutheran circles and review more universal literature, but for now, we will stick to our passage.

In today’s Gospel, a father brings his son, possessed by an evil spirit, to Jesus that he may expel it. This is not the first time Jesus encountered demons. He faced them in the desert where he prayed and fasted for 40 days; and throughout his public ministry, he drove demons from men and women, sons and daughters. Most demonic encounters occurred in Mark, and while Matthew and Luke added similar or parallel accounts, John recorded none.

We see how demonic possession took over the personality of an individual, rendered him incapable of voluntary action, and propelled him into bizarre, destructive behavior.[2] Jesus healed these people using the same method for both individuals suffering from recognizable illnesses and those possessed by demons: presence, touch, word and authority.

Today’s account occurred immediately after Jesus and his three Transfiguration account companions rejoined the other disciples embroiled in an argument with scribes in the midst of a crowd. On catching sight of Jesus, the utterly amazed crowd ran and greeted him. The father answered Jesus’ question about the argument. He rightly expected the disciples to expel the demon since they had success after Jesus delegated them to do so. We read in chapter six, “They went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.” (Mk 6:13-14) This case, however, proved to be too much for them.

Skipping ahead a few verses, the boy’s symptoms suddenly worsen. He falls, rolls around and foams at the mouth. Perhaps this was an attempt to dampen the fragile faith of the bystanders, and clearly, the evil spirit intends to destroy the innocent boy. After a brief discussion with the father, the crowd swelled and Jesus commanded the spirit to leave the boy. While most thought him to be dead, Jesus raised him up by the hand and returned him to his father.

Before I move to my second point, I leave you with this question: Do you turn to Jesus to conquer evil when you see its spirit possess not only innocent young people, but also mature men and women, societies and institutions? Do you turn to him when you find yourself powerless to rid your world and your life of gluttony, addiction, anger, avarice and other such sins? Do you recognize him today as the person with the power to conquer sin in your life, in your world? Have you asked him for the power to overcome evil? Ponder that as I move to my second point, pistis.

In Greek mythology, Pistis was the personification of good faith, trust and reliability. In Christianity and in the New Testament, pistis is the word for faith. Pistis’ Roman equivalent was Fides, a personified concept significant in Roman culture.

The Latin word for faith means trust, confidence, reliance, credence or belief. In the early 14^th century, it meant assent of the mind to the truth of a statement for which there is incomplete evidence, especially belief in religious matters. Faith is neither the submission of reason, nor is it the acceptance, simply and absolutely upon testimony, of what reason cannot reach. Faith is the ability to cleave to a power of goodness appealing to our higher and real self, not to our lower and apparent self.

Returning to our Gospel passage, at the moment Jesus heard that his disciples were unable to heal the boy, he exasperated, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.”

Even though they witnessed many signs and miracles, these people lacked faith. He echoes the words his Father spoke to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” (Num 14:11) And while his words were aimed directly at his disciples, Jesus also included his contemporaries and indeed all of humanity, that is, you and me, stubborn and unbelieving in the face of God’s mercy.

At this point, his disciples were indistinguishable from the unbelieving crowd. Recall the great power Jesus displayed when the sea storm threatened to perish them. As soon as he calmed the forces of nature and the danger passed, Jesus chided his disciples for their feeble faith. “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” Certainly, they turned to him in their moment of terror and dismay; but they did not yet grasp who he really was: sovereign lord over all creation. Here, in a less perilous moment, their lack of faith was a concern for Jesus since his time was running short. The result of their lack of faith and unbelief led to his sufferings.

I would hope that we are more like the father than the crowd. Like us, he brought his son to Jesus through his followers, that is, the Church, and said, “if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” to which Jesus rhetorically retorts, “If you can!”

You see, we should stand in the place of the father, who expressed a cautious, tentative hope that Jesus might be able to help somehow. For there is no question that Jesus can help. The accent here is not on what Jesus can do, but on the human capacity to open the door to God’s mighty works through the boldness of faith. The question is, what limiting barriers have you placed before Jesus when requesting his assistance?

Upon hearing Jesus’ reply, the man stretched his faith in Jesus by crying out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24) The man was humble enough to admit that he needed Jesus to reach into his heart and transform him into a believer that bringing his son to Jesus meant that he could heal him.

So, before I moved from pistis to prayer, ponder this. How often do you bring people to Jesus through prayer? Like a good doctor, do you inquire from the patient what the root problem is? Do you bring the person to Jesus in prayer and fasting? Folks, when you bring people to Jesus through prayer and fasting, whether or not they are healed in body and in spirit, they experience the living presence and power of Him in their hearts.

