NOTES for Mar 9:14-32
The episode of healing the possessed man, of freeing him from the power of dark forces, is remarkable for a detail to which the evangelist pays special attention. He writes that Jesus' disciples could not drive the demon out of the man possessed by it, and that only the Savior Himself succeeded. His words about the faithless generation, or "race," are often understood as addressed to the possessed man's relatives, first of all to his father, who had brought his son to Jesus' disciples.
Yet the question of the addressee of these words remains open. They could equally have been addressed to the disciples, who could not do what they had already had to do more than once, at least during the mission on which their Teacher had once sent them. Then, during that mission, they had had to drive out demons and free possessed people from the power of dark forces. Perhaps this is precisely why the possessed man's father turns to them: reports of healings performed by the disciples of this mysterious Man had most likely reached him.
It turned out, however, that even the disciples were not as strong as people said, and then all that remained was to turn to their Teacher. If even He could not help, then the case was hopeless. Jesus, of course, succeeds, and He pronounces those very words about the faithless generation. Later the disciples ask Him: why did it not work for us? The question was reasonable. They remembered that it had worked before, and they must have perceived their failure as an annoying mistake whose cause they needed to learn in order to avoid such errors in the future. Jesus answers by speaking about prayer, without which nothing will work.
In later editions of the Gospel text, a mention of fasting is added to prayer; it is absent from the earlier editions. But this addition, which probably existed originally as a marginal note, changes nothing essential, since fasting has meaning only when it contributes to intensified prayer. The meaning of the answer is clear: the disciples' main mistake was that they decided they had already achieved something, received something, acquired some new quality of spiritual life that was now inalienable. Jesus tells them this is not so, that all their achievements are possible only in the context of continuous spiritual movement connected with continuous prayer; only then are miracles, healings, and the casting out of evil spirits possible.
Once a person stops spiritually and falls out of this spiritual movement, he loses everything and becomes completely powerless, as the disciples were before the possessed man. This is no surprise: miracles and healings are possible only by the power of the Kingdom and its breath, and they exist only in continuous movement, which in turn is possible only with continuous conscious relationships with Christ. It is no accident that Jesus speaks of a faithless generation, for precisely such relationships are called faith, and this is what the disciples lacked.