Monday, October 28, 2013

Honest To God

"Honest To God"
Luke 18:9-14

Muhammad Ali, when in the prime of his boxing career got on an airplane.  He was instructed by the stewardess to buckle his seat belt.  “Superman don’t need no seatbelt,” Ali told her.
“Superman don’t need no airplane, neither,” the stewardess said back.  Ali buckled his seatbelt.

Our ego is an amazing part of us.  It is the psychological and emotional part of us that meets the world head on.  It’s the part of us that has to make its way in the world as it is.

I've been reading a lot lately about what are called ego defense mechanisms.  They are tactics we use to defend our fragile egos.  If we feel we are being attacked, personally, and we don't want to hear what the other person is telling us; or, what they are telling us is hitting home and it's painful, then we launch into an ego defense position.  We defend ourselves.  We try to keep ourselves from feeling what we are feeling.  So there's this part of our psyche that steps in and puts a buffer between our self--our ego--and that which is trying to cause our ego pain.

Ego defense mechanisms have been defined as the lies we tell ourselves to shield or protect ourselves from pain.  Maybe we've heard messages like, "You are worthless."  Or, "You will never amount to anything."  Or, "You are unloveable."  Those are very painful words to hear, time and time again.  Some people give in, and live into those kinds of words.  They believe what they're told and become what others say they are.  Other people recoil at such words.  They launch back at the speaker of such words, refusing to feel the sting those words carry.  That is partly what our ego defense mechanism does.  So in some ways, it's a healthy mechanism.

But it can be a detrimental tactic if we protect ourselves from painful words spoken that we might need to hear.  Like if your spouse says something like, "You aren't as loving towards me as you used to be."  Your first reaction--your FIRST reaction--on some level is to hear those words and feel the sting of their truth.  But rather than embracing that pain, and accepting the truth of that statement, your second reaction would be to go into ego defense mode.  By trying to rebut those words, you really aren't trying to convince your spouse of your loving ways.  You're trying to convince yourself and protect yourself from a painful truth about yourself.  Our egos don't like to take in that there just might be something wrong with us, and that we aren't the great person we are trying to project to the world.

Truth hurts.  Truth causes pain.  Ego defense is a protection against the truth, but mostly against the pain of the truth.

(Does that make sense?)

OK.  Besides ego defense, there is ego inflation.  Ego inflation is a way of building ourselves up in the face of low self-esteem and insecurity.  Ego inflation is defined as the lies we tell ourselves to shield or protect ourselves from our sense of inadequacy.

A Texas man, bragging about the bigness of everything in Texas, was surprised when a Kansan agreed with him.  The man from Kansas said, "Yes, that's right, everything is big in Texas.  Why, I once knew a Texan who was so big they couldn't find a coffin big enough to bury him in when he died."
"So, what did they do?" asked the Texan.
"Well," said the Kansan, "they just let the air out of him, and buried him in a shoe box."

That's what ego inflation does.  It's when a person feels as big as a shoebox, but is always puffing themselves up in front of others, so they can appear bigger, better, more wonderful than they really feel.  Narcissists actually fit in this category.  Narcissists actually have a really low self image, and over-compensate with a lot of self-inflation.

There was a well-known Christian businessman who was visiting a church.  He was asked to say a few words, in terms of witness, to the congregation.  Unfortunately, the man got carried away and went on to tell the congregation about all the wonderful things he had done for the Lord:  "I have a large house, a fine family, a successful business, and a great reputation.  I have enough money to do whatever I want.  I'm able to support a number of Christian ministries very generously.  There are many organizations that want me on their boards.  I have great health and almost unlimited opportunities.  I can't think of anything else that God could give me in this life."
At that point a voice from the back shouted, "How about a good dose of humility?"

That's what we're looking at in Jesus' parable about the tax man and the Pharisee.  It's about prayer, in a round about way.  The parable about the widow and judge that we looked at last week was also about prayer.  About hanging in there in the long haul with prayer and God.  As we ended up last week, we saw that the parable was not just about prayer, but about a dogged faith in God that never gives up on God.

