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

Jesus heals the epileptic boy; Serbia, 14th century.  Decani Monastery

 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

Yesterday we read that after six days following Peter's confession of faith, and Jesus' subsequent prophesy of His Passion, death, and Resurrection (see this reading, and this one), Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them.  His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.  And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.  Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles:  one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."  While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  Hear Him!"  And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid.  But Jesus came and touched them and said, "Arise, and do not be afraid."  When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.  Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead."  And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"  Jesus answered and said to them, "Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.  But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished.  Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.  Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.

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.  My study bible says that sickness in Scripture is frequently connected to demonic activity.  This father, by kneeling down to Christ, shows humility.  But he lacks faith.  The disciples also lacked faith, but Chris rebukes the man for placing the blame on the disciples -- as it was his greater lack of faith that prevented the boy's healing.   Essentially, my study bible points out, Jesus defends His disciples in front of the multitudes, but later rebukes them privately (in the verses that follow), thereby teaching us that we should first correct people in private (see 18:15-17).

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."   According to St. John Chrysostom, my study bible reports, this rebuke is directed at the nine disciples who could not cast out the demon, whereas "the pillars" of faith -- Peter, James, and John (Galatians 2:9) -- are not included in this rebuke, as they had been on the mountain with Christ at the Transfiguration (see yesterday's reading, above).   This kind, my study bible says, refers to all powers of darkness, and not only those that cause a particular illness.  The banishment of demons, it says, requires faith, prayer, and fasting, for there is no healing and no victory in spiritual warfare without all three.  Beginning with the Didache (the oldest teaching document of the Church), it has been taught that both the person in need of healing and the person performing the healing must believe, pray, and fast.  While it is not recorded in the history of the Church that a saint moved a mountain, this promise is an illustration of the power of faith and prayer in all areas of life.  Theophan writes, "Whatever we ask, without hesitation and believing in God's power, we shall receive" when we ask for spiritually profitable things.

Jesus tells the disciples, "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."  Surely to modern ears (and to the hearers in other, past generations) this must sound a little strange.  Does it mean we simply have to convince ourselves that something is absolutely true, and then it will happen?  Do we have to just believe that God will give everything to us that we desire, if only we have enough faith?  None of these conclusions really makes any sense at all, so we must take the issue of faith in its context.  What does it really mean to have faith?  As we remarked upon in yesterday's reading and commentary, we recall Jesus' words when He was told that His mother and brothers awaited Him:  "Who is My mother and who are My brothers?"  And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers!  For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother" (12:50).   Jesus' faith encompasses not merely a belief system, or a set of abstract values we ascribe to, or even a kind of oath of belief in something.  Faith is this active pursuit of living the will of God, of seeking to know that will and to do it.   It is the fullness of a way of life, a way of being and living in this world.  It is an experience of participation in something greater than ourselves.  As we have often noted on this blog, the word for faith in the Greek of the Gospels really means "trust."  Trust is at its root.  We trust in something, and we become a part of that greater thing through trust.  In this act of trusting, we participate in a personal relationship that extends to all those who share in the same act of faith, that experience and ongoing trust.  Trust implies a letting go at the same time, because to trust in a particular relationship, to trust oneself to another person (or Persons) is really to put your life in their hands.  It is a structure of dependency, in the sense that we release control.  When I put my trust and my faith in God, then I am relinquishing the idea that somehow I have total control over everything; instead, I am going to seek God's will and trust that God knows better than I do what is, in fact, good for me.  I am going to trust in the good, in God who is love.  And I am going to trust that through this faith, God will lead me into what is truly love, what is truly good -- and that the light of grace can also shine through my life and my growth in that faith.  So powerful then is that faith that Jesus can tell us that "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."   That is, if we are living this wholistic life of trust and personal communion with God, in Christ, and in the communion of saints, what we are led to will be possible for us.  So powerful is that kind of trust, this kind of faith, that all we need of it is that which equals a tiny grain of mustard seed for the impossible to be possible.  It is precisely because faith creates this kind of communion that such things may manifest, but it is this life of trust -- seeking to know and to live the will of God -- that makes it possible, that gives that kind of life to us and within us.  In effect, through faith, we may participate in grace, in the personal life of intimacy with God that Jesus invites us into.  He teaches regarding the difficulty of healing the boy that "this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."   Within the context of faith that we have discussed, prayer and fasting are two practices of our faith that help us to deepen this active life of trust.  With prayer and fasting we make more manifest our faith through acts of the body; our very bodies created of matter in this world become part of our participation in the life of faith and of discipleship.  We discipline the body through fasting to be mindful of God, we incorporate prayer into our daily lives so that our minds, voices, and hearts are focused upon the One in whom we place our trust and our lives.  These practices enable us to more deeply live our faith and to root our trust in the place where it needs to be.  We become more deeply mindful of our faith through these practices, giving time and effort and even sacrifice for it, on various levels of experience and being in this world.  Let us consider the "all in all" experience of our faith and how we seek to live it.  Faith is not just an intellectual set of values we ascribe to, separate from the rest of ourselves.  It is participation in relationship.  It is trust in Someone, just as we place trust in other relationships such as family, spouse, children, friends, community, and others.  We entrust ourselves to God to encompass all of our lives, not as a separate compartment, but in a way that entrusts all of it so that we are guided through this life in that trust, and live in that security of faith as our deepest anchor, our identity, our place of first and last resort.  In this way we may move mountains when called upon to do so.  In the end, today's reading is really all about love:  there is a young child who is so afflicted that he is tossed into the fire, into water, and his desperate father seeks somehow to heal and to protect him.  Jesus teaches us about faith in God who is love to bring about healing and protection, to cement our lives in that love which roots the world and invites us into a yet deeper participation and trust.

