1 Corinthians 4:9-16 • Matthew 17:14-23
Glory to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In this morning’s Gospel reading, the disciples are stumped. Just a few chapters earlier they’d been sent out with authority to heal the sick, cast out demons, and announce the coming of the Kingdom of God (Matthew ch. 10). Now the whole choir of the apostles are powerless to help one boy.
The text here in some Bible translations says the boy is “epileptic.” That’s a very specific neurological diagnosis of modern medicine. Another translation simply says, “He has seizures and is suffering greatly.”
But the Lord’s response is to rebuke a demon that’s affecting this boy.
There are people who suffer from abnormalities of brain function or brain chemistry; sometimes they can be helped with prescribed medicines or changes in lifestyle. And there are a lot of people who are oppressed by what we might figuratively call demons: Our own sins become compulsions that bind us, compel us, and make us predisposed to sinful and self-destructive patterns of action. I’m told that at one point in the Oregon Trail, there was a fork in the way and a sign said, “Choose your ruts carefully! You’ll be in them for the next 500 miles.” Most of our obsessions and bondage are the result of our own sins and the corruption of the world we live in. But that’s good news, because these passions can begin to be healed through prayer and fasting, through almsgiving and serving, ordering the works of our hands and guarding our lips and our thoughts.
In fact, we’ve just begun the short two-week fast in preparation for the Dormition of the Theotokos, so we’re focusing on these therapies that heal the soul. This is your opportunity to begin the journey to freedom.
But in addition to the things our culture calls “demons,” there are a few people whose troubles actually do come from what scripture calls unclean spirits.
We don’t automatically assume that depression, addiction, or compulsions are demons. But we know that there are spiritual beings who hate and fear the love of God that is poured out on us. These spirits are bundles of chaos and spite and self-will, and when we become like them, we attract them. This is why the evening prayers in your prayerbook recommend making the sign of the life-giving Cross before sleep and when you get up. The cross is our victory banner and the sign of the demons’ defeat, because it’s on the Cross that all our sins were offered up to God, we were cleansed and made pure, and the human race passed through death and hell and out of the power of the devil into life eternal.
Now this boy has been brought to the apostles, who can’t do a thing for him. But the Lord, without hesitation, rebukes the spirit and it comes out immediately. “Lord, why couldn’t we cast out the demon?” This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting.
Notice what the Lord does not do. He doesn’t say, “This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting. So stay here and wait, while I go pray and fast!” Christ didn’t have to do this because prayer and fasting were normal parts of his life. We know from history that pious Jews in Jerusalem at this time fasted twice a week (Luke 18:12; Didache ch. 8). Christians didn’t make that up; we received it from the Jews who first followed Christ. And we know from the Gospels that Christ often, daily, retreated to be alone and speak to his Father in prayer (e.g. Matthew 14:23; 26:36-46; Mark 6:46; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:18). These habits were at home in the life of Christ. So when he was confronted with a need, Christ was ready. Now go and do likewise!
I am tempted to stop there. But I know there are folks here who have been fasting and praying longer than I have, and who can testify that it’s easy to say and harder to do: Ours is a long obedience in the same direction, and we experience purification and freedom as we walk in obedience with the Lord (Luke 17:14). The habits of prayer and fasting, almsgiving and gentleness and humility, all flow from one source.
We read in Philippians that Christ, who was one with the Father, didn’t give a thought to holding onto his rights as God but emptied himself, becoming a servant (Philippians 2:5-8). That expression, to empty oneself, in the Greek world, would call to mind a drink offering. Before drinking from a cup of wine, a person would tip the cup and slop out a drop onto the floor as an offering to his gods. The first of every drink and meal belonged to the gods. Under the Jewish law, sacrifices of grain and of wine were brought to the temple, and completely poured out with the sacrificed animals (Numbers 15:4–5). So it’s a familiar image when Saint Paul says to the Philippians and again to Timothy, “I am being poured out like a drink offering” (Philippians 2:17; 2 Timothy 4:6).
A priest wears a stole around his neck to represent the grace that comes down from God, not for the priest, but for the people he serves. That’s why the stole is placed on your head when we pray for forgiveness for your sins or healing for your body: It speaks in a tangible way of grace coming down and passing on to others.