This next parable, that we're looking at this morning uses prayer as a vehicle to get at another important matter concerning we humans.  Note the opening line, like last week’s parable, telling us the purpose of the parable, even before the story is told:  "Jesus told this next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people."  Last weeks parable was directed to the disciples.  This weeks parable has an entirely different audience.  Or does it?  Could it still be the disciples?  Or the Pharisees?  Or anyone in the crowd that day?  Even us.

The opening statement doesn't say anything about prayer, or that what Jesus is about to say has anything to do with prayer.  But prayer figures in, as we shall see, as we get to the heart of this parable.

What this parable is about, as Luke has set it up for us, is facing the truth about ourselves.  Stripped of our ego defenses and our ego inflation, who are we?  Because a lot of what's behind ego defenses and ego inflations is fear--fear that others will see us for who and what we really are.  (As if they can't see that already.)

What happens when we are willing to loosen our grip on our defenses and inflations?   We defend and inflate ourselves in so many ways, both little and large, we don't even see it anymore.  How can we see, then?  And once seeing, embrace what we see?  Let go, and be seen.  Let go, and be real about who and what we are.  Let go, and not fearfully hide behind defenses and inflations, even if what will be seen isn’t that great.

Three ladies picked up their menus at the restaurant.  Each put on a pair of glasses.  "Of course, I really need mine only for close reading," said the first.
"I only wear mine when the light is poor," explained the second.
The third woman was much franker.  "I rarely wear mine," she said, "except when I want to see."

That's what we need to decide.  When are we going to put on the "glasses" Christ is offering in this parable, and put them on so we can really see, all the time, the truth about ourselves?

So, the Pharisee.  Ego defense or ego inflation?

First, let's look at his posture.  He stood.  Let's look at some others who approached God in prayer and how they reacted.  Moses, at the burning bush, covered his face.  Ezekiel, praying in personal grief before God, fell on his face.  In Isaiah's vision of the throne of God, the flying creatures with six wings covered their faces with two of the wings so they wouldn't look at God.  And Isaiah fell on his face.  When he was praying for Jonathan, David bowed while he prayed.

In all these instances people either took a posture of respect or deference or fear or grief before God.  But in the Pharisee's prayer there is no posture showing any of those qualities before God.

In a conversation I had with Eugene Peterson one time, he was telling me about a civic meeting he attended.  They noticed he was there, and decided with a minister present, they should start the meeting with prayer.  The one in charge said, "Say a little prayer, Pastor."
Eugene, who can be fairly fiery, responded in his gravely voice to the man, "There are no little prayers.  In prayer we are ushered into the very presence of God, which is a fearful thing, as if we were standing in the very presence of lion."  And I think Eugene said he refused to pray, because the man had no idea what prayer was.

Our posture needs to reflect what we believe to be true about God.  The Pharisee's posture betrayed what he thought about God.  The Pharisee is doing a lot of ego inflation, standing before God, showing no deference or respect towards God.

Jesus' parable goes on to say that the Pharisee prayed "to himself."  He didn't pray to God.  The Pharisee's posture matched his words.

When we're doing a lot of ego defending, or ego inflating, who are we talking to, really?  We may think we're trying to make our case before someone else, either defending or inflating.  We may assume it's the other person we're trying to convince.  But in reality, we're talking to ourselves, aren't we?  We're trying to make our case to ourselves, and make our selves believe it.

Bill Moyers was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary.  Moyers was a Baptist minister at one point in his career.  So he was asked by President Johnson to say a prayer at a dinner.  Moyers began praying quietly.  President Johnson became irritated and interrupted Moyers, saying, "Pray louder!"
Moyers looked up and replied, "Sorry, Mr. President, but I wasn't addressing you."

