Jesus has just healed the epileptic from the demon that was causing him to thrash about and fall in the fire and water. The father of they boy explains that he’d already brought the boy to the disciples, and they could not heal him. After the boy is healed and leaves, the disciples return to Jesus and ask why they were unable to heal the boy. Jesus’ answer? “Because of your little faith”. He went on to say that if they had faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, they could move mountains, and nothing would be impossible. Ouch.
I’m not sure what to do with this. In other stories, the disciples were able to heal, so it’s not that they were always without a mustard-seed-sized-faith. What do we do with this story, now in the midst of pandemic, deep racial unrest, and my family challenge of my sick loved one?
What I believe ultimately about this is probably the conclusion from other things I believe.
- God has the power to step in and fix everything. Pandemic, racial hurts and anger, and every sort of illness. God is all powerful. I do not believe God is impotent.
- This isn’t about humanity needing to cry louder to God. God is omniscient. God knows all. God is not deaf.
- As an individual person, my faith waxes and wanes. But that doubt of mine as to do with my ability to affect or change or improve things. I don’t, with very few exceptions, ever believe God couldn’t do anything.
- I have no idea why God does not reach down and fix everything. But I don’t believe it’s out of malice, deafness, or capriciousness.
- In the times of the disciples, I have to believe that they were deeply committed, and believed they could heal the boy. They were newly minted disciples of Jesus himself.
So if the disciples believed they could heal, if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and always loving, and if pain and suffering aren’t gone, why?
The only part in this that seems to be tenuous to me is my personal faith in my power – or more accurately, my faith in God’s power through me, through all of us. Maybe God equips us all with precisely what we need to fix everything. To end pandemics, racial injustices, illness, economic ruin.
But maybe I’m not doing what God’s envisioned for me to do. Maybe my neighbor isn’t. Collectively we aren’t. Some people aren’t because they don’t know of God’s plans. Some aren’t because they are working against God’s plans. Some aren’t because they misunderstand God’s plans. Some aren’t because they don’t believe they have God’s power within them.
Yes, God can accomplish anything. Yes, we collectively, fulfilling God’s dream here, could move mountains. But we aren’t collective. We aren’t working together. We doubt our mortal abilities, or God’s work in and through us. I’m reminded of a quip I read, but cannot now find that went something like, “Sometimes I look around and wonder why God hasn’t fixed this mess, healed the hurts, fed the hungry. God looks at me and wonders the same thing.”
Maybe the lack of faith isn’t in God as an external, all powerful all loving being. Maybe the lack of faith is in ourselves. In God’s power in each of us.
This morning, I’m thinking about why we cannot currently heal the sick and right the injustices. Maybe, collectively, with all of us doing God’s will with the gifts and talents we each have, and fully trusting that God’s power working in us, we actually can accomplish more than we could ask or imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment