SCRIPTURE - Mark 9:17-27 (New International Version)
17A man in the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. (The boy probably suffered from epilepsy and to speak of being demon-possessed was the language and understanding of the day.) I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not."
19"O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How
long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me."
20So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"
"From childhood," he answered. 22"It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."
23" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for the one who believes."
24Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"
25When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil[a] spirit. "You deaf and mute spirit," he said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again."
26The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead." 27But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
Have you ever been at a place like the man in the story just read?
Have you ever been at a place of such great need and longed for such a miracle …
for yourself or for someone for whom you cared?
Have you ever hoped and prayed that the miracle would come
and that the happy ending would be yours?
Have you ever been like the man in the story …
the man who had faith, yet struggled with his faith …
the man who believed, yet longed to believe more deeply?
______________________________________
She was just a little girl - three years old.
Sweet. Innocent. Happy.
And into that little girl’s life came great sorrow.
Her mother, who had carried her and fed her and changed her
and helped her with her first steps and first words
and tossed her into the air and held her close to her heart, died.
She was sent to live with her grandparents
but there was never much talking about her mother being dead.
Her grandparents lived right across the street from the church they attended
and the cemetery where her mother was buried.
She remembers as a little girl being taken to church
and because there was no program for children,
sat with them for the adult service.
And she heard the stories -
and the story about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead …
and words of Jesus like
“If you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed
you can say to this mountain, ‘Move,’ and it will move” …
and the words of Jesus, read today, that
“Everything is possible for the one who believes” …
and words of Jesus like
“Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives;
he who seeks finds;
and to him who knocks the door will be opened.”
And she remembers, lying in bed at night, thinking and wondering.
“What if I were to get out of bed?
What if I were to walk over to the cemetery where my mother is buried?
What if I were to say to her, ‘Rise’?”
Lying there, thinking and wondering,
“What would my family say?
What would people say?”
Lying there, thinking and wondering, she came to the conclusion,
“They don’t believe it.”
After all, her grandpa was a doctor
and he was not in the business of raising people from the dead.
Lying there, thinking and wondering, she came to the conclusion:
“I’m not supposed to believe it either.”
She came to that conclusion because her mother
was still buried in the cemetery across the road.
She never got out of bed to test the theory.
She stopped believing in the idea that people could be raised from the dead.
But it was a struggle in her little life
and in some ways it is a struggle to this day.
______________________________________
I was just a boy, not yet a teenager.
My mother had flown to Florida
where she would be getting divorced from my father.
Our father had left a few years earlier
leaving my Mom, and me, and my brother and two sisters.
I really didn’t know my father then.
My remembrances of him were born of the stories the family would tell.
Yet I knew that my Mom still loved him.
And I wanted for her and for us all the happiness that that kind of love brings.
But our life didn’t turn out that way.
Like the little girl whose mother had died,
I, too, had heard the words of the Jesus, that
“Nothing is impossible with God”
and the words of Jesus, like
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” …
and the words of Paul, like
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
So, with that boyhood faith in Jesus,
who spoke of and had faith in the God of possibilities,
who had bidden a little boy like me to come to him,
and through whom I would have strength to do all things, I prayed.
I prayed that when Mom came home my father would come home, too …
I prayed that somehow we could all be together again …
I prayed that the God of the impossible would make this possible …
I prayed. But it didn’t happen.
______________________________________
I set that experience against the things I see and hear from the televangelists
and the many who have their miracle services
and the many who sell the faith, it seems to me,
like the old snake oil salesmen
who offer their product as a cure for everything.
They speak of the Devil, Satan, the Enemy, the Prince of Darkness,
and how the Devil and his Legions are powerless in the face of the God, in Christ,
in whom you put your faith.
Some perform their miracles. The deaf hear again.
The lame walk.
The cancer disappears.
Financial prosperity comes.
If you have enough faith, God will heal you – every part of you.
Some talk about money …
about giving your tithe …
about planting your seed, meaning money,
not only so that you can help spread the Gospel
but also so you will reap the harvest that God has promised:
financial prosperity for you.
Some speak of the intervening God
who will fix your marriage,
resolve your problems,
prosper your business,
open up the gates of heaven.
God, the great fixer, will fix whatever is wrong in your life.
And some will tell you that unless you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
unless you accept him as the only way to God and as your personal Saviour,
you are doomed and will burn in the fires of Hell -
not for a minute, not for an hour, not for a day - but forever, and ever, and ever.