We need to remember who it is we're addressing when we're locking ourselves into our ego defensiveness and our ego inflations.  When it comes down to it, it certainly isn't others, and it certainly isn't even God.  It is ourselves we are trying to convince.  Thus, the Pharisee, praying to himself.

The other character in this parable is the tax collector.  A guy who was a Jew, but had sold out to the Roman government, taking the job of collecting taxes from his own people for the Romans.  Hated turn coat.  Spit on.  Despised.

He's there in the temple praying as well.  Ego defending or ego inflating?

Check out his posture and words.  He's sitting in a corner.  Covering his face.  Not even feeling worthy to look up toward heaven.  If he wanted to look up to heaven, then what did his posture say about where he was directing his prayer?  Not to himself, but to God.  His is a prayer and posture of deference and fear and grief before God.

He simply says, "God, give mercy.  Forgive me, a sinner."  That's what most translations have.  The CEV has the tax collector say, "God, have pity on me! I am such a sinner."  That is closer to it.  What the tax man literally says is, "God have pity on me, the sinner."  That is, not just one sinner among many, but at the head of the class of all sinners.

No ego defense.  No ego inflation.  Just pure self confrontation with the reality of who and what he is before God.  No comparison with others, which is the Pharisee's tactic of self inflation.

There was a man who commuted to work on the train every day.  On one part of the trip, going through the countryside, there was a farmhouse.  The farmhouse, in it's whitewashed exterior seemed almost to glow.  But that first Winter of the man's commuting, it had snowed.  He looked out the window as the train passed the farmhouse.  This time the farmhouse looked drab, and dirty, and almost gray.  It looked that way, because he could compare it to the purity and whiteness of the fallen snow.

When we compare ourselves to ourselves (or to others) we get a very different picture than when we compare ourselves to the amazing purity and person of God.

And that's where prayer enters into this parable.  Because the parable isn't about prayer.  It's about honesty with ourselves.  It's about giving up the posturing.  It's about confronting all the ego defenses we spew out, and the ego magnifications we inflict upon others and ourselves.

The only way to confront ourselves with our selves, according to Jesus, is by prayer.  It was the tax collector who “was pleasing to God,” said Jesus.  This is one of the qualities of prayer that people least understand.  Prayer isn’t something we speak to others or to ourselves.  Prayer is a face-off with God and with the self.  Prayer isn’t an oration; it’s a confrontation.  As Eugene Peterson said, “There are no small prayers.”  As the tax collector found out, prayer is the only thing that can cut through and counteract all the work we do at ego defense systems and ego inflations.  Prayer is the only way through all that to the truth about who and what we are—and therefore into the pleasing presence of God.

Jesus said at the end of this parable, “If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face; but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”  Humility, Jesus humility, radical humility, is to be in prayer, to strip ourselves naked of all our self-delusional language before God, and thereby experience God’s true and “pleasing” mercy.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Why Is Prayer So Frustrating?

"Why Is Prayer So Frustrating?"
Luke 18:1-8

       According to repetitive Newsweek polls, somewhere between 80-90% of us pray at least weekly.  According to those same polls, 85% of us who pray say their prayers are unanswered.  And 13% of that 85% have stated that they have lost faith because of unanswered prayers.  Even though they have lost faith, I wonder if the 13% still make ventures into praying every now and then, just in case.  The rest of us keep on praying.  Even in the face of God’s silence, inactivity, or apparent avoidance.

        The great Christian, C.S. Lewis, once wrote that when his mother died, he lamented that his prayers had failed.  His grief had taken him to a dark night of the soul.  He wrote, “My praying didn’t work, but I was used to things not working, and I thought no more about it.”

        So why do we do it?  Why do we keep on praying?  Is it like playing the roulette wheel?  Our number’s bound to come up some time?  Or is it like the slot machines?  The one arm bandits, as they are called, are fixed so that you win just enough times to keep playing.  Psychologically, we don’t like games where we win too much (they seem too easy and not enough of a challenge).  Or we don’t like games we lose all the time (it seems pointless to play something you never win).  So, knowing that, casino owners have the odds set on the slot machines so that you win, but not very much.  Then it will seem like enough of a challenge for you to keep putting your quarters in, or dollars, (or in Rex's case, the offering plate money) or whatever.  Is that what prayer is like?  Is God like the casino owners, letting us have something we pray for once in a while to keep us playing the praying game?

