Mustard Seed Faith
10th Sun after Pent. Aug 21, 2022, Matt 17:14-23;
As Peter, James, and John are coming down the mountain with their Lord, still glowing from the mountaintop experience of the transfiguration, they are met by a desperate father whose son has been falling into the fire and into the water. The man falls upon his knees in his desperation, humbling himself and addressing Christ with a prayer which transcends his intellect and comes straight from his heart. “Lord have mercy.” Real prayer always connects. Christ, frustrated with the lack of faith that his remaining nine disciples demonstrate by their inability to deal with the demon, says “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” He had given them power earlier, and they had returned amazed with joy reporting (Luke 10:17) “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” He then answers the heartfelt prayer of the desperate father and commands the demon to depart and the son is immediately cured.
Later, the disciples come to Christ and ask why they could not get rid of the demon. Jesus tells them it is because of their lack of faith, their unbelief in true kingdom reality. This understanding is established in our hearts by “prayer and fasting.” True reality is that the devil and his forces are defeated, death has been overthrown and we are children of God. True reality pertains to the eternal kingdom of God – “now and forever.” All other versions of reality come from the “father of lies,” desperately trying to take down as many of us, the children of God, as possible before the close of the age.
Of course, there is a fierce war going on all around us as the demons hate us and do what they can to attempt to destroy us. But they are restrained by God. We have been made in the image of God and given the great gift of free will, and all they can do is attempt to influence us. If we willingly allow them to influence us, believing and acting upon their twisted suggestions, listening to the lies, the hate and fear they spew forth, the condemnation and the accusations against ourselves and our fellow humans – if we accept these lies as having validity, we end up ineffective and defeated. But the enemy has no power to accomplish this other than convincing us that his twisted and false version of reality is true.
Truth is a great problem for the devil and his gang of fallen angels. It renders him impotent, and the truth is, that Christ through His death on the cross has utterly defeated him and saved all of mankind. Satan’s main goal is to obscure and keep this knowledge from mankind. His latest attack in our post-modern age is to render truth as unknowable and relative. Your truth has just as much validity as my truth and no-one can really say what is eternally and unchangeably true. This isn’t really a new diabolical thought, the enemy really doesn’t have or even need anything “new” to throw at us, just the same old time-tested absolute lies. They have worked so well for him through all the generations of mankind that he really doesn’t need to change much, just dress them up a little in the latest style of the age.
St. John tells us of Christ (John 1: 14) “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Christ said to Pilate (John: 18 37-38) “…I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice. 38 Pilate said to Him, ‘What is truth’?” So, we completely reject the post-modern assertion that truth is unknowable and defined by each individual for themselves. That we are evolving in our wisdom, and so we have now “outgrown” what was held to be true in our former societies based on lasting Christian principles. No, there is truth and there is delusion. It’s important to know the difference. Every word coming from Christ is pure unadulterated truth, He can speak nothing else. Every word proceeding from the devil is a lie, he is the father of lies. There may be an element of truth in it, and it may seem to contain great wisdom, but that is only to bait us into the twisted delusion that undergirds it. Remember another title for the “father of lies” is the “prince of this world.” So, our job as followers of Christ is to know the mind of Christ and to become very counter-culture and question almost everything we learn in our post-modern secular society.
In today’s gospel Christ tells His disciples, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” Earlier Christ had used the tiny mustard seed as a parable for the kingdom of God saying (Matt. 13: 31, 32) “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” What a miracle is the creative power that God has placed within a tiny seed. The potential for life that is realized when the seed is planted and nurtured and soaks in the enlivening rays of the sun is unfathomable. How is it possible that such abundant and unlimited life could be contained in a little seed, the size of a grain of sand? Hold it in the palm of your hand and show it to someone and tell them this will be a 10 ft. tall tree by the end of the summer if it is buried in the ground. Yet, all of this potential is already contained within this tiny seed waiting to burst forth if nurtured and cared for properly.