But like that little girl I spoke of and the little boy I was, it makes me wonder
because our prayers weren’t answered and our miracles didn’t come.
Why don’t the healers, the miracle workers,
go to the hospital wards and the clinics
and in the name of the God who heals us
offer their healing there.
Why don’t those who talk about planting their tithe
go to Africa and tell the faithful Christians there
who struggle in their poverty and hunger and misery
that God will prosper them,
or if God isn’t, that it must be because they don’t believe enough, or the right way.
Why don’t those who speak of the intervening God go to the street centres
or speak with the broken people who live on the streets
or the broken people of faith whose lives are falling apart,
some who may own a faith the size of a mustard seed,
and tell them why God isn’t intervening for them.
And why don’t those who tell us, in the name of the God of Love,
that we’re going to hell unless we believe things in a certain way,
speak to those who believe things in that certain way,
who have all of their theological t’s crossed
and all of their doctrinal i’s dotted,
who have faith that fairly oozes out of them,
yet who continue to live self-righteously, not righteously …
who thank God for their blessings but are a blessing to no one else …
who sing God’s praises yet who ignore God’s hurting people …
who are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good …
who are all about believing the right things but not about living the right way.
And the God they preach about, although they speak of God’s love,
is a jealous God, an angry God, a judging God who seems merciless.
In my estimation they have made God anything but a God of grace.
How could one possibly believe that the loving God -
revealed in Jesus who loved us so much that he died for us -
would ever send us to hell to be eternally punished
and eternally separated from that matchless Love?
Why would one want to believe in such a God?
___________________________________
Like that little girl I spoke of and the little boy I was, it makes me wonder.
What is all of this “miracle” talk about?
What does this “faith the size of a mustard seed” mean?
Where does this “everything is possible for the one who believes” take me?
How does this “ask and it will be given to you” happen?
What if, like the father who said, “I believe; help me overcome my unbelief”
I have faith, but not that much faith?
I have spoken to that little girl, now quite grown up,
who told me her story.
She also told me this.
She has come to own a faith
that says that love is the power …
the love of God is the power that gets us through …
the love of God is the power that can raise us up to deal with the impossible.
And I would like to believe that the day will come,
as it will come to us all,
that when this little girl now all grown up dies,
she will go to heaven and waiting for her there
will be the mother she has missed and loved all through the years -
the mother who has missed and loved her.
And the little boy I was?
The disappointments of a little boy’s faith
have grown into the confidence of my faith today.
Like the little girl who came to believe
in the power of the love of God to get us through,
who can raise up something from within us to deal with the impossible,
I came to believe that what God could fix was not my parent’s marriage;
I came to believe that God could fix me … our family … us.
What God could do was mend our hearts.
It is the power of the love of God, and the power of the love of those near to us,
if we will let it in, that gets us through.
______________________________________
And I have come to believe this:
God’s miracles aren’t miracles as we might normally think of them.
God’s miracles are about the healing, the healing of the heart,
that lets us know, although in our world may not feel it, that we are loved.
God’s miracles are about the healing of our vision, sight being restored,
so that we see the world around us and the people around us
through the eyes of love.
God’s miracles are about the healing of our lameness
so that we can stand up and move
to help the hurting and struggling people around us.
God’s miracles are about the healing of our finances, not that we might prosper
but that through our giving others might be helped.
God’s miracles are not about having it all figured out
but having figured out enough -
even with our “I have faith, brother, but not that much faith” believing,
and even with the questions we have asked since childhood.
God’s miracles come when we take seriously the teaching of Jesus -
about living and acting and speaking and being -
so that the miracles can happen,
the miracles for which God longs
and the miracles for which Jesus lived:
that the kingdom of God comes -
a kingdom of peace and justice, of needs met and hope renewed – for all people.
God’s miracles are about belonging -
belonging to God …
belonging to Jesus …
belonging to each other.
God’s miracles are about believing –
about sensing the sacred and embracing it
so that all of life becomes sacred.
God’s miracles are about behaving –
about taking seriously the invitation
to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves …
about “acting justly and loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.”
And God’s miracles are about becoming that new person in Christ …
that transformed you that brings in your very being the love of Christ.
So, on this day, see the miracles …
embrace the miracles …
and become the miracle yourself.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