        That’s where the rub is for many who pray and keep praying.  Many, including myself, have frustrations with prayer, and it doesn’t have anything to do with prayer itself.  It has to do with our free God who chooses to act or not act on our prayers.

        If it were about praying itself, then we would keep going, and when one technique doesn’t work we try another.  Maybe instead of praying on your knees, you could pray laying face down; or standing up with arms extended looking heavenward.  If one position isn’t working, try another.  Or maybe we aren’t saying the right words.  Some try praying scripted prayers like the Serenity Prayer, or the Lord’s Prayer.  Or, they try silent meditation with no words--just sitting quietly trying to rid your mind of all words so that God will somehow magically enter an empty mind.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, though, that is putting technique above substance.

        So, what if the lack of response by God has nothing to do with all the different techniques we try?  What if it has to do with God and how God freely chooses to respond or not?  Certainly, if God is free to be God however God wishes, then God is free to answer our prayers.  Or not answer them.

        A God with that kind of freedom bugs us.  Come on.  It does, doesn’t it?  We make these huge assumptions about how God is supposed to be.  God is supposed to be attentive.  Answering.  At our beck and call.  Caring.  Responsive.  Intimately involved with our concerns.  A father who is ready to take care of the needs of we, God’s children.  That’s what we think, isn’t it?  That’s what we want to believe.  Because it is all about us, isn't it?  That's what we assume about God.  But if God is free to be God however God wishes, then God is free to choose to answer, or not answer our prayers.  We don’t like God to have that kind of freedom.  Especially as that freedom relates to our praying.

        And let's face it.  We also think we deserve to be listened to by God, responded to by God, don't we?  If there are no immediate answers forthcoming to our prayers, we get a little silently miffed at God, because we thought we deserved better treatment than that.  After all, we're good people.

        That’s what this parable of Jesus about the widow and the crass judge is all about.  In a rare turn about, Jesus tells the disciples (because it is told to them) what the parable is about before he even speaks the parable.

        Let’s look at what a few translations do with Jesus’ pre-parable explanation:

                “...pray consistently and never quit.”  EHP
                “...they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”  RSV, NEB
                “...should always pray and never become discouraged.”  TEV
                “...always pray and not give up.”  NIV
                “...always to pray, and not faint.”  KJV

        No matter which of these you choose, all of them assume, by their statements in the negative, that prayer can be greatly frustrating.  All these statements assume that when you pray you will be tempted to quit, lose heart, become discouraged, give up, or faint.  And remember this is Jesus talking.  Jesus realizes that there is the temptation--because prayer seems sometimes like talking with a brick wall--the temptation is to just stop praying.

        Remember, as I mentioned a moment ago, this parable is told to the disciples.  What would the significance of that be?  When we look back at Luke 11, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, “...just as John taught his disciples.”  The disciples are clearly interested in and fascinated by Jesus’ praying habits.

        So is Jesus’ parable here, for the disciples, an expression of what Jesus himself experienced in prayer:  that sometimes it takes God a long time to attend to our prayers, even if you’re the Savior?    Like when Jesus was on the cross and prayed, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" (Mark 15)

        Prayer is basically talking with God.  The question then is, “Why does talking with God create the temptation to stop talking with God?”  What is it about talking with God that makes the praying person want to quit/lose heart/become discouraged/give up/faint?

        It may baffle us to wonder why Jesus, God’s Son, is telling the disciples that this loving, caring, Father God is hard to talk to.  So hard, that you will be tempted to hang up and walk away from your connection with God.  Why talk to someone--especially God--if you get a recorded message or are put on hold for a long, long time.  Imagine calling the Crisis Hot Line and being put on hold.  Or you keep calling God and it rings and rings--you know God is there--but your call isn’t picked up?

