NOTES for Mat 17:20

Did the disciples really not have faith even as small as a mustard seed, since they could not cast the demon out of the young man? But we have read that earlier they had succeeded in doing this: the Lord Himself gave them authority over unclean spirits.

Apparently, the strength of faith is not simply the degree of our confidence in one or another truth about God or the world. The Lord connects faith and prayer, that is, communion with God, into one whole. This means that the issue is not confidence, but nearness to God, inward unity with Him. It is no accident that the Lord mentions fasting: when fasting, a person draws life-giving strength not from food, but from communion with God, living by His life. Such unity is not given to us once and for all. Today we may be closer to God, tomorrow farther from Him, although this is not always determined by our subjective feelings. Therefore, what separates faith from unbelief is not doubt about God's existence, but inner closedness to Him: prayerlessness, a lack of striving toward Him.

The Resurrection is the very heart of the Good News, but it is also the news hardest for us to grasp. When the disciples heard Jesus predict His death and Resurrection, they were "deeply distressed"; they heard only the words about death, and did not understand the words about the Resurrection.

This is not surprising: death and decay form the basis of our life experience; destruction, illness, and grief reign everywhere around us. So we do not doubt that death touched Christ as well. That is easy to believe, because it touches everyone. The Resurrection is harder: we are not always able to know this reality by experience. It seems too good to be true. It entered the lives of the apostles only when they saw the risen Christ with their own eyes. It can enter our lives in the same way it entered theirs: through the Paschal encounter, by faith and love.

Having come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, Christ again plunges into a world where the forces of darkness overpower the suffering. But those to whom He gave power to resist darkness do not cope with the ministry entrusted to them. And so the man whose son is tormented by an unclean spirit appeals directly to Christ. Of course, Christ does not leave the request unanswered and drives out the demon. But He did not choose the disciples so that they would retreat before the forces of evil.

Here, immediately after the Transfiguration, we see the contrast between what is manifested by Christ and what the apostles do, or rather cannot do, in His absence. And then we see His anger directed at the disciples.

On the pages of the Gospel we encounter more than once episodes in which Jesus' appearance looks stern. For someone whose idea of Christ was once formed by sugary pictures, the reality of the Gospel may seem inelegant. But Christ's love is not sentimentality; it is real love that takes upon itself pain for the beloved. And often cries out from pain.

Meanwhile, His remark about fasting and prayer forces us to suppose that the disciples tried to act in some other way, perhaps by some "folk" methods, or, simply put, by methods far from genuinely biblical ones. If so, the angry rebuke of the disciples for their unbelief is all the more understandable. (Note that by calling the disciples a faithless and corrupt generation, Christ almost repeated the definition He had earlier given the Pharisees: an evil and adulterous generation. Thus the disciples were likened to the Pharisees.)

But after giving them a "dressing-down," He does not send the disciples away; He continues patiently to teach them.

Life is brought about by the word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Whoever wants to live must listen. That is why the most important prayer of the Old Testament, which we read today, begins with the words: “Hear, O Israel.” In today’s Gospel episode, the disciples were unable to cast out the demon and give life back to the afflicted boy. Probably this was because they spoke THEIR OWN words rather than God’s. If the words we speak are to be words from God, we need a constant connection with Him, the connection that the Gospel calls faith.