Saturday of Week 18 in Ordinary Time - Matt 17: 14-20

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Matthew 17: 14-20 - 'If your faith were the size of a mustard seed, the mountain would move.'

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Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Hi everyone. If you're new to this podcast,
this podcast is all about looking at the literal sense of
scripture. What did God intend in the most
fundamental, literal way? What do the words mean in their
original context? That's what we do in this
podcast. We look at the Mass reading for
today, particularly the Gospel reading, and we really dive into
the text and see what it means. What do the particular words

(00:33):
mean? How should we understand it on
the literal level? And as Catholics, we believe
that's where we should start. And lots of people have
benefited from this approach that we provide in this podcast.
I've heard from so many of you about how it's blessed your walk
with God and helped you understand Jesus more profoundly
and more deeply. And so I pray that that will

(00:54):
happen for you as well. If you're listening today, today
if you go to Matthew, we'd hear from Matthew, chapter 17, verses
14 to 20. We're going to see one of Jesus
miracles here that's a bit lesser known.
So here's the text. A man came up to Jesus and went
down on his knees before him. Lord, he said, take pity on my

(01:16):
son. He is a lunatic and in a
wretched state. He is always falling into the
fire or into the water. I took him to your disciples,
and they were unable to cure him.
Faithless and perverse generation, Jesus said in reply.
How much longer must I be with you?
How much longer must I put up with you?

(01:39):
Bring him here to me. And when Jesus rebuked it, the
devil came out of the boy who iscured from that moment.
Then the disciples came privately to Jesus.
Why were we unable to cast it out?
They asked. He answered.
Because you have little faith, Itell you solemnly, If your faith

(02:00):
were the size of a mustard seed,you could say to this mountain,
move from here to there and it would move.
Nothing would be impossible for you.
So what's the context here? Well, the Transfiguration has
just happened. So they went up the mountain and
Jesus was transfigured. So Jesus and the inner group of

(02:20):
disciples now come down the mountain and they rejoin the
larger group. There's quite a crowd at the
bottom of the mountain. And also we'll see here there's
some interesting parallels with how what happens when Moses
comes down the mountain after he's given the tank amendments.
Now, Mark's version of this story is quite a bit longer, and
you can see that in Mark Chapter9.

(02:41):
So there's more information provided in Mark's version, and
we know from Mark's version thatthere are scribes here in the
crowd as well. And there's a bit of a dispute
happening between the scribes and the disciples, but that's
not included here in Matthew's version.
So Matthew's version jumps straight into what we have here
at verse 14 and man came up to Jesus and went down on his knees

(03:01):
before him. Interestingly, this is the first
time the word knelt is used in Matthew.
So he's pleading for Jesus help and he says the Lord take pity
on my son. So there's faith here coming
from this man. He recognizes that Jesus is Lord
and that he can heal his son. He's begging Jesus for
assistance. Notice the language here, Lord

(03:24):
take pity. And this is pretty similar to
some of the language you'll see in the Psalms in the Old
Testament. He says my son is a lunatic.
Now the word lunatic here is interesting.
It means moonstruck. Luna moonstruck, and it reflects
the ancient belief that the moon's phases caused seizures in
some people. So there was this sort of

(03:45):
interesting ancient belief that someone who is showing symptoms
of what we would now call seizure, that was as a result of
the moon. And so they often attributed
craziness in a in an interestingway to the moon.
However, in Jewish culture, it wasn't that simple, because they
knew that a lot of mental illness wasn't due to the moon.

(04:06):
It's actually due to demons. And that's what this man
recognizes, that there's a demonin his son.
But that lunatic word sort of comes through into our English
translations, so he's in a wretched state, according to the
man. Now, Mark's version tells us
that the demon in the boy is deaf and mute, and this is what
Mark says about the demon. When it takes hold of him, it

(04:28):
throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds
his teeth and goes rigid. So it's a very confronting
demon, a very powerful demon that has hold of this boy.
Must be quite a strong demon if it's producing such severe
symptoms, the father goes on. He's always falling into the
fire or into the water. So this boy's father is a

(04:50):
faithful Jew. He knows what's going on.
He knows his son is possessed bya demon, and this demon is
determined to destroy him. He's trying to get the boy to
fall into the fire or the water.So it's a particularly malicious
demon. And now it gets interesting.
Verse 16, the man is talking. I took him to your disciples and
they were unable to cure him. This is interesting because the

(05:13):
disciples have been given the power of exorcism.
We saw that from Jesus earlier that they have that Commission
to cast out demons, and usually the disciples can do that.
But for some reason they can't cast out this demon.
So Jesus responds, He says faithless and perverse
generation. Sounds like harsh words, doesn't

(05:34):
it? This echoes Moses's words that
he said about the Israelites in the desert.
So if you look at Deuteronomy chapter 32, Moses calls the
Israelites a crooked and perverse generation.
That's what Jesus essentially says here, faithless and
perverse generation. He's already directed similar
criticisms toward the scribes and the Pharisees.

