I Believe, ______ Help My Unbelief

April 13, 2010

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

Lately, my older daughter Grace has been obsessed with playing Mad Libs. She asks us for verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs, and Jessica and I often oblige with some 0ff-beat contributions. She scribbles them down on the game pad, then reads back to us a hijacked, hysterical version of the original story.

There are moments when I think the gospel is playing Mad Libs with us, with no better example than the story in Mark 9. A man’s son was possessed by an evil spirit, rendering the poor boy uncontrollable and mute. When the father brought his child forward for healing, Jesus greeted him with a stern rebuke: “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you?”

Not exactly catching Jesus “in the mood,” I’d say.

The man responded by unloading the boy’s whole case file on Jesus, his complete medical history, and ended with a pious plea. “If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us!” Then Jesus answered, “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes!”

And here it is, in Mark 9:24, the gospel’s version of Mad Libs. “Immediately the father of the child cried out, ‘I believe, help my unbelief!’”

I believe, help my unbelief.

Or, if you’re playing along at home:

“I believe, ___________ help my unbelief.”
(conjunction)

How in the world do we make sense of this statement? Two disparate ideas, juxtaposed with no reasonable connection. How can he both believe and not believe? “Um,” we might say. “How about a conjunction? How about some kind of connector between these two phrases? What’s the relationship between ‘I believe’ and ‘Help my unbelief.’”

So first, we try the word, “However.”

That seems reasonable enough. “Lord, I believe, however help my unbelief.”

Of course that works. It works for many of us. Yes, we believe. But, we still doubt. Yes, we know we are supposed to be unabashed, unashamed believers and followers of Christ. But, we still fall short. We know the standard to which we must strive, and know how far we are from meeting it. “Yes, Lord…But, Lord….” It’s a reasonable conjunction because it’s so autobiographical.

So is that the nature of this man’s peculiar response? Equal parts profession and confession? An affirmation of his faith in Christ, yet a repentance for his own shortcomings?

Well….

If “However” is a reasonable possibility, I would offer another. Maybe one that is more likely, and, I think, more suitable for the complexities of every day living.

How about the word, “Therefore.”

“Lord, I believe, therefore, help my unbelief.”

It would be as if Mark is telling us, “Don’t be surprised if tension and ambiguity creep into your discipleship, for ambiguity is a by-product of discipleship.” Just as light creates shadows, so does our commitment to Christ produce internal tensions. Struggles deep within us that do not convey how weak we are, but simply how human we are. Faith is not the absence of doubt, after all, but the embrace and ultimate transformation of it. Courage is not the elimination of fear, but the regular interplay and conscious choice against it.

It’s interesting to note Jesus’ response to the man after he said this. Whereas in other stories Jesus praised a person for their faith, or indicated how impressed he was by them, Jesus said nothing.

Nothing at all.

Mark moves on with the story as if the man had not uttered a word. And so we are led to believe that Jesus found the man’s response to be neither troublesome or noteworthy. Perhaps it’s because he found it so, well, natural. Whereas we might labor over what the man’s true motivations were deep down inside, it seems that Jesus knew. He knew that the man was simply exhibiting what it meant to be human. This, after all, would be the same Jesus that would later in his life say, in the same breath, “Let this cup pass from me. But not my will but yours be done.” Jesus knew what it meant to be internally conflicted.

And so Jesus gave this man the most salvific non-response in the gospels. Instead of responding verbally, Jesus moved on to the important business at hand. He entered right into the midst of the man’s tension and spoke the demon out of his son’s body.

Jesus’ response to the man’s response was to bring healing.

There is a lesson here for all of us. When we are at our most vulnerable, at the point of acknowledging our deepest tensions, we are neither judged by God or praised by God. We are simply transformed by God. Healed by a God who experienced the greatest internal paradox of them all: fully human and fully divine.

When the disciples later wondered out loud why they couldn’t cast out the demon like Jesus did, Jesus offered the only prescription Mark gives us in the entire story:

“This kind can come out only through prayer.”

Let it be so.

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
http://www.cherokeespumc.org