And now, my third point, prayer. Our passage concludes by telling us that when Jesus 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.” (Mk 9:28-29)

To me, it makes no sense that the disciples, already empowered with authority to cast out demons and heal the sick, were ineffective this time. One Biblical scholar wrote, “Jesus’ reply suggests that they must have lost sight of the need to depend completely on God and have imperceptibly taken on an attitude of self-reliance, as if exorcism were a mere formula. … Their ministry of healing and deliverance will bear fruit only through a reliance on God as they bring all the needs to the feet of Jesus in prayer. It is a lesson in humility in preparation for their ministry in the Church.”[3]

Throughout his life of ministry, Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray earnestly to the end. Luke recorded that when Jesus was in the Mount of Olives, he was in agony but prayed more earnestly. In Acts, when Peter was in prison, the church prayed earnestly to God for him.

So, what is prayer? Prayer is the necessary foundation of our work as church and individuals. It is communal and personal. We pray in our sanctuaries and rooms. To paraphrase one holy person, prayer is God looking at me, and me looking at God. It is from the heart, but it is also vocal. We speak the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus taught it to his disciples. Prayer also involves reading Scripture. By now you know that my wife and I read aloud the Psalms and other Biblical passages on a daily basis. Like you, we make time for prayer.

However, my friends, we all take time away from prayer. This summer, many of us took time away from work and home. We vacated our businesses and residences. We went on vacation.

Unfortunately, for some, vacation means time away from Word, Sacrament, public worship and private prayer. We become spiritually lazy. Oswald Chambers once wrote, “We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints.” Another spiritual leader once wrote Christians who do not pray are Christians at risk. So, let me offer some advice to lessen your risk.[4]

There are two aspects to our prayer life. The first one involves making our whole lives a conversation with God. Daily, in a simple and familiar way, we should turn our hearts and thoughts toward him often, believing that he is always looking at us with love. Everything that is part of our lives can nourish this conversation: beautiful things help us give him praise and thanks, difficulties help us to ask for his aid, and even our faults help us ask him for forgiveness! Everything, good and bad, can become an opportunity to talk to God and to draw closer to him.

The second one involves taking breaks to regularly spend time just with God—to disconnect ourselves for a moment from the demands of our lives in order to be in his presence. For example, we can start with just fifteen minutes a day, and then periodically devote a longer amount of time. In these times, God can pour out his grace upon us. He can bring us strength and hope, and in his presence, our hearts can change.

To pray is not to perform but to welcome God in our poverty, in our powerlessness. It is not about being effective, about producing a result, but about being with God. God does not need our works, but he thirsts for our love.

For prayer to really make us touch God, and to allow ourselves to be touched by him, it only needs to be faithful and persevering, a sincere act of faith and trust, and an expression of our true desire to love.

Although prayer does not have to lead to insight and wisdom, it sometimes does. I know God’s enemies are active. Some are obvious and others subtle: evil powers and “good” people promoting lifestyles contrary to the Gospel and God’s Law whether they are the seven deadly sins compiled in Proverbs or vices in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Some promote personal sins and others modern social sins –trafficking drugs and humans, violating fundamental rights of human nature and other sins.

As Jesus’ disciples, we must not only be aware of God’s enemies and the temptations they sow among us, but also awaken society to them. Prayerful Christians take their faith to the town square and the political sphere, to school and work, to family gatherings and on vacation.

Finally, it is important to remember that ultimately all creation is of God and in its origin is a blessing. Sin, division, destructiveness and death are part of our lives, and have their source in the devil. Yet, despite the sin we see in our lives and world, we remain hopeful, knowing that we are nourished by what God gives us: Word and Sacrament. We know that evil will ultimately be vanquished and complete unity with God will be realized.[5]

Friends, prayer means that you take your faith from these walls into the world. Place yourself at the feet of Jesus, and ask Him to free you from whatever spirit possesses you and prevents you from giving yourself totally to Him and the abundant life he offers. Pray that the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keeps your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Did you bring your lucky charms for the exorcism?  Oh, never mind, you’re Lutheran. Posted on November 22, 2010 by Pastor Joshua Scheer, www.steadfastlutherans.org.

[2] Demonic Possession, The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Richard McBrien, ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1995, pp. 407f.

[3] Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark. p. 180.

[4] Jacques Philippe, “Prayer during Times of Crisis,” The Word Among Us, September 2021, pp. 5ff.

[5] James A. Schmeiser, “Demons, Demonics, Devils,” The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, Michael Downey ed. Collegeville MN: The Liturgical Press, 1993, pp. 259f.