(05:54):
If you look at chapter 12, verse38 to 39, that's what he said
about them. Now it seems he's directing this
criticism to his own disciples. Jesus response here seems to
imply that the reason the disciples haven't been able to
cast out this demon is because they, or maybe the crowd that
they're spending time with, do not have enough faith.

(06:15):
That's the reason they haven't been able to cast out the demon.
That seems to be what Jesus is saying here.
It's pretty hard to escape that.And all throughout the gospels
you do see this theme, that Jesus ability to do miracles,
and by extension his disciples ability to do miracles is
proportionate to the faith of the people around him.
Jesus goes on, How much longer must I be with you?

(06:37):
How much longer must I put up with you?
So you can see that the frustration and disappointment
of Jesus coming through here. Jesus knows that if the people,
and particularly his disciples had more faith, it will be much
easier for the Kingdom to come and for miracles to be done.
But because of the lack of faithin this situation, then they
haven't been able to cast the demon out of the boy.

(07:00):
Now, Matthew might be deliberately trying to highlight
further parallels between Jesus and Moses.
That's one of the things that Matthew does in his gospel.
He wants to show his readers that Jesus is like the new and
better Moses. Now, Mark includes this passage
as well, so maybe Matthew hasn'tgot a particular agenda here.
But there are some interesting parallels between what happens

(07:20):
with Moses when he comes down from Mount Sinai and when Jesus
comes down from the mountain. Transfiguration.
So here's what the Catholic commentary on Sacred Scripture
for the Gospel of Matthew says here about these parallels.
The Sinai parallels continue as Christ comes down the mountain
to a scene fraught with human weakness to which he has a

(07:42):
strong emotional response. This recalls Moses coming down
Mount Sinai to find the people worshipping the golden calf, to
which Moses responds by breakingthe tablets of the 10
Commandments in his frustrationswith the people's sin.
So you remember that scene in Exodus when Moses comes down the
mountain, he breaks the tablets because the people are so

(08:03):
faithless. What's similar here, isn't it?
Jesus comes down the mountain, finds that the people are so
faithless and he gets frustratedwith them.
So this, I do think there is some parallels here.
So Jesus command to the disciples is bring him here to
me. Just as the crowd had brought
the boy to the apostles, he now asks the apostles to bring the

(08:24):
boy to himself. So Jesus, having just heard that
the apostles couldn't do it, he's going to try and exercise
the boy himself. We know from Mark's Gospel that
even Jesus, it's not an instantaneous thing.
There is a bit of a struggle here from the demon, so it's a
very powerful demon. Matthew gives us the short

(08:44):
version though. So verse 18, when Jesus rebuked
it, the devil came out of the boy who was cured from that
moment. So in Mark's version, we see
that what actually happens here is the demon throws the boy into
convulsions and he begins foaming at the mouth.
And it appears to be quite a difficult exorcism.
Jesus asks the Father For more information about how long he's

(09:05):
been possessed for, and there's also a bit of discussion here
before the exorcism is completed.
But Matthew just shortens that to say the devil came out of the
boy. So that's the end of that
particular scene. Of course the crowd would have
been quite amazed of what they just saw.
Verse 19. Then the disciples came
privately to Jesus, and Mark's version says they go into a

(09:28):
house here. So they probably went back home
to Capernaum, to Jesus home. And this is what they ask Jesus
in private. Why were we unable to cast it
out? It's a fair question because the
apostles have been able to cast out most other demons.
Jesus gave them that authority, but they haven't been able to
cast out this one. Jesus response here in verse 20

(09:49):
is striking because you have little faith.
So little faith here probably means something like this.
If we look at the other other ways that little faith is used
in the gospel, it's those who are prone to be anxious and lack
lack trust that God will providefor them.
If you look at chapter 6, verse 30, that's what Jesus says.

