In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Quite literally, in
the light of the Transfiguration, what the Church
calls its Afterfeast, where the Lord takes Peter,
James, and John up Mount Tabor to enter into
the cloud and atmosphere, Of the spirit. That
they would see Jesus transfigured before them.
In uncreated light. With Moses and Elijah. And
hear the voice of God the father speak to them.
About his divine son. To listen to him. The Lord
now leads these three disciples. Back down the
mountain. Into a crowd of people. To encounter
another father. speaking about another son. According
to this father, however, this son doesn't need
to be listened to. Rather, he needs mercy. Lord,
have mercy on my son. Like the centurion a month
or so ago, maybe six weeks ago, this man doesn't
need to experience something like the transfiguration.
or what the disciples regularly see to address
Jesus with the divine name of Israel's God. Not
a title like Master or Despotah, but again, Lord,
Kirios, the divine name, God. The man's son has
been possessed by a demonic power, which is trying
to drown him in water. and trying to burn him
in fire. Sometimes modern translations render
the son's condition here as epilepsy, but that's
not right. The boy isn't suffering from a neurological
disease. Rather, the son has quite literally
been moonstruck. Selene, purportedly a Greek
goddess embodying the moon, or is lunatic, as
the King James puts it, luna being the Latin
for moon. And the father, the boy's father, likely
having heard that Jesus gave power over evil
spirits to his disciples back in Matthew 10,
asks the other nine disciples, those not with
Christ on the mountain, to heal the boy. But
they can't. Particularly since we've just seen
the Lord and Moses together on Mount Tabor, here
the narrative echoes what came before in the
Old Testament. As Moses was up on Mount Sinai,
in the cloud, speaking with the Lord what Aaron
and the Israelites were doing down below, faithlessly
worshiping demons in the form of the golden calf.
Here, the other disciples aren't worshiping demons,
thankfully. Rather, they are trying to cast them
out. Nevertheless, as he rebukes the demon and
heals the boy, Christ says the very same things
about the disciples that he said to Moses all
the way back in Deuteronomy. You faithless and
twisted generation getting to the heart of Matthew's
point. The point of today's gospel isn't about
what Jesus can do. It's about what his disciples
should be able to do. Empowered. It's about discipleship
and faith, the power of faith, or perhaps its
lack of power here. The question isn't, why can
Jesus heal the boy, with the answer being, well,
he is God. The question here is, why can't the
disciples heal him? Exactly what they asked Christ
in private. Why could we not cast it out? Because
of your little faith. That's the Lord's response.
That's the better rendering. It does say unbelief
two times in the narrative. But that third time,
it says, because of your little faith. That's
technically what it says. That's what the Lord
says. The character of their faith is little.
The idea here is that the offering of their faith
is meager, tiny. It is small. I think a better
way to put it, maybe, to really kind of viscerally
feel it, it is stingy. Generous with respect
to the things of this world, and yet stingy towards
God. Christ adds that their faith is also twisted.
and perverse, convoluted with the things of this
world. It's character. In Matthew's gospel, there
are different kinds of faith that one can express
in God, a spectrum of sorts of faith. For example,
a faith that believes that Jesus is who he says
he is, the God of Israel and human flesh, even
the Son of God. That's faith. An intellectual
ascent. That's faith. And yet, that kind of faith
alone isn't ultimately what Jesus is looking
for and trying to cultivate in his disciples.
Now, because he is kind and patient with us,
he will accept that kind of faith. Nevertheless,
if his disciples want to experience the power
of Mount Tabor, The transfiguration, that same
uncreated light and energy which pours forth
out from the depths of God to course into his
people and animate their faith, to share and
to benefit in his divine power and life. Even
now, they must actively set their mind on that
same life in prayer and in fasting. as Christ
puts it very plainly, cultivating an active and
living faith, a faith that believes in God as
the one who spoke and the world came into being,
to use an ancient Jewish saying. That's the faith
that animated Peter last week to walk out onto
that sea toward Christ until he took his eyes
off Christ and looked at the wind. And started
sinking. That's the faith that according to Jesus
can move the mountains to perform what is humanly
impossible in our own strength and wisdom. The
point today is not for me to stand up here and
say to all of you, just have more faith. Rather,
it's to ask us, brothers and sisters, is our
faith rooted in God's power in life? Does our
faith have an active life? Is there a heartbeat
in our faith? Does our faith pound like our heart
pounds when we are strenuously exercising? Or
is our faith meager? Is it generous towards the
things of this world? Generous towards the cares
of this life? but stingy towards God. The fact
of the matter remains that the Lord loves us
regardless of our faith. Full stop. But our experience
of that love will be commensurate with how much
of ourselves we give away toward God. What I
mean is how much of God's love we experience.
it corresponds to how much we love God, to how
much we give of ourselves away from our own pursuits,
from our own comforts, from our own pleasures,
from our own desires, from our own cares. And
we give ourselves to God in love for Him. We
empty ourselves. Of the things of this world.
