“I Believe, Help My Unbelief!”

A Sermon Based Upon Mark 9: 14-24

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

January 1st  (Series: ApostlesCreed 1/15)

The Father’s plea in today’s Bible text captures the ‘spirit’ of our age.   “I want to believe, but I need help with my unbelief.”

Surely we realize that we need to believe in someone, or in something.   But the way things are, how people are, or because of so many questions we cannot answer, or perhaps due to the negative situation we may find ourselves in at the moment,  we too may be struggling with belief or against increasing ‘unbelief’.

…. THEY COULD NOT

Even the best Christians have been there, haven’t we?    We have all struggled in some way with doubt, with what we should believe, or with the bare fact of our own unbelief.

In this text, a Father is struggling with his belief in God because he has a very unhealthy child.   His child has a ‘spirit’ that mysteriously takes over his behavior.   You don’t have to believe in devils with pitchforks to understand what this meant.   When his child was suddenly ‘unable to speak’, was ‘seized’, taken ‘down,’ started to ‘foam,’  and grind his teeth’ becoming ‘rigid,’ it appeared that something possessed him.   The son’s strange behavior was certainly not deliberate or intentional.   Whatever this was, it came from outside of him.  It took over.  It was in control.  The  son and the Father felt like pawns and were both helpless to stop whatever it was.  

Whatever demon-like, negative power this was, which may well have been epilepsy, we’ll never know for sure.    The line between illness and evil, the spiritual and the physical, was not so easily drawn then, and sometimes still can’t be made now.    What is spiritual can also be emotional and physical.  What is physical can become emotional and spiritual.  What happens to us in life is never as clear cut simple as saying this caused that or that caused this.  Nor can life ever be reduced to this will completely cure that and that will completely cure this.  It is always more complicated than most of us want to consider or think about.

However we approach this strange story, we must resist trying to solve the unknown it espouses because we also must face the unknown in life too.   That’s why we read such an embarrassing, unflattering story of these keystone cop like disciples, who were unable, and at a loss, to figure out how to ‘cast it out’ (v. 18).  What remains clear is how this story rightly reflects the unseen, negative, opposing powers we still encounter in life, be they physical, emotional or spiritual, or be they each of these at once.   And when we encounter such destructive and negative powers in life or in death, they may leave us just as fearful as this Father, and just as frustrated as these disciples. 

Anyone who doesn’t admit, even in our highly enlightened world, that we still encounter oppressive or destructive powers which remain outside of our human control, are living in a fairy tale of their own mind.  I’ve met some healers, be they doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or pastors, who think and work like they are ‘gods’ who can heal, fix, or repair anyone of anything.   Fortunately, I’ve also met others who remain humble, even with all their great skills, realizing that daily that they are only ‘practicing’ the arts of healing.  They practice their careers realizing that even at  their best, their own skills for healing and bring hope are always limited and finite.  

Any of us can quickly become overwhelmed and frustrated by the powers which not only give us life, but also ensure our coming death.   Here, I think of a great surgeon in Winston-Salem, whom I watched perform brain surgery.   I was a hospital chaplain at the time, and part of my training was to be invited to ‘put on scrubs’ and accompany a doctor in surgery with his patient.   As the chaplain, I visited and prayed with the person before surgery, remained with them during surgery, and then visited them afterwards.  It was a wonderful education, which made me appreciate even more the wonderful work many surgeons do.  But recently, I was shocked to hear that not that long thereafter, and at  too young of an age, only in his fifties, that great surgeon died of kidney cancer.   He had symptoms, but being a doctor, he resisted going to the doctor.  He died way too soon.  He was a physician, even a great physician, who would not, and perhaps could not ‘heal’ himself.

YOU, FAITHLESS GENERATION!

I find it most interesting, that what frustrated Jesus most was not the evil, the illness or the negative power than had invaded this son.  But Jesus was most agitated by the  lack of faith or belief that was needed to overcome it.   When he heard  that his disciples did not have such resolve or  faith,  Jesus answered: “O, you faithless generation…how much longer must I be with you…How much longer must I put up with you?...” (v. 19).

One Bible scholar suggests a reason Jesus was so agitated by this.  In the ancient world, the inability of a teacher’s disciples to accomplish a request discredited what the teacher was teaching or doing.   What’s worst, a lack of healing ability among Jesus’ disciples demonstrated something could be lacking in the  “healer” himself.   The Scribes were probably already arguing this. For this reason, Jesus knows he must get involved. He quickly responds, taking the initiative: ‘Bring him to me.’  

However we size up the situation, as followers of Jesus ourselves, we too  can’t escape this powerful grievance Jesus had with his own  followers.  Please take special note:   It was not the world, or the Scribes, the Pharisees, or the Romans, that Jesus was  crying out against, but it was the lack of faith among his own slow-to-learn, quick-to-forget, disciples.   His interjection was aimed straight for them.  It certainly was not aimed at this sick son.  This was not his fault.  Jesus’ protest is also not aimed at this fearful father.  No, the complaint Jesus has is that his own disciples and his own ‘generation’ of believers do not have the energy of ‘faith’ needed to engage, challenge and overcome the negative powers being encountered in this young man.   In other words, it was not their simply their inability that agitated Jesus, but it was the lack of will, the lack of determination, and their own lack of prayerful practice of faith that prevented this healing.