This is even more true by 1000 fold of a human being. As we learn about DNA and mitochondria and all the new biological wonders we are discovering in this century, this knowledge should fill us with awe and humility. The more we learn, the more we realize we really can’t even begin to comprehend the marvelous mind of God who designed us to be so wonderfully made. What is the “life force” that fuels all “life” except for the energy of God? We can observe and analyze and learn of the wonders of God’s creation but we can never supply or create the life force that causes all to live and have being. We have hardly even begun to grasp how such incredible abundant diversity of life can be miraculously and continuously exploding into being all around us. Try to comprehend what the destiny of a true child of God is. No wonder the devil goes around doing all he can to stop us before we start to come to life. Once we start to truly live for Christ, to be who we were created to be, we become his worst nightmare.
Christ says that if we say to this mountain move, it will. Is this a simple analogy? Is He referring to the mountain of sin we have created and which crushes us under its weight? Perhaps. Mountains have long come to symbolize the hardships and difficulties of life; problems to be solved, obstacles to be overcome, crosses to be carried, burdens to be borne, troubles to be triumphed over. Death is a mountain; sickness is a mountain; family crises are mountains; unpaid bills are mountains… Life is filled with mountains, and life itself in this broken world is a mountain. Freeing ourselves and conquering these mountains is a first-rate miracle.
However, there are stories in the lives of the saints where this has literally happened. Look up St. Mark who lived alone in a secluded Ethiopian cave for more than 90 years and when discovered by St. Serapion caused a mountain to move over a mile towards the sea and then come back again. Or St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neocaesarea, born in the early 3rd. century. After chasing the demons out of a pagan temple and converting the priest to Christ, he moved a huge stone from its place by his prayer. Where do you think Yoda got the idea? In another well documented case, consider our Coptic sister church. They have an extra 3 days added to the beginning of the Nativity fast to celebrate the miracle of the moving of Mt. Mokattam on the outskirts of Old Cairo. Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4KzxiCVUvg
The Muslim Caliph Al-Muiz in the late 10th century asked the Coptic Patriarch, Pope Anba Abram to prove the validity of the Christian faith by fulfilling the very words we hear in today’s gospel reading “if you have faith like a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain move…” or he would force all the Christians to leave their faith and become Muslims, or be killed. The Pope Anba Abram asked for 3 days to prepare and the entire Egyptian Church fasted and prayed to God for His intervention. On the 3rd day the Theotokos appeared to the Pope and told him to go to the city gate early in the morning and he would find a one-eyed man with a water bag, St. Simon the Tanner. He would be the chosen person to perform the miracle. They summoned the Caliph and his people and the entire Church to Mt. Mokattam, and at St. Simon’s instructions all of the Christian’s prayed “Lord have mercy” 400 times, signed with the cross and fell down in worship 3 times Each time, the mountain rose so high that the sun shone clearly underneath it and then it returned to its place. The Muslim Caliph in awe, became a lifelong protector of the Egyptian Christians, restoring many of their Churches during his reign.
We read the lives of the saints and the unlimited miracles and wonders associated with many of them and we are awe struck. However, the saints themselves would say that they have only begun to develop, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and allow the spark of divinity, the image of Christ placed within them and within each of us, to grow and mature.
Let’s commit today to do a little more in this area than we are presently doing. I’m talking to myself and everyone else here today. Let’s commit to doing something more. If you are presently not doing much of anything, I am not suggesting you all of a sudden start a semi-monastic hour-long prayer rule and go completely without food on Wednesday’s and Friday’s. Come and talk to me about setting up a short and doable prayer rule. Perhaps 5 or 10 minutes in the morning to get started. Perhaps eliminating red meat on Wednesday’s and Friday’s. If you already have a prayer rule, try to add an extra 10 minutes of saying the Jesus prayer and silence. Let’s see what we can do to get rid of some of “those kind” from hanging around our homes.
May Christ through the prayers of His saints who have gone before us, help us to establish a routine that allows us to grow into what He has created us to be.