        In the cartoon Beetle Bailey, the General has just set his mess tray down on the table, looks at it, and says grace:  “Oh, Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.  Amen.”
        He looks again at the tray and then looks up to heaven and says, “I guess I’m not getting through, am I?”

        That’s what we wonder, isn’t it?  Am I getting through?  When we feel we aren’t (which is apparently about 85% of the time) why do we keep at it?  Am I asking too many questions?  Sounding too much like a skeptic?  Making you feel a little uncomfortable?

        Let’s look more closely at the parable.  First, there is the widow.  A widow, in middle eastern culture is a woman with no rights.  The only rights she has are those she gains through her husband.  Since her husband has died, she is powerless.  Unless her deceased husband had a brother, then he's supposed to take care of her.  Since she is still a widow, her husband evidently didn't have any brothers.  A widow is the symbol of all those dispossessed people who need to be defended.

        Thus her plea to the judge:  “My rights are being violated.  Protect me!”  Women, particularly widows, were easy prey for being taken advantage of.  Her opponent was probably a family member, a male, who was trying to rob her of all her possessions that she gained from her late husband.

        And then there is the judge.  He’s definitely not a people person.  He’s definitely not a religious person.  He has independently decided that he could hear whatever cases he wanted, which goes against the social norms for a judge.  What’s ironic is that even though the judge shows no respect for people or God, he certainly shows a healthy respect for the widow’s anger and persistence.  His phrase about being accosted by the widow is literally, “She will beat me under the eye.”

        So the powerless widow is pitted against the crass and powerful judge in this parable.  She comes at the judge time after time after time after time.  It has gotten to the point where the widow has given up on a feminine, deferential tactic.  Now she is in all out annoyance mode.  One might be tempted to even use the “b” word in describing her attack mode on the insensitive and unjust judge.  That’s what she’s been reduced to, in order to get this judge’s attention.

        Remember, this is a parable about prayer.  And Jesus contrasts God to the judge.  In contrast to the judge, Jesus says God listens and is attentive to the injustice being pressed upon people.  But how long do the people have to pray before God finally responds?  Jesus says that God, in contrast to the judge, will not drag his feet.

        In Exodus 2, God says he has heard the cries of his people under the oppression of the Egyptians.  The cities and the monuments being built at the time the Hebrew people were slaves, took about 80 years.  How many of those 80 years did the Hebrew people cry out under their oppressive conditions?

        In Genesis 17-21, Abraham and Sarah prayed their whole married life for a child.  Having a child was part of God’s initial promise to Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky and the sands on the shore.  But it wasn’t until Abraham was 100 years old that that promised son was finally born, and their prayers were answered.

        In 1 Samuel 1, there is the story of the birth of Samuel who would eventually become a prophet.  Elkanah and his wife Hannah were unable to have children.  They prayed for years to have a child.  Finally, in a tearful prayer in the temple, God pays attention to Elkanah’s tearful depression, and answers her prayer.

        In the Psalms (69:3; 73:11-14; 83:1-2; 40:1) waiting on God seems to be a common theme.  Many psalmists question the whereabouts of God who seems, “out to lunch,” not listening, distant, and distracted.  Still they pray on.

        In the final book of the Bible, Revelation, the martyrs, who are under the altar of God, are wondering out loud how long God would wait before their murders were avenged (Revelation 6:10).

        These don’t sound like speedy resolutions to people’s prayers.  If our frustrations with prayer really don’t have to do with prayer itself, but with God, then we need to get a clear picture of God from the parable and the other scripture stories I’ve highlighted.

        First, it is apparent that God does care very much for people.  Notice, in the parable and in the other stories, the nice mix between individuals and groups of people that God is attentive too.  God is paying attention.

        The different human circumstances that God responds to are also all over the map in these stories and in this parable.  God understands what we have to deal with in life, whether it be personal matters, or larger issues of justice.  God is moved by a wide range of human conditions and does respond.

