Joshua 24:14-24; Mark 9:14-27

March 21, 2021

  • dealing with powerlessness in faith

I have no idea if this is true, but it is too good to pass up.  The story goes that Neil Armstrong would go to parties and tell anecdotes about when he was on the moon, then laugh hysterically at his story, though no one else would understand what was so funny…

So he’d add, “Well, I guess you had to be there.”

We can only imagine that might have gotten pretty old, pretty quickly.  Sure, go for it once, twice, maybe thrice, but that humor is not going to sustain itself.  It actually sounds like something I would try, and I know how my funny bone can go over sometimes.  No one should let a perfectly good sense of humor become a source of frustration.  Of course, we all would like to go to the moon.  Go ahead and rub it in.  

Something else that we find a bit frustrating is being reminded how powerless we can be in this world or how things are often out of our control.  No one likes to have the rug pulled out from under us.  We are creatures of habit and tend to get used to things and create systems of normality, but when something comes in and throws us for a loop, it is painful to have our lives flipped around.  Even good surprises like babies can be very jarring because life as we had always lived it is gone forever.  It takes time to adjust, and it is never easy to figure out how the future will work out.  

Babies are one thing, but our feelings of helplessness also work out in different, especially difficult ways.  The still recent attack on our nation’s capital is another, extreme example of people reacting to what they saw as the loss of their political control.  They saw their political power disappearing, so they took drastic actions to reclaim it.  We struggle with life reminding us all the time that we are not the ones calling the shots in life.  Mother Nature is quick to remind us; the dysfunction in government, divisions in society, and oh yeah, a pandemic are painful reminders that the world is always outside of our control.  What do we do when those feelings of frustrations start to well up and overwhelm us in the face of change?

Well, this is nothing new.  Our scripture passages today are both lessons in dealing with frustrations in the face of change; however, I doubt you have ever heard these two passages juxtaposed with each other.  The Joshua passage may be familiar because of its quote, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” but the passage is so much more than a wall quote.  Joshua has finished leading the people of God out of the wilderness and into the land God promised Abraham many generations before.  There were lots of people living there, lots of pagan people, whom they were supposed to remove by force.  It turns out that they did not do such a good job at this and ended up sharing the land with lots of these pagan peoples worshipping their gods.  That’s why Joshua has this big meeting after this long crusade at the end of his life.  He is deeply worried about the people he brought across the Jordan River.  It was so temping back then to worship the one God who saved them but also keep the other little gods they picked up along the way.  He could imagine their hearts saying, “Do we really just need one God when we can have a number of gods like other people?  We can still keep our God.  That God can even be the main god.  I just kind of like the others, too.  We don’t want to hurt their feelings….”  So Joshua goes into this big soapbox moment.  “No, people!  You cannot serve a bunch of gods.  What’s the point of gods made out of wood or stone or plastic or gold or paper?  You cannot serve the gods of the Egyptians or the Amorites or anyone else.  It is decision time.  This is a new age in our nation and our people before us.  You CANNOT go forward doing the same thing and believing the same thing and being like other people.  Chose this day whom you WILL serve.  Be honest and pick whom you will really serve.”  

The people make the response we would expect: “of course we will serve the Lord.”

It is Joshua’s response we don’t expect.  You hear his frustration: “But you cannot just say it and expect it to happen.  It is not that easy!  This is more than words.  I know how you really are.  You cannot fool around with our God.  God will not be trifled with.  This will go very badly for you, if you don’t make this choice and change.”

They double down on their commitment, however, so Joshua has to accept it, and he renews the main covenant of Israel that God first began with Abraham many generations before.  God will be their god and they will be God’s people, even if they end up not doing a very good job.  Turns out Joshua was right.

