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.”