        And God seems to honor those who cry out for help consistently and continually.  At a time in my own life, I cried out to God for four years out of a heart of need and direction.  My prayers have run the gamut of human emotion from tears, to depression, to anger, to anxiety, to hopefulness, to depression again; even to the point of nearly giving up on praying and giving up on God.  It appeared that those who were making my life difficult were stronger and more powerful than God.  There have been others who prayed for me and with me, especially when I was at my lowest point of despair.  For four years.

        Then everything shifted.  Quickly and substantially.  People of power took up my plight.  Hearts that were stubbornly set against me were suddenly warmed and forgiving.  Prayers were answered, and God acted.

        That brings us to what the parable teaches about the person who prays.  God chooses to listen to those who don’t quit praying.  No matter what.  The question is, “Don’t quit what?”  Don’t quit making your request?  Or, don’t quit trying to connect with God?  Either, or both, I think is the answer to the question.

        And, the other thing the praying person needs is patience.  God seems to honor long-standing patience.  I once saw a sign in a restaurant that read, “No matter how long our service takes, it’s fast.”  That’s the kind of patience God responds to--a person who prays and prays and is willing to let God be God, no matter how long God takes to answer the prayer.

        At the end of the parable in Jesus’ explanation, he makes a summary comment:  “But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?”  Faith is really what the parable and prayer are all about.  And faith is defined as something that happens as people persist for God.  Do we have persistent faith in God, or not?  That’s the main point of the parable.

        George Buttrick, the great Bible commentator, once wrote, “Home is dearer when the journey is long.”  That’s what faith, persistent, praying faith, is all about, according to Jesus in this parable.  We all want to get home.  We all want our prayers to be attended to.  We all want to know that we’ve connected with God.  Sometimes the journey is long.  There are no guarantees about how long it will take.  But when we get home, when we connect, when our prayers are attended to and answered, that home is so much dearer.

        So keep praying.  Don’t stop.  Even when prayer and God seem to be frustrating.

Monday, October 7, 2013

If...Then...


"If...Then..."
Matthew 17:20


       Here’s a couple of fun facts:
Fun fact #1:  Your body is about 80% water.  So I suppose you could take 80% of your weight and that’s how much water you’re lugging around.  For me, that’s 208 pounds of water!

Fun fact #2:   75% of your brain is water.  So, when they say we only use 25% of our brain, that’s probably true, since the rest is water!

        Here’s another fact.  I’m not sure if it’s fun or not.  The moon has an effect on water, particularly through the tides.

        If you put all these facts together you have what people, for years, called lunacy.  People thought that the phases of the moon had an effect on we human beings, being as much water as we are, just like the moon does on the tides of the oceans.  As the phases of the moon make the ebb and flow of tides, so also in people’s personality.  Realign the water content in your body, especially your brain, and you have lunacy.  Lunatics.  Crazy people.  Insanity, or at least occasional insanity depending on the phase of the moon.

        Why am I telling you all this, you may be asking?  (Or, if you weren’t, you are now.)  There’s a story that happens right before Jesus utters this statement that ??? read about faith.  It’s a story of a distraught father who has a challenging son.  In the King James Version of the Bible, the father calls his son a “lunatic.”  In the Greek, in which the New Testament is written, the word literally means, “moonstruck.”  The father has a “moonstruck” son.  The father believes the moon has taken over his son, throwing the boy into fires trying to burn him to death.  Or into water, trying to drown him.

        Now modern science, as god-like as modern science has become, has debunked this idea of lunacy.  It is now known beyond a moon shadow of a doubt that the moon and it’s phases does not affect human behavior.  (Tell that to an ovulating woman.)  Or, tell that to the distraught father in the story.  He may not care.  He just wants his son fixed.

        Jesus was away, up on the Mount of Transfiguration, doing a show-and-tell for Peter, James, and John.  So the distraught father, who has brought his son to get fixed by Jesus, must first deal with the nine disciples left behind.