One interesting point between Joshua and Jesus is that they have almost identical names.  You may have heard that the Hebrew name for Jesus is Jeshua (Yeshua) which is a later version of Joshua.  It means “The Lord is Salvation.”  Centuries after Joshua’s time, Jesus was working the ministry of salvation among the people.  This passage in Mark is very different from the Joshua passage, but one point is identical: the people were facing a new time and it was on them to begin living differently.  The timing of this passage is soon after the Transfiguration that I preached on a few weeks ago.  From that moment in the Gospel, it is all downhill to the cross.  Jesus is nearing the end of his earthly ministry and the stakes are getting higher.  Maybe that has something do with the crisis in this passage relating to this demonic presence that Jesus’ disciples cannot chase off.  Everyone is going to have to go about things differently: the disciples, the crowds, even Jesus himself as he marches to the cross.

The frustration here is pretty obvious.  The disciples are powerless to cast out this evil spirit.  We don’t know how long they have been trying, but the feeling is that they have been trying a while.  Notice that Jesus walks up into this crowd arguing.  Maybe one after another of the disciples gave it a whack to send the demon away with everyone failing.  Then, the accusations would have started flying about their failure.  It is no wonder that the father of the child was on shaky faith.  He witnessed the futility of the work of Jesus’ disciples.  He was not feeling too good about his prospects with them.  He probably questioned their association with Jesus.  

That’s when Jesus shows up and he finds out the situation.  You hear Jesus’ frustration pretty clearly.  He feels the weight of his limited time left, the ineffectiveness of his closest followers, and the appearance of demonic strength to all of those around.  This was a crisis on all kinds of levels.  Something had to happen here.  Something new had to break through here.  

Jesus asked about the demonic situation.  We cannot know why that matters, but it gives the father an opportunity to plead with Jesus.  He is desperate.  Here something must change, he knows.  The father is powerless, also, and frustrated with the lack of help for his son.  Maybe, just maybe, this Jesus can do something if he is willing.  

I get the sense that Jesus might feel a little insulted at this request.  This the Son of God with whom everything was created, and the father is asking him if he is able to do something to help.  That is what brings us to what I feel is the best part.  Of course, Jesus can help.  All things are possible with faith.  Jesus is the living embodiment of faith.  And the father wants some faith, too.  He is tired of being powerless.  He has no other answers.  He needs something new.  If faith can change his life, please give some faith, he says.  He put his hope in Jesus which is exactly what Jesus wants.  And Jesus heals the son.

I wonder whether the rate of change in the world these days, the instantaneous nature of information and the ubiquity of the internet for us, and living at an age when things can change from day to day pretty easily, all make it really difficult to feel we are in control of anything.  Maybe you have already made your peace with the world and everything that threatens your sense of power or direction or control in your life.  Maybe you are able to roll with the happenings of this world without batting an eye.  Maybe you are unflappable.  For the rest of us, however, who are regularly troubled, distressed, or frustrated, hear me out.

I would love to say if you just have enough faith it will all work out, but that’s really not how it works.  And that is not really how it worked out in these stories today. We can’t have enough faith by ourselves. Joshua made the covenant for the people even though he did not believe them, and Jesus healed a man’s son as he also confessed his unbelief. Sure, we could probably call that faith, but the man seems to believe that he does not have enough or good enough faith himself, so he needs help.  

That is why all of this ends up in grace. The Israelites failed to follow God well before they made this covenant and after they did it too, just like Joshua said.  But he stood in there with them.  Even when he knew they would not survive, he did it anyway.  Jesus knew his friends would fail and keep failing.  He knew everyone would turn on him, but he did it all anyway, just like he helped this man’s son who struggled to have faith.  

When this world gets the better of us, it can be too much to bear, too much for our faith to handle. That’s when Jesus’ faith steps up.  Friends, we are saved by GRACE through FAITH. I for one have been dressed up and torn down by the events of this last year.  I am staggered by the volatility of the world out there and around us.  I am reminded all too regularly that life never goes as I plan.  When it gets to that point, thanks be to God that there is even more for us, even more to face the day, even more to share in Jesus’ victory, even more to give us space to know love.  That, my friends, is the grace of God. When we are weak, God is strong.  When we are powerless, God is powerful.  When we are helpless, God is our help.  When I cannot muster the faith, God is my faith.  

To God be the glory.  Amen.