If you say to this mountain

Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.' "

Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant and said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes. Have you never read,

'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

You have perfected praise'? "

Then he left them and went out of that city to Bethany, and he lodged there.

Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, "Let no fruit grow on you ever again." Immediately the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither away so soon?" So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done. And whatever thing you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."

- Matthew 21:12-22

In the reading of Saturday (see Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!) we learned of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and how for the Church it also symbolizes another celestial event. We learned more about the "double-vision," so to speak, in Matthew's gospel, and how in that case, we see these events as occurring at the same time - or perhaps simultaneously but in different types of time: one an earthly event in the time frame that we experience in our earthly lives, the other a celestial event in a "heavenly time," if you will - in eternal time; it is an "eternal present," which gives life to so much of what we read so that it is "with us" although we read of what happened long ago. Today we read about Jesus' first acts in Jerusalem.

Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.' " My study bible notes on this part of the reading: "Those who bought and sold in the temple traded in animals used for sacrifices. The money changers were needed to provide currency acceptable to the temple, because Roman coins bearing the head of Caesar were considered defiling. When Jesus sees that worship has become commercialized, he acts against the abuses, boldly overturning the tables and casting the tradesmen out. The cleansing of the temple is seen as an image of the cleansing of our souls." Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11. I like it that my study bible likens this cleansing of the temple (a messianic act) with the cleansing of our souls. We all have our own cleansing to do! I think this is perhaps the most important part of our prayer lives, but we call on the Spirit to guide us in this - it is not of our own making to decide how or what we need to change. So our relationship to the Lord is also primary in this. But what we also see is Jesus' first act that challenges the authorities - corruption hurts everyone, and takes away from the children the spiritual food that they are there for. In Saturday's commentary, we wrote about the scandals that keep people away from the Church. Jesus always emphasized the need for a watchful eye even on those who would come in his name - and his witness against corruption and predatory practices of those who would be his followers remains an essential part of his teaching. We get that example especially in this first act in Jerusalem.

Then the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant and said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise'? " Then he left them and went out of that city to Bethany, and he lodged there. The healing of the blind and lame is also a messianic act, but more than that, it is coupled here with the cleansing of the temple. This furthers our understanding of the cleansing of our souls and its function: it is so that we practice repentance for salvation, for healing. Whether we are speaking of corruption on any level (even a personal one) or the need for change within ourselves - to discard something necessary for us to let go of - all is in the service of healing, which is synonymous with salvation. So, Jesus' cleansing of the temple is preparation for healing and restoration of health on all levels. This is also what we must keep in mind when we pray, and we allow Spirit to be at work in ourselves as well. The leadership of the temple is outraged not only at the act of healing, but of the recognition in the "children" who call Jesus "the Son of David." We recall Jesus' teaching on the "little ones" of the Church, and on the children sent to him for his blessing, of whom he said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." He has also taught in recent readings that we should become like little children, in the sense that they are humble: "Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." For references to the quotation see Psalm 8:2 and also Jesus' words in Matthew 11:25. 26.

Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, "Let no fruit grow on you ever again." Immediately the fig tree withered away. My study bible says, "The fig tree, symbol of prosperity and peace, withers because of its fruitlessness. This is a prophetic act, for after three years of preaching, teaching and healing, the Jews are destitute of spiritual fruit; therefore, he withers them with his reproach. He curses the tree to warn of the curse on those who will crucify him. He submits himself willingly to the Cross; he is the Suffering Servant who yields to their torture." The fig tree, I have read elsewhere, is also a symbol of Israel - "the people of God." So, the coupling of this act with the messianic acts in the temple (the cleansing and healing) is a comment on the rejection by the leadership. They are concerned only with their own authority and power, and cannot read the signs of the times.

And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, "How did the fig tree wither away so soon?" So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done. And whatever thing you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." My study bible notes on these verses: "Jesus does not expect his disciples literally to move mountains, but this extravagant image accurately depicts the astonishing power of undoubting faith." What I take away from these passages, coupled all together, is a message on the pre-eminence of faith and its nature. What is holiness and how do we see it? Certainly the gospels - and in particular, Matthew's gospel which concerns itself with a Jewish audience and perspective - teach us that this leadership has been prepared for the event of the Messiah. They are the ones who know the Scriptures, are experts in the Law and the interpretation of the writings of the prophets. We are given to understand that this leadership (in general, not as a whole, for we are also told there are those among the leadership who are Jesus' followers) has not done its duty to those they are to lead, and they have failed to embrace what is in their midst - that which they should know. They do not have the humility "as a little child" to receive what is actually in their presence, and they have failed "the children" they are supposed to lead in spiritual teaching.

How do we read this today? Are there ways in which our own churches have let us down? Do we also suffer from corruption - or those concerned with supporting themselves rather than teaching and leading the children? Can we understand the holy in our midst - whether or not it inconveniences us?: I have a feeling that the holy is always that which seeks for us to open up our eyes and learn new things, to take us forward, and this can be (or feel like) a painful experience. In the teachings in these gospels, we can see the position of the leadership. They have set things their way. They are asked to change. Could we also respond with a "yes," with faith? Can we open up our eyes where we need to? Are we willing to be cleansed - on any level, be it corporate or personal? Are we ready to be healed? As a doctor also needs to cleanse what ails us before we can heal, so the Lord seeks to do the same. Are we ready for the presence of the holy - and its effects - in our lives? Are we ready for this kind of faith?