In order that we might be filled by his light
and life and spirit. And that he might animate
us. So that we might experience the love of God.
Coursing and pounding in our heart. On fire for
him. And so we have to ask. Because the text
very plainly forces us to. Do we pray? Do we
situate ourselves in the life of the church?
Do we look at our lives and what we do in our
bodies with our time, with our resources, with
our talents, with our abilities, with our inabilities?
If we are younger, with our youthful energy,
if we are retired, with our retirement and availability,
do we look at these things as an offering toward
God? The very things that we come and set before
him at the Lord's table. Do we fast? I mean,
we are literally in the Dormition fast, of which
we started by processing around and celebrating
the cross and its power to heal, its power to
give life, its power to take away evil and disease.
and of which on the sixth day we beheld the uncreated
light of the transfiguration, what can give us
the life and energy to empty ourselves up as
tabernacles, to clean out the gunk and make room
for Christ, and depend not on our own power and
obsession with the cares and comforts of this
world, but the power to become partakers of the
divine life. as we depend less on food, ourselves,
and American comforts, and feel weaker, but depend
more on Christ to act through us, with the hope
that we might actually become Christians, and
not simply call ourselves that, to use St. John
Chrysostom's line. That we might become like
the mother of God who we're preparing to celebrate.
Who tabernacles, that we might become like her,
like tabernacles that house Christ in our bodies,
in our hearts, in us. So that what is corruptible
in us, what is perishing, what is dying in us,
might become incorruptible and be swallowed up
with divine glory, light, and life. That's exactly
what St. Paul gets at today in our epistle reading.
The apostles have become a spectacle to the world.
Humanity is looking in. Even the angels are looking.
They have become a theater to all. A laughing
stock as men condemned to death. Fools. Idiots
for Christ's sake. Weak dishonor. Inglourious,
hungry, starving, thirsty, poorly clothed, beaten
to a pulp, homeless, laboring with their hands,
when reviled, yet they are blessed, persecuted,
yet enduring, slandered, spoken behind their
backs, said false things about them, made to
be filth, treated as the dregs of society, the
scum of this world. I could use a worse word
than that. the refuse of all things. Or like
St. Herman, who we commemorate and we remember
today, who I won't say much about since I spoke
about him last night, but who left a celebrated
monastic life in Russia to give himself away
to oppressed people in Alaska, in the middle
of nowhere, who came with nine other guys, who
all died. and left him by himself, so that those
people there in Alaska, that they might know
God. To use Paul's words, the apostle doesn't
say these things to shame us. No, but rather
to warn us, to shake us up. Notice, he calls
us to imitate his way of life. Follow me, or
more literally, imitate me. as I imitate Christ,
which of course is the Apostle's way of manifesting
the cross of Christ in our life. The cross that
has the power to save, the power to animate faith,
the power to enliven and heal, the power to move
mountains, certainly the power to help us pray
fast and become less dependent and focused on
our earthly comfort. It is the same power that
courses from the cross that addresses the very
boy's sufferings. The same word is used by his
father to describe what the Lord will undergo
at the cross. Pascha. Sufferings. The cross destroys
the power of evil. In a season of fasting, where
we ought, we should be more introspective, we
might ask ourselves, if the apostles hung out
with us and sort of tailed us around, followed
us around, which they and the saints actually
do, believe it or not, would they see in our
life anything that resembles their own sacrifice
and faith? To be fair, to be fair, I genuinely
hope, and that isn't wishful thinking, I genuinely
hope that they would see something. But that
said, we all know here, all of us know, that
there would be massive blind spots, and perhaps
some spots not so blind, that they and the Lord
would call, that they would put their finger
on, and they would call faithless, stingy. and
twisted. It's those things in our faith that
we need to pinpoint, that we need to feel the
Lord's finger pressing on our heart, and with
Christ's mercy, with Christ's compassion, with
his help, with the power of his cross, repent,
let go of, confess, and then actually change
our lives. actually turn our lives towards Christ
without wasting the season of this past, but
letting it work on us without shame and bring
into His light the light of Mount Tabor and transfigure
so that our faith might have renewed vitality,
power, and life. May God help us and have mercy
on us. Amen.