        The only thing the story tells us is that the other nine couldn’t get the job done.  The kid’s lunacy was locked in tight.  But imagine what that must have looked like.  That’s the part of the story we’re not told.  That’s the part of the story that I’m interested in.  The disciples have been given power over the evil spirits (or in this case, the lunar spirits) by Jesus.  So, they give it a go with the lunatic kid.  Why not?  They’ve done it before.

        Andrew would have brought the father and son to the other disciples.  That’s his role.  He brings people.  So imagine Andrew bringing the father and son, to Philip, say, and says, “Hey, Philip, I’d like you to meet Grippo and his son Blippo.  Blippo is a bit, well, you know, (circle finger around an ear).”
        “He’s a flamin’ lunatic!” the father interjects.  “Do something!”
        “Uh, sure,” says Philip.  “Let’s see what we can do.”  He looks at the boy, who’s partially on fire, and says, “Out of him, you no-good spirit.”  Nothing happens.  “That’s odd,” Philip says to himself.

        “Let me try,” Bartholomew says, pushing Philip aside.  “With this kind, I find it works best if you really shout at ‘em.”  Bartholomew leans back and lets go a roar, “EVIL SPIRIT!!  BE GONE!!”

        One of the other disciples poured water on the kids flaming pant leg, but still the kid is rolling around, foaming at the mouth.  All of Bartholomew’s roaring had not one twit of success.  By this time, quite a crowd had gathered to watch the show.  Matthew, the ex-tax collector, and Judas set up a table to sell tickets.

        “You try,” the father pointed to Thomas.
        “Not me,” said Thomas.  “I’m a bit of a skeptic.  I don’t believe in all this hocus pocus lunacy stuff.  Hard physical science is what I’m about.  I say let’s get some leeches and bleed the kid a little.  That’ll fix him.”

        Simon the Zealot decided to give it a try.  He grabbed a stick from a shepherd boy in the crowd and started waling on the moonstruck kid.  “This is how you have to do it with this kind,” Simon said through grinding teeth.  “You gotta beat the hell out of them.”

        Simon the Zealot continued with his beat-down when, with a scary quickness, the lunatic boy grabbed the stick from Simon’s hands, broke it easily in two pieces and threw them over the heads of the crowd and out of sight.  The boy then turned towards Simon, and with a look of evil pleasure, said, “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”  Simon the Zealot slowly backed away.

        “This is a tough one,” Thaddeus said.  “We need to join forces against it.  Simon (the other one), you and Andrew, join me.  We’ll lay hands on him and pray the lunacy out of him.”  The three men approached Blippo warily.  They kneeled around him, gently laying hands on some part of Blippo’s body and started praying.  “O Lord, God, All-Powerful…”  Blippo’s eyes wildly popped open and he started thrashing.  He got Andrew with an upper cut to the jaw, Simon got kicked between the legs making him squeal a few octaves higher than normal, and Thaddeus took a kick in the solar plexus, making him suck air while he rolled on the ground.

        “Do something!” the father was shouting.  But all the disciples were backing away from this one.  They had had enough.  It was clear whatever they tried wasn’t working.  And they weren’t sure why.

        Fortunately Jesus showed up.  Matthew and Judas quickly shut their ticket sales table down, and shooed the people away.  Grippo says, “It’s my son, Lord.  Your disciples tried, but…”  Jesus held up a hand for Grippo to stop talking, as Jesus looked around at his bruised and dirty disciples.  Jesus just shook his head.  “I want to say, ‘I don’t believe it,’” Jesus said, “but I just can’t.”

        Blippo, with his hair still smoking in places, stood, staring with a deer-in-the-headlights expression at Jesus.  Jesus simply said, “Be gone!”  Blippo collapsed to the ground, like all the water had been let out of him.  A few moments later, Blippo moaned his first sane moan in a long time.  Grippo started to cry.  And many in the crowd with him.

