By Prayer and Fasting
A Lenten Sermon Preached at Hanover Presbyterian Church
On March 12, 2006
By Pastor Thomas C. Davis
Text: Matthew 17: 14-20
When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him." Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me." And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of 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." (Some ancient manuscripts add this extra verse, 21: But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting).
Sermon Text
If you like mystery stories, you'll go for this sermon, for it could be subtitled: "The Mystery of the Missing Verse."
When I was growing up I read the King James Bible, so the verses I know by heart are mostly from that version. As I was preparing for this sermon on prayer and fasting, I recalled a verse about the disciples not being able to cast out a demon "except by prayer and fasting," but I couldn't remember where to find it. I typed "prayer" and "fasting" into my online Bible search engine, which is set to search the New Revised Standard version. Nothing came up. Hmmmmm, I thought, that's strange. I do remember a verse like that. So, I changed the search engine to look in the King James Version instead; and bingo, there was the verse I was looking for: Matthew 17:21,
"Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."
Once I had my chapter and verse, I turned to the Bible I use most often, the New Revised Standard version, looking for Matthew 17: 21. Imagine how surprised I was when I discovered that there was no such verse in the New Revised Standard Bible! Look in your pew bible and see for yourself. In chapter seventeen the verse numbers go from 20 to 22. Verse 21 is missing. What's going on here? If you have a bible with marginal notes you may find a comment something like this: "Other ancient authorities add a verse 21: "But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting."
I checked other versions of the bible and found that most modern editions leave out verse 21. Now, some Christians will say: "Ah ha, there they go again. Those modern liberal scholars, messing with the word of God. How dare they remove a line from God's holy book! Let's stick with the good old version!"
Well, it so happens that modern editors agree with that principle, and that's precisely why they dropped verse 21. Modern scholars agree that we should trust the old over the new, for they figure that over the centuries scribes have inevitably made a few mistakes in hand copying the text; or, as in this passage, even sometimes deliberately added something to solve a theological problem. Consequently, modern scholars believe that the newer manuscripts of this passage, which do include verse 21, are probably alterations of the older version of the passage. That's why they decided to drop verse 21, or include it in brackets or a marginal note instead of the main body of the text.
Now, here's the second part of the mystery about the missing verse: Since the earliest manuscripts of this story did not include it, you have to wonder why someone eventually did put it in. We'll get to that. But first, let's look at the story.
The father of a young man suffering from demon possession comes to Jesus and asks him to cure his son. The disciples tell Jesus that they have tried to cure him but can't, and they want to know why not. He gets really impatient with them. "Such faithless people you are!" he scolds them. "How much longer must I put up with you?" Then, he tells them that if only they had enough faith, they could move mountains. End of story. Or at least, that's where the oldest manuscripts end it.
Ouch! That's a very unsympathetic word from Jesus! Have you ever prayed and prayed and prayed, very earnestly for the curing of an ill relative or friend, and not had your prayer answered--at least, not in the way you had wanted? Of course you have. That's an ancient and perennial disappointment. The church was experiencing that deep disappointment even before the ink was dry on the first manuscripts of this story. The disappointment was the same as many a Hebrew psalmist had expressed: "God, I pray and I pray, and I pray, but it seems you just don't listen to me. Give some help here! What's the matter? Am I not a good person? Aren't you supposed to answer the prayers of the righteous? The church was grappling with that deep and perennial disappointment: Why doesn't God give us what we want, especially when it's not for ourselves alone, and it's something very, very good?
One way that they answered that nagging theological question was by settling for the idea that they just weren't faithful enough. What they wanted was good, but they didn't want it optimistically enough. They lacked confidence in the outcome. If only they had enough faith, they could do anything, right? Hadn't Jesus taught them that? So, when their prayers for a cure of a dear one failed, they felt guilty. It was their fault. Just read the story. Isn't that what Jesus says? (In fact, I'm not sure it was Jesus. It might have been his disciples talking to themselves and putting their thoughts in his mouth. But, at any rate, that's the gist of the story). They couldn't heal the young man because they had too little faith.
