Sermon notes Mark 9:17-31 4th Sunday of Lent 2009
And one of the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit; and wherever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he had 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 and fasting.” They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
This Gospel Lesson of the 4th Sunday of Great Lent raises the very important yet very troubling issue of what happens when we as Christians fail when trying to do what Christ taught or commanded?
The disciples in the Gospel lesson could not heal the epileptic boy. It is the boy’s father who brings his son to Christ, not the disciples. They are not eager to confess their failure to Christ or before the crowd.
Jesus’ reaction to his disciples (he is not speaking to the crowd) is very strongly disapproving: “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.”
Lent is a sojourn. Last Sunday we visited the place of the Cross of Christ which was to strengthen us on our way. This Sunday we have to deal with the eventuality that we will confront situations where our best efforts at being disciples and Christians will not be good enough and we will fail. This is a difficult message especially in an American culture which measures everything by success – the prosperity Gospel. It is possible that at times we Christians will try but will fail to do things that Christ commanded us to do. How will we react? How should we react?
In the Gospel lesson the father of the boy confesses his unbelief – and Christ heals his son. The man confesses his failure, he doesn’t try to hide it, or to blame the disciples for his lack of faith. He makes his confession, and despite admitting to his failure, Christ heals the boy.
The disciples are puzzled by all of this. “Why could we not cast it out?” They ask this question privately. Are they afraid what Christ might say to them? Are they embarrassed and don’t want the crowd to hear about their failures?
It seems as if they are saying, “OK, we understand this man lacked faith, but what about all of us? Why couldn’t we heal the boy for we are following you!?!
It will happen to each of us at some point that we will try but will fail to do Christ’s will. Will our concern be what the crowd thinks about us, or will we be concerned about the person to whom we failed to successfully minister?
We can look at ourselves during Lent: Christ promises to heal our sins. All we have to do is confess them: But how reluctant we are to confess our sins. This is simply opening our lives to Christ and being honest about who we are and what we have done. And yet so many are reluctant to confess and avoid confession and avoid acknowledging their sins. We fail on such a task and then wonder why we can’t do even greater works than these. Why can’t we do the greater works Christ told us to do? It will be very hard if we don’t do the first thing He told us to do – repent!
It is in the midst of their failure, that Christ told the Twelve about his impending crucifixion. Despite their failures, despite our failures, God’s plan for salvation continues on. Christ goes to the cross and defeats death and accomplishes the salvation of the world. Sometimes God is unfolding bigger things in the plan of salvation while we are too focused on our small defeats and failures.
So what happens when we fail to accomplish what Christ wills us to do? Salvation, God’s plan and will, go on. We like the disbelieving father, must confess our sins, and embrace the discipline of being followers of Christ as we continue our own sojourn toward the Kingdom of God.
Fraternized 
Thank you for this. The thought of Apostolic Failure… echoes the sense of an apocalyptic disaster movie. Thank God the sense of it seems more that the Apostles without Christ, without the fullness of the Holy Spirit received on Pentecost… are mere mortal men. Otherwise….
Thoughts on the so-called gospel of success strike a note. Sadly this parallels an embrace of failure, too, (in my pre-Orthodox life) where ambitions for “programs” were often set so high that failure seemed inevitable.. almost as if some sort of perverse desire… and burnouts seemed a frequent by-product. One wonders whether this, too, isn’t a manifestation of imbalance, or as I’ve seen put… a mistaking of our own spiritual ambitions for those of Christ.