        That’s when the disciples asked Jesus their question, “How come we couldn’t get it done?  How come we couldn’t throw out the lunatic spirit?”
        Jesus replied something like, “What a bunch of guys with no sense of God.  When will you take God seriously?"
        "Huh?" a couple of them said with a shrug of the shoulders.
        "If you had faith, like this much, there is nothing that could stand in your way," said Jesus.   "Especially demons."
        "Wait a minute," said Simon. "We've got faith."
        "Do you have any idea what that means, Simon?" Jesus said.  "Bartholomew?  Philip?  Andrew?"  They all looked at their sandals, pushing dirt back and forth.

        Jesus continued.  "The reason you couldn't throw out that demon was because you're still hung up on thinking faith is about technique rather than substance.  You keep assuming if you did faith the right way, said the right words, acted in a certain way, organized yourself along a certain direction, had all your flow charts and graphs filled out, waved a magic wand--who knows what else--that that's what it means to take God seriously.  You couldn't be more mistaken."
        Jesus looked in their faces.  He could tell he was shooting way over their heads.  This was the most basic and important teaching he was trying to get clear to them, and they weren't getting it.
        "Look," said Jesus, "that father came to you looking for substance.  That means he was looking for someone with an authentic connection to God, someone who knew God.  He was afraid.  He was confused.  It wasn't just about his son and the son's lunacy.  The father was lost as well.  He had tried all the techniques to help his son.  They had all failed. Because they're techniques.  Not power.  Not of God.  You all just threw a bunch more techniques at him and failed.  You not only failed to heal the son; you failed to heal the father--to connect him with that which is of God.  That's what faith is all about."
        Jesus paused to see if he was making a connection with the bewildered disciples.

        "Here's another way to look at it.  See that mountain that Peter, James and John and I had just climbed?"  They all turned and looked at the gnarled mountain, all thinking they were glad they didn't have to climb up there.  "What's on the other side of that mountain?" Jesus asked.  "Can you see what's directly on the other side of it?"
        "Absolutely not," said Andrew.  They were all shaking their heads no.
        "That's exactly the view of the father with his moonstruck son.  His son was this mountain.  His experience with charlatans who promised to heal his son and failed, is this mountain.  His utter fatigue is this mountain.  His desire to just give up is this mountain.  All of his problems, that started out small, once mole hills, are now this mountain.  Everything that is keeping him from seeing any further than the next step in front of him, is this mountain.  All the pains he's experienced, the one's he created and the one's people piled upon him, are this mountain.  All his failures are this mountain.  And he can't see anything that might be beyond it."
        Jesus paused while the disciples stared at the mountain in front of them.
        Then he continued, "But..IF you have faith, IF you have even a small connection with a sense of God, IF you're connected to even a drop of the power of God, IF you take God seriously, THEN you could say to these mountains in all their forms, 'Move!' and they would move.  It doesn't have anything to do with technique.  It has everything to do with God.  That's what that father was looking for; it's what anyone who comes to us is looking for:  Faith!  Connection with God!  Something real!  The power of God to move the mountains that challenge them, the mountains they have made themselves, the mountains that are barriers which are keeping them from becoming the people they need to be, the mountains that form obstacles that look insurmountable."
        Jesus paused.
        "That's what faith is all about.  If you have it, then you move mountains."

        They all stood there for a while looking at the mountain.  Jesus could tell the disciples were finally getting it.



        So that’s how it really went that day.  Except one part.  Jesus turned toward Judas and Matthew the ex-tax collector, and went (hand out, palm up, fingers motioning).  Judas and Matthew hung their heads like guilty dogs, untied their money bags and emptied all the coins from the days take into Jesus’ cupped hands.  Jesus didn’t even look at the men.  He just shook his head, walked over to where the beggars row was, threw the coins high into the air, and let money rain down on the crippled, the blind, and the sick.

        Then Jesus walked back through the disciples and said, “Let’s go.”