O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him and saying, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."

- Matthew 17:14-21

In the past several readings, we have been focusing in the gospel of Matthew on issues of faith. In recent sequence, we had first the incident in which Jesus chastised his disciples because they did not understand when he referred to "the leaven of the Pharisees" and he called them "you of little faith." Then, Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ came in the readings, and Jesus called him the "Rock" upon which he would build his church. Directly after this confession, Jesus revealed that he would suffer, and rebuked Peter for insisting that this not be so, telling him, "Get behind me, Satan!" Then came the Transfiguration - in which Jesus' closest disciples, Peter, James and John, were witnesses to a theophany, a revelation not only that Jesus is Son but of the Trinity Itself. In today's reading, we continue with issues of faith, and teaching about faith and what it does in us, how it works and how we are to participate in that faith.

And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him and saying, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." My study bible notes here: "Kneeling and saying, Lord have mercy on my son, (v. 15), the father of the epileptic expresses his desperate need and his unworthiness before Christ. Sickness, especially epilepsy, is often connected to demonic activity in Scripture. Yet the disciples (v. 16) could not banish Satan." If we take this in the spiritual context in which it is presented, as a form of spiritual battle, we understand that we are to question why the disciples were powerless to help in this battle for the life of the son. It is not merely a question of healing in a purely physical sense, but also a hidden battle of spiritual dimension, that connects all forms of healing on all levels in us. It is also, notably, a battle in which human beings are hurt and tortured by the demonic, that which is against Christ, against the Father and the forces of God. We human beings are the battleground; our faith should make the difference in terms of what we are able to produce, our fruitfulness.

Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me." Another note reads here: "Jesus rebukes his disciples' powerlessness and their participation with the faithless and perverse (see Deut. 32:5). Nothing can withstand Jesus' power, for he is the Lord of all. To everyone in need he says, Bring him here to me!" By reading the citing of Deuteronomy, it seems to me that Jesus is talking about commitment - about the depth of their commitment to their faith. In all readings recently, Jesus has exhorted the disciples to strengthen their faith. He wants more, more depth, more encouragement, a deeper commitment to who they are, in effect, as his followers.

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting." My study bible notes, "Exorcisms require sincere faith (v. 20) combined with prayer and fasting (v. 21). Faith is a gift of God, either (1) an assent to the truth, which profits the soul (John 3:18, 5:24) or (2) a special gift bestowed by Christ which effects things beyond man's power (Mark 11:23; 1 Cor. 12:8,9). But it is always both a belief and a trust." I think my study bible's understanding of faith as both a belief and a trust is very important. We have a relationship to the Person who is Truth. This involves love, it involves confidence and trust, and it involves belief in the wisdom that we learn as truth. It is "all of the above," all-inclusive on many levels that impact who we are, down to our very identity, and what we keep close to us in our hearts. Jesus refers also to the faith as a mustard seed, referring us back to the parable earlier in Matthew's gospel about the mustard seed that grows to become a "tree" - the tiny bit of faith that works in us to grow great works and produce great strong branches of shelter "in which the birds of the air can nest." Prayer and fasting are deepening forms of commitment to faith, they are the practice (praxis) of faith.

So, if we take this reading today in the context of what it teaches us about faith, and apply it in sequence to the recent readings that do likewise, we come to the following conclusions. We have learned that faith gives us understanding and insight, that its insights are given to us via revelations from the Father, that the Father's will may transcend and disrupt the things we think we know that are "good" and give us new things to accept and to follow, that the kingdom is surely among us in Christ who is inextricably linked as Son to the entire Trinity - God the Trinity. Today, Jesus teaches that power comes from himself, and that through faith we have access to that power which he shares with us. Through our commitment and the deepening of our faith, we release that power and can use it for the good, to help an ailing humanity, to save it from its suffering in this spiritual battleground in which we play a part - and our lives are touched on every side by that battle as well.

What we take away with us from these readings is a picture of God the Whole, if you will, Who is connected to us and in us through the Son - and Who will send his Spirit to be with us and help us as well with all of the gifts that the Spirit will bear. The Spirit, we know, will deepen faith, and give its myriad gifts of wisdom and healing on all levels, of holiness and its multiplying forms which evolve and expand in our world like that great "tree" that grows from the mustard seed. We are equipped with great weapons, through faith, in this spiritual battle - all of God participates in us: the Father who reveals, the Son who is with us always, the Spirit that dwells among us and in us. For all time, then, we are bestowed with these gifts and these weapons in this "spiritual battleground" in which we are beset by those things that give us a picture of life in which God is far away, in which there is no mercy, no kindness, no respite from what ails us, torments us, makes our lives torturous. One word in the Greek for "evil" is poneros. This is the word given to us in the Lord's Prayer, when we pray to Our Father to "deliver us from evil." The root of this word for evil is ponos, which means "pain." It also has derivative forms that mean "toil," "hardship," "envy," "iniquity" and "wicked" among other things. As a proper noun, poneros is used to refer to the devil, "the evil one" (this is the form used in the prayer to Our Father). So, taking the original Greek, we come to understand that this battleground is against all of this which afflicts humanity, in which, as the central place in which this battle is fought, we experience the effects of "the evil one" that separate us from faith, from God. So, the fact that Christ is here to strengthen our faith, to bring us fruitfulness, to create as his ministry a way for all of us to be equipped with the power of faith and its gifts, is, in effect, to equip us to battle all forms of evil. Faith is that which gives us the weapons to battle the things that make our lives miserable, give us unnecessary hardship, pain in all of its myriad forms and experiences including on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. Our Christ is here to bring us the power of the Father, and the many blessings of faith that come in so many forms of support, strengthening and uplifting the human condition. It is this that our faith is for, and for what we struggle in this battleground as his disciples. Christ has told us that he came "for the life of the world." For this he himself will suffer, and struggle, and die a horrible death of crucifixion. Therefore, what we suffer in following him and taking up his cross is, in effect, for the life of the world, in hopes of relieving humanity of its suffering in all forms. It is this aid for which we struggle, this goal of faith in which we put our hope, this gift we bear when we are his disciples, his salt and light of the world. I believe that this message is still that hope that we have for the world; the mercy inherent in our faith is the necessary ingredient for what ails us, on all levels.