After Disappointing Jesus--September 30, 2020
"Someone from the crowd answered Jesus, 'Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.' He answered them, 'You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.' And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, 'How long has this been happening to him?' And he said, 'From childhood. It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if yo8u are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.' Jesus said to him, 'If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out, 'I believe; help my unbelief!'" [Mark 9:17-24]
It must be hard for Jesus to bear with me.
I don't know that I spend much time letting that reality sink in, but I'm pretty sure there are lots of ways I have got to be a disappointment to Jesus. That's not the end of this story, but it does need to be said. As much as I want to imagine myself to be a model disciple who is completely in tune with his priorities and his kingdom, I am certain there are a lot of ways I am way off base and yet still go around advertising to the world that I'm one of his. And that's got to be tough... for Jesus.
I know it, because the same scene played out already here in Mark's gospel, and you can tell Jesus is disappointed--no, stronger than that; he is disgusted with them. Jesus is approached by a man whose son is clearly hurting and had asked Jesus' chosen disciples for help--and they couldn't. Jesus responds in exasperation--one of the rare moments we get a glimpse of Jesus at his wit's end: "How much longer must I put up with you?" he asks. And notice here, he doesn't seem to be upset at the dad for asking for help. He's not disappointed in the sick son. He is disappointed in his disciples. Somehow Jesus had just expected more from them. He had expected better of them. He is disappointed that they cannot do what he thinks they should be perfectly capable of, but cannot.
And to be clear, this isn't the only time that the chosen disciples of Jesus let him down--in fact, it's sort of a running theme throughout the Gospels. They're the ones fighting with each other on the road over who is the greatest, and who will get the places of highest honor with Jesus in his glory--and Jesus, with a sigh, has to take them all aside and tell them, "That's not how it works among you! If you are seeking to make yourself great, you have missed the point of being my disciple!" (See Mark 10:41-45 on that point, lest you doubt me.) Or it's the time when some of his disciples are upset that a town didn't welcome them, so they want to call down fire from heaven--and Jesus, yet again, has to scold them. It's every time Jesus mentions that he is headed for a cross and then one of his inner circle insists that can never happen, and Jesus answers back sharply, "Get behind me, Satan!" And let's not even get started on the way the disciples want to keep children from being able to be with Jesus, or try and block the women, the sick people, the outcasts, and the outsiders from coming to Jesus... or the times they want him to send away the crowds because they cannot imagine finding enough bread to feed them all.
It sure seems like the disciples are constantly letting Jesus down in one way or another. It seems beyond arrogant for me to imagine I'm not doing the same myself. There have got to be days when Jesus looks at my pitiful words, my misguided efforts, and my wrong-headed thinking, and shakes his head while muttering, "How much longer am I going to have to put up with Steve?" under his breath.
Even the dad of the sick kid seems to be something of a disappointment to Jesus, too, honestly. He has gone straight to Jesus after the twelve couldn't help his son, but even with Jesus, the father doubts Jesus can help. If Jesus gave out miracles in proportion to how hard we believe, this guy would have left empty-handed. But healing is not a reward for correct theology, and mercy is not a commodity you can earn in exchange for devotion. It is a gift all the way through, or it is nothing. So Jesus receives even the honest plea of this father who says, "I believe--help my unbelief!" And the child is healed. The evil that had taken hold of him is dispelled.
I read a story like this and find hope. It's not a hope in myself, honestly. It's not a hope in my ability to get it right, nor is it a hope in my fellow Christians' ability to get it right. I'm sure Jesus weeps to see the ways we distort and mangle his message. I'm sure we disappoint him when we conflate our faith in him with hucksters, bullies, and blowhards that use faith as a prop but leads us away from him. I'm sure we break Jesus' heart when we use the guise of Respectable Religion to tell others they are not good enough, not acceptable, unworthy, or unloved. We certainly must try his patience when we show ourselves unable to do what he has called us to do in the world. And yet, Jesus hasn't given up on us. Not even despite all the ways we let him down.
Think about it--at this point in the Gospel's arc, the disciples have already let Jesus down with their flagging faith and misguided mess-ups plenty of times... and yet he doesn't fire them, ditch them, or bail out on them. He does get frustrated. He does get disappointed. But he does not give up on them. He sticks with them, knowing that as he does, they are just going to let him down in other ways in the future. And they do. There are still plenty of other ways the hand-picked followers of Jesus in his inner circle will abandon him, betray him, and misrepresent him before all is said and done. But he sticks with them anyway. He even heals the child of the man whose faith is disappointingly mixed with unbelief. Jesus sticks with them all. Jesus sticks with all of us, too, anyway. Despite the ways we let him down on a daily basis.
That doesn't let us off the hook to just go on with deliberate ignorance misrepresenting him. That doesn't allow us to go doing things we know break his heart, just because he is patient with us. And it doesn't mean we can get away with not being discerning about which voices we listen to as authoritative, or that we can just assume anybody holding a Bible as a prop gets our allegiance. When you love someone, you don't want to keep disappointing them, after all, even if you know that their love will hold through their disappointment.
So today, maybe we need to look at the ways we are just like the disappointing disciples of this story--so that we can start over. Maybe every day we need to start with asking ourselves where we might be off course or out of whack with the priorities of the Reign of God. Maybe we need to start with the humility enough to consider where we have let Jesus down--and where he may need to work in spite of us as much as working through us. And maybe where Jesus has called us and equipped us to do certain work, we should look and see if we are actually doing what we've been called to.
Sometimes seeing Jesus frustrated or disappointed with us--and then knowing that he keeps working with us anyway, for all that heartache--is the just the unexpected good news we needed. Maybe today is one of those times.
Lord Jesus, don't give up on us. Help us to turn from the ways we have let you down, and enable us to start over despite our unbelief, our hard hearts, and our knack for getting lost.
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