In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Our modern world proposes that science has taken the place of religion in explaining the unexplainable. And many in our society find this convincing. Those who are believers are tempted by this, that all in existence has a physical, rational, understandable explanation which science provides or will provide. Believers are tempted by doubt, by unbelief.
Still, science has not yet won, faith persists. And those who have abandoned religion cannot quite let it go—“I’m spiritual but not religious,” is a common refrain from them, they cry out “that’s karma” when a mishap befalls someone they perceive as bad. And as much as believers are tempted by unbelief, unbelievers are tempted by belief. The words of the father in today’s Gospel ring out to us in our modern world: despite their antiquity they describe our state, “I believe; help my unbelief!”
Between last Sunday’s Gospel reading—when the Lord said to his disciples, “Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)—and today’s, the Evangelist Mark describes to us the Transfiguration (9:2–13). This event, where the Lord shone on the mountain and Moses and Elijah appeared talking with him, shows indeed “the Kingdom of God having come with power.” (9:1) And now he returns to find the remaining disciples in chaos. “I asked your disciples,” says the father to Christ, “to cast [the dumb spirit] out, and they were not able.” The disciples were fearful, they had earlier been given authority, “And he called the twelve to himself, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them power over unclean spirits,” (6:7) yet now they were not able for they had not been sent for this task. Theirs was not a magical ability, as for the sorcerers of paganism, but only when they are acting from the Lord may they be able to do this, “This kind,” says the Lord, “cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting,” which is to say, “this kind cannot be driven out except through our spiritual and our physical reality being as one.”
This is not to say prayer is merely spiritual and fasting physical—prayer and fasting are both spiritual and physical—but they must work as a united whole: it is impossible to fully contemplate a human being without both body and soul. And when united, we have something to say both to believers and unbelievers, to those tempted by unbelief and belief—there is love, there is truth, because “God is love” (First John 4:8) and in Christ we are united with the God of love, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 16:6)
“And truly Jesus,” the beloved disciple tells us,
did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:30–31
And this, offered to all the world, is our proclamation, to believers and unbelievers, that in being faithful to the Resurrection of our Lord we may have life, an abundance of life. That there is more to our existence than merely the physical, merely the scientific, and however enticing that may be there is a world beyond it.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are being called to live in faithfulness and fidelity to the Resurrection because only a resurrectional life can have full meaning. Live this, be witnesses of this, through the Church and her services, particularly in the Eucharist, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” (First Corinthians 11:26) And then, living this resurrectional life, we may be beacons for all those who are tempted by belief.
May our risen and glorified God and Saviour Jesus Christ receive our prayers and honour our fasting by helping our unbelief and unite us, bringing us to his unoriginate Father through the power and operation of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore to himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
— Hebrews 6:13–20
At that time, a man came to Jesus kneeling and saying: “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.
— Mark 9:17–31