A person who lives in order to be poured out to others has his hands open. You can’t easily receive a gift from my hand if my hands are closed into fists! So we pray, “Forgive us our debts in the same way we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:9). If my hands are closed tight when I speak to you, then now when I turn and raise them to God… All I’m doing is shaking my fists at heaven. This is no position to pray to God. Let not the man who “prays” this way think he will receive anything from God! But if I open my hands, and let all the blessings I receive from God flow through me – my time, my attention, my forgiveness, my hospitality, my goods – then my hands are open when I turn to the East and seek grace from God.
Isn’t that what we see in Christ? Often retreating to be alone for his rule of prayer to his Father, receiving grace, and then imparting it to the people in miracles and inspired words.
I’d like to ask your help: Hum this note with me…
Save, O Lord, thy people, and bless thine inheritance. Victory grant to the faithful against all powers that do assail. And through thy cross, preserve thine own. Thy commonwealth.
That’s the familiar Troparion for the Cross. As I sang the melody, the note you hummed is called an ison. My voice went up and down but your ison was steady.
What is the ison of your life? Is it a rhythm of prayer and fasting, kindness and patience and helping, so that your open hands are always receiving from God and sharing with others? Is pouring out patience, hope, and gratitude to your family and coworkers the steady ison that characterizes your life? If not, why not? Our passions come out by prayer and fasting.
Today’s Gospel reading is appointed for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost. That usually puts it around the beginning of the Dormition Fast, so it’s an easy connection.
But this is a short fast; we only have another ten days. And it’s the last major fast for a while — there won’t be any more long fasts at all until we start preparing for Christmas. So after the Dormition, we’ll only be fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays.
A long and nearly fast-free period calls for a different kind of watchfulness: It’s not so much the violence of battle, but the care, watchfulness, and singlemindedness of a resistance movement in territory occupied by an enemy.
It’s easy to forget that we are in a prolonged struggle. Our vigilance can slip away, and we let out guard down.
When the Lord needed to confront the enemy, he was ready because prayer and fasting were normal everyday parts of his life as a man. He was prepared, so he was untroubled when a demonic attack needed to be shut down.
During the present fast and afterward, we need to remember what Saint Philaret of Moscow said: “A fish that is alive swims against the flow of water. One that is dead floats down with the water. A true Christian goes against the current of a sinful age. A false one is swept away by its swiftness.”
Do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise… Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 10:35-36;12:1-2).
This morning I want to encourage and warn the ones here who have been newly illumined through baptism – and all of us, including myself: We live in territory occupied by an enemy (Ephesians 2:2; 6:12). In Christ we are victorious – but right here and now we are not done struggling.
A friend of mine learned Tae Kwon Do in the military. He was dismayed to find out that his first lessons were not how to kick or punch – but how to fall. Anybody can get knocked down, but a fighter needs to know how not to be injured when he falls, and how to quickly get back on his feet and deal with his attacker.
So Saint Nectarios advises, “Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Do not despair if you keep falling into your old sins. Many of them are strong because they have received the force of habit. Only with the passage of time and with fervor will they be conquered.”
So in the coming weeks, while we’re fasting from rich foods, strengthening our rule of prayer, letting blessings flow through our hands in almsgiving and service, and guarding our thoughts and words so that we can offer to God clean hands and a pure heart (Psalm 23:3-4lxx): Let’s remember the word of hope the Lord gives us in today’s Gospel:
“This kind comes out through prayer and fasting!”
The Orthodox Faith teaches us to fight pride by knowing our own capacity for sin. But as strugglers we run the risk of making our spiritual life center on our sins. Avoiding temptation, confessing our failures, mourning for our past actions, and grimly arming ourselves to do battle in a perverse generation.
But in today’s Gospel, Christ comes from his time of daily prayer, meets a person in need, and simply speaks a word, and the crisis is past. Having stood before his Father, the Source of all things, now Jesus is ready to open up a river of the water of life (John 4:14; 7:38), serving and blessing all who come to him.
If we genuinely believe what we pray, that he is a good God who loves mankind, then let’s make that the reality of our lives in thoughts and actions. Have you sinned? Repent, get up from your fall and immediately with thankfulness return to the place God has prepared for you as a joyful servant, a child and heir of God, and a light in the world reflecting the goodness of God.
To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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