Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-november-18
Matthew 17:14-20
The Healing of a Boy with a Demon
14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
17 “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
There are some scholars who believe that the Gospel According to Matthew was compiled by Matthew, the tax collector who is mentioned in some gospel accounts. But many other scholars believe that it was compiled by another Matthew, one who was not an eyewitness to the life and ministry of Jesus. They believe Matthew who compiled the gospel started with the Gospel According to Mark, and with another collection of Jesus’ sayings, and then used those two documents to draft an account that would be particularly accessible to Jewish readers.
If that’s the case, and my reading of the text says it probably is, then Matthew’s accounts of the stories are probably second-hand. His reports of what Jesus actually said and did are no doubt faithfully reported, but in a few places he may have added some interpretive text that he thought would be helpful, but that might actually mislead us on some minor points.
I can’t help wondering if this story is an example. The story has some important ideas in it, but those ideas take some digging to get at. So this story is one that seems to require consulting the commentaries of respected New Testament scholars.
Matthew entitles this story “The Healing of a Boy with a Demon,” but it seems to me there’s reason to question that title. When it comes to Jesus’ act of intervention, Matthew says that he “rebuked the demon and it came out of the boy.” But when the boy’s father asks Jesus to heal the boy, he doesn’t say anything about a demon. The father just says that the boy has seizures that cause him to fall into fire and water and make him ‘suffer greatly.’ Some New Testament scholars have speculated that the boy was actually suffering from epilepsy or some other neurological condition. His symptoms would seem to fit a disorder like that.
Those who have read these Reflections with some regularity might remember that we’ve said in the past that the New Testament seems to have two different types of stories that are described as involving possession by demons or evil spirits. Some of those stories actually seem to tell about malevolent intelligent demons who can speak to Jesus, and who even know things – like his identity as the Messiah – that the disciples haven’t realized yet. So in those cases, it seems that Jesus really is dealing with evil spirits.
But in other New Testament stories where people are said to be possessed by demons, it seems that they might actually be suffering from mental or neurological illness. It’s important to remember that in the ancient world, people didn’t have any concept of mental illness as we understand it today. Anyone with symptoms of mental illness was regarded as possessed by a demon. Archaeologists have found some ancient cemeteries where ten percent of the bodies had holes drilled in the skulls of people to ‘let the demons out.’ (And believe it or not, the experts tell us some people actually survived this “treatment.”)
In our reading for today, there’s no conversation between Jesus and a demon with supernatural knowledge. The boy just has symptoms, and Jesus cures them. So it seems reasonable to think that this is a case of mental or neurological illness.
One thing about this reading that makes some people uncomfortable is that Jesus tells the disciples that they could not heal the boy because they have so little faith. Jesus tells them that if they have faith as small as a mustard seed, they would be able to move mountains. Nothing, he tells them, will be impossible. This causes some people of faith to believe that if their prayers haven’t been granted, then it’s because their faith is too weak.
That’s a mistake, it seems to me. Both Jesus and Paul prayed for things that were not granted, and I don’t think you could claim with a straight face that their faith was too weak. I can’t help thinking that in today’s passage, the point Jesus was making is that his followers could have faith that God would do things that seemed impossible if they conducted their ministry prayerfully and with faith in God’s power. Just look what God has accomplished starting with a rag-tag group of eleven peasants and one converted Pharisee.
I seriously doubt that Jesus meant for us to believe that if our faith is right, we will always get everything we pray for. We can have faith that the God we serve is at work bringing his kingdom to fulfillment, even in the midst of the trouble we encounter in this world. And don’t forget that Jesus said in this world, we will have trouble.
The real point of prayer, as it’s described in the New Testament, is to align our wills with God’s will – to change our minds, not God’s mind. Our prayers are opportunities for God to direct and empower us to help him bring his kingdom to fulfillment, and to be agents of his healing in the lives of people who are suffering and in need. I’m pretty confident that God can use people like us – people whose faith might seem as small as a mustard seed – to move mountains in his service.
That, it seems to me, is what Jesus was getting at here.
Let’s pray. Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, move our hearts so that we hunger to play a part in your work in this world, and strengthen us to do what seems to be impossible when we work for your glory and the blessing of those who are in need. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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