For years the church settled for this solution to the nagging question; but it must have pained many good people. They must have beat up on themselves pretty bad, and kept striving for what they seemed to lack all along--a trust in God deep enough and powerful enough to move mountains.
Bless his heart, some scribe finally had had enough of this theological self-flagellation. He saw good people beating up on themselves because they couldn't work miracles. He wanted to help them pastorally. And so, he humbly added a sentence to Jesus' speech, to tone down its harshness, and give some guidance to poor souls who wanted to have faith--honest they did--but they sometimes just couldn't move that mountain. He wrote: "There are cases where the demon won't come out, unless you pray and fast." He was trying to help them increase their faith, you see. He wasn't content to let the story end with a scolding. If you want to increase your faith, his sentence said, then pray, and fast. This will nourish your faith, make it stronger.
Lots of folk still pray, but not many fast anymore. Fasting is pretty much a bygone discipline. We talked about fasting a bit in Sunday school this morning. Fasting is an ancient spiritual discipline, practiced by people of many faiths. Fasting seems to help people grow spiritually because it intensifies their awareness of a dimension of living they often overlook. When you fast, you make several changes in your routine. You change your daily habits as well as your diet. You change your schedule. The time you would ordinarily spend eating, you must now dedicate to something else. You change your body's chemistry, and with that, your consciousness. Fasting is a way of changing ordinary days into pilgrimages, even if you don't literally go anywhere. Fasting is a way of saying to God: Here I am Lord. I'm open. Please grant me a vision, or a new word, or at least the quiet crystallization of some new discernment.
Back to our story now. Despite the helpful scribe's additional sentence, the story is still thorny for modern people. I've been working with a group of people across our country who are charged with making recommendations to our denomination about how to minister better to and with persons with serious mental illness. The young man in the story had what we modern people would call a mental illness. The New Revised Standard version labels his illness as epilepsy. That's a neurological affliction which is now treated with chemicals. But the story doesn't mention chemicals. It says Jesus cured him by exorcizing a demon, an evil spirit. The King James Bible calls the young man a lunatic. In that Elizabethan English rendition of the story, Jesus casts out not just a demon, but a devil!
Family members of people with serious mental illness tend not to tolerate such language anymore. It makes them feel rotten, because it implies that their loved ones are afflicted not by brain disorders, but evil forces. There are two things wrong with such language: it casts a moral stigma upon people with mental illness, and their families; and it implies that a cure is really very simple: You just have to pray with enough faith, and the evil spirit, the demon, the devil will be cast out, and the patient will be cured. Well, such a cure evidently did work for Jesus; but the mere telling of this story indicates that it wasn't working for his not-too-distant disciples; and it certainly doesn't work for most modern sufferers of epilepsy either. They do much better with medication.
What do we do with this ancient story, a story about Jesus' own beliefs and attitudes, which seem today to be pastorally harmful rather than helpful? How can modern people reconcile new ways of understanding with ancient and sacred ones? Fundamentalists of many different faiths are saying: There must be no reconciliation! There must be no compromising with modern ways. We must conform to the old beliefs and the old ways, else we are lost!
This is fearful foolishness. Fundamentalism is a kind of illness itself. It represents a failure of courage to live by new discoveries, which is one of the qualities that make human beings human. The disciples admired Jesus because he taught "as one with authority." He didn't tow the theological party line. He knew that God was no respecter of persons, and neither was he. He didn't follow the opinions of the rich or the famous or the well credentialed, or even necessarily, the wise. He delved into things, prayed and fasted to open himself to God's light, and looked all about him and into people's hearts. And then, as scripture says, having grown "in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man," he had the courage to speak his own well-founded convictions. This is what it means to teach with authority. We must take courage to understand the Bible and teach with authority too. Enlightenment is no enemy of good faith, but rather, its ally.