Recently I was in a meeting with some pastors at Gardner-Webb University.  We had been invited there, because the of our appreciation of the school, so we could form a new council that would advise the University.   We were adopting a constitution to guide us in our work.   The very first part of that constitution described our job: ‘to assist the university in maintaining its commitment to the Christian faith.’   Did you hear that?  We were purposely invited to that Baptist and Christian school to help keep it from losing its faith.   As the University President and Provost warned us,  unfortunately, some Baptist schools had lost their faith.  These were schools where they had studied, which are no longer Baptist nor schools with distinctive Christian values.  “We do not want to go in that direction and lose our Christian values.  This is why we value and need your help.”

What we all need to be reminded of, is that we too can easily become a ‘faithless generation’, where disciples of Jesus can lose both our faith and our power to bring physical and moral healing in this world.    Our culture is increasingly secular, and much less Christian.   The fastest growing ‘religious group’ in America is the ‘nones’.  They have no religious understanding, little faith, less belief, or hardly any trust left at all.    When belief  is lost, it isn't long until behavior declines.  As ethics decline,  the possibility, potential, and hope of healing and positive energy for life can quickly spiral downward. 

Several years ago, when a tragic kidnapping, rape and murder took place at the University of Virginia, a professor at that school wrote that he believed that the safety of campus life went into a tailspin when coed dormitories began to be allowed.  I can imagine that his remarks were not too well received.  But interestingly, a major study that was published in the Wall Street journal relates both binge drinking and coed dorms to the moral decline and ethical health of college campuses in the US.  The report was so convincing that the President of The Catholic University of America, immediately reversed its Co Ed dorm policy. 

What was ascertained was what we should all know, but forget too soon.  There is a direct correlation between belief and behavior.  You belief, or lack of it will have an impact on behavior.  You behavior, that is the kind of behavior you allow, espouse, or condone, will also have an impact on your belief.  

HELP MY UNBELIEF

The reason this Father’s ‘faith struggle’ resonated so much with early Christians, so that this was remembered and recorded for us, may be because faith is our primary ‘struggle’ too.  With faith all things are possible, as Jesus says, but also, without faith it is impossible to please him.  Faith is the key that unlocks the power of life.  This is the dramatic difference faith can make.

 As most of us learned in history class, Adolf Hitler had His own struggle, his ‘Kampf’ or struggle.  He lost that struggle, not just in his public and political life, but also in the secret corner of his heart, where he allowed the darkness of his own “faithlessness” to overwhelm him. This failure of faith is why he became so obsessed, trying unsuccessfully to control the outcome of everything with force, rather than to live his life, as all must do, by faith.

Our Christian struggle is no less dramatic than Hitler’s was,  but hopefully it will be much more positive.  The Apostle Paul described our struggle: ‘We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers…”  To win against the dark forces of despair and doubt requires, as Paul wrote, that among other things, we must “also take up the shield of faith”.  And you can only make your faith a shield when you know who you can believe or trust. 

When this Father said I believe, but also needed help to keep believing, he was not speaking about an idea, a doctrine, or a mere belief existing in his head.  He was speaking directly to the Lord himself.  “This kind can only come out through prayer,” Jesus said.   And he was not speaking of prayer like “magic words” addressed to God, but as a life of prayer lived in relationship with God.  For if we want to keep faith in our lives, we must come to realize that the true nature of Christian belief and hope is not  something we merely believe in, but it must be finally and fully about someone we trust.

But how do we maintain trust in Jesus, when there is less and less open and public trust of him or in him  by the world around us?  One thing the early church, which we can learn from, was to ask the right questions about Jesus.  These instructional questions were first asked and answered by new converts at their baptism.  Then later, the church turned these  questions and answers into a concise, brief  statement of faith, to be memorized and repeated in weekly worship as a continual reminder of what faith in Jesus Christ means.   Today, this statement or confession of faith is called and recited as the Apostle's Creed.   This does not mean that the first Apostle's actually wrote it, but the words of this historic creeds still points us to what the early church considered to be most important about having faith in Jesus Christ.

Although, we Baptists have been much more about deeds than creeds, we still need not to reject nor neglect the truth in of this ancient creed.  Our Baptist forefathers were right to clarify that saying a creed does not, in any way, make you a Christian, but today we can lose faith if we fail in knowing why this Faith is still worth our sacred trust. 

 So, in the first weeks of this new year, I want us to reflect upon these very ‘first things’: those matters of faith and trust in Jesus as suggested in the Apostle's Creed.   Following the words of this ancient statement of faith, I want to help you with your own ‘unbelief’.  I want to help you clarify why Jesus is still worth your trust.  It’s certainly not getting any easier to believe these days.  But if not Jesus, then in who else can you  trust?  The Creeds of the church, inspired by the Scripture, have all been always pointing us to trust in him.  What does this “trust” mean, for us, here, now, for today and also for tomorrow?  Sometimes the best road to tomorrow will take us on a journey that begins in the past.  Since Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, that’s as good a place as any.  Will your journey with me for the next weeks, toward Easter, as we consider the faith expressed, then and now, through this ancient creed?  I hope you will.   Amen