Homily 651 – 9 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
August 10, 2025
Epistle:  (128) 1 Corinthians 3:9-17
Gospel:  (59) Matthew 14:22-34

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Last week, we spoke a bit about faith being an obsession with Christ, and doubt being a distraction from Christ.  This morning in the account of the Epileptic son, we are again confronted with this idea about faith and doubt.

The disciples were embarrassed, I imagine, by this series of events.  They, along with everyone else, were called “faithless” and “perverse” by Christ.

Now to be sure this set of events was a symptom of what Christ saw in the Apostles and Disciples, and indeed the whole people of God.  So Christ uses it as an example of how His followers should think, and feel, and act.

He says, this kind cannot be cast out except by prayer and fasting.  He also says that if we had the faith as a grain of mustard, we can get mountains to move.  These two things are related, but perhaps out of sequence here.

What are prayer and fasting supposed to accomplish for us?  How does prayer and fasting contribute to faith?  It is an essential question for us.

Prayer and fasting are designed to get us out of ourselves.  They are designed to teach us that we are not in control, and moreover, we don’t need to be in control for our lives to be what God intended.

In fact, if we want our lives to be what God intended, we can’t be in control.  We were created with a connection to God that the Greeks called the “nous”.  Everything about us, the ego, the intellect, the emotions and the will were designed by God to act in concert and subjection to the nous.

We lost that connection, most of it anyway, in the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden.  We allowed our ego to take over – and suddenly, “your will be done” became “it looked good to me.”  My will be done.  I’ll be the judge of what is right and good for me.

So if faith is the complete focus on Christ, to the point of obsession with Christ in all things, the fall was the complete opposite of that.  Humanity’s focus shifted dramatically from God to self, external to internal.

Faith itself shifted from God to self.  The message of the world is quite clear to us now – rely on yourself, rely on no one for help.  But that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.  We were designed to be in community.  What did God say when the first human was created?  “It is not good that the human should be alone.”

So what do we do?  We isolate ourselves from everyone around us, intending on becoming as self-reliant as possible, and failing miserably at it.

Rather than reverting to our created norm, we struggle and fight to rely on no one but ourselves.

But prayer and fasting teaches us the opposite.  It teaches us that we can actually follow someone else’s rules, disregarding our own will and desires, and survive.  Not only survive, but thrive.

Prayer and fasting is there to destroy the ego in us.  Almsgiving is there to continue that destruction of ego, by destroying our perceived need to take care of ourselves.

We can let go of our earthly possessions, foolishly in the eyes of the world, because we trust – believe – have faith – that God will continue to provide for us.  And if we are honest, what we believe to be our own effort is actually God providing for us anyway.

Did we make crops grow?  Did we create animals to give food for us?  Did we make trees and caves for shelter, and animal skins for clothing?

God made all those things.  We didn’t.  We have to cooperate with God in order to get any of the things we need to live.  We cooperate with God to raise wheat and grapes to get bread and wine, and we offer it back to Him – after we put ourselves into it.

He returns it as Himself – the Body and Blood of Christ.  Which we consume and reunite with Him.

Brothers and sisters, this world and every problem in it would be solved if every human being crucified their ego and looked to God to control everything.  How much pain and suffering would be eliminated from the world, from our own lives, if that happened?

How much pain and suffering might we be able to experience knowing that the pain and suffering is for the purpose of crucifying our ego and reuniting us with God.  Everything becomes bearable.  Not because of us, but because God gives us, in His grace, tastes of what it is to be consumed with Him.

Consumed by faith and trust in our Creator, who loves us, and only wants for us to be intimately united to Him?

At the end of the day, this isn’t about casting out demons.  It is about making demons irrelevant.  It is about making demons something to be ignored, since we can’t notice anything when our whole being is consumed by Christ.

That is what we are working for.

It isn’t easy, but it is simple.  Deny yourself.  Crucify your ego the same way that Christ crucified His human ego in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It will absolutely be painful – let’s not kid ourselves.

But the end is such wonder!  Such peace!  Such joy!  We can then become like the children Christ wants to come to Him.

Children don’t have a care about life.  We, the fallen ones, teach them those cares.  All children know is that their parents love them and want the best for them and will do whatever it takes to care for them.

Unless – unless – the parents are so absorbed with themselves that the children are ignored.

Thank God He is a perfect parent for us.  One that we can trust.  One that we can rely on.  One that we can indeed worship.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!