(10:10):
Little faith means someone who does not fully trust God.
Jesus has already reprimanded his disciples for their lack of
faith. You see that in chapter 8, verse
26, chapter 14, verse 31, and then chapter 16, verse 8.
So all through the gospel, Jesushas to basically tell them off
for their lack of faith. Jesus goes on.

(10:32):
If your faith were the size of amustard seed, you could say to
this mountain, move from here tothere and it would move.
Nothing would be impossible for you.
The first thing to say about this It's clearly a form of
hyperbole. Jesus is exaggerating to making
to make a point. He's deliberate.
This is what rabbis would do when they were teaching their

(10:52):
disciples. Jesus has picked an example of
something which is amazing and impossible.
So telling a mountain to move and then it moves.
So that's the example he picks in order to make his point.
He probably doesn't mean that they could command a mountain to
move, although I mean we can't rule that out.
Maybe that is within the apostles power, but that's not

(11:14):
his main point. He's He's certainly not
encouraging them to move mountains.
The point he's making is that ifyou have faith, then you can do
even things that are impossible.But with God these things do
become possible, and in particular, He's referring to
miracles. Even a small amount of genuine
faith will help God do great miracles that would otherwise be
impossible. That's the main point here.

(11:38):
Notice who Jesus is speaking to.Whenever you're doing an ex of
Jesus, of text, of the of the Gospels in particular, think
about who Jesus is speaking to. Not everything applies to us
today. In the same way, and this might
be one of those examples, Jesus is speaking to the disciples.
Jesus basic teaching on the mostliteral level here, which is

(11:58):
what we're all about in this podcast, is that if the
disciples in his time have genuine faith, then there's no
barriers to God doing his work through them.
So for them, any miracle is possible, at least in those
early years of the expansion of the Kingdom.
But since the disciples are somewhat faithless at this
particular point, they haven't been able to access God's power

(12:21):
and they haven't been able to cast the strong demon out of the
boy. Does this principle still apply
today? Does Jesus still say the same
thing to us? If you have faith the size of a
mustard seed, as in if you had even small amount of genuine
faith, then you would be able tomove mountains.
Does that still apply today? Well, probably.
I think the general principle ofmore faith enables God to do

(12:42):
greater miracles. I think the the data across the
world and across Christianity does show that to be the case.
More genuine faith allows more greater miracles, but we have to
be careful. This does require some nuance
and some deeper theology, but wewon't go into that in this
particular podcast. We just want to focus on what
Jesus meant to his original audience.

(13:05):
So that's the end of verse 20. Now today's gospel reading only
goes to verse 20, but there is actually a verse 21 which
completes this story, but it's not in all manuscripts.
The Electionary Translation we use for the General Roman
Electionary, it doesn't have verse 21, but some bibles do.
If you open your Bible and go toMatthew chapter 17, have a look

(13:25):
and see if it has verse 21. We know that it does appear to
be genuine because Mark's version does have this phrase in
most translations, so apparentlyJesus did say it.
It's just a question of whether Matthew had it in his original
translation or whether someone added it later from Mark's
version. So here's what verse 21 says,

(13:46):
which is apparently what Jesus said at the end of this
conversation. This kind never comes out except
by prayer and fasting as in thiskind of demon.
So Jesus is telling them why they couldn't cast out the
demons. So it's their lack of faith.
And then he adds in this information.
Some demons can only be exercised through pure and

(14:07):
fasting. This would suggest that the
Apostles had become reliant on their own abilities because
Jesus had given them the power to cast out demons.
Maybe they'd become presumptuousand over reliant on their
ability to cast out any demon. Maybe they'd stopped praying.
Maybe they were just treating exorcism as a formula, and so
they were robbing the exorcism of its true spiritual power.

(14:29):
That's certainly a possibility, isn't it?
So Jesus has to remind them thatsometimes to make this work, you
really need to pray. And he adds in fasting as well.
Fasting is a spiritual discipline.
We don't often talk about it, but exorcists today will tell
you that some demons can actually only come out by a
special kind of fasting. So that's what Jesus teaches

(14:50):
here. Notice he says this kind of
demon that tells us whatever else the verse means, it tells
us that there are different kinds of demons.
Some are more powerful than others.
Some require more extreme measures to cast out.
And certainly the literature from priests who are exorcists
will tell us that that is the case.

(15:11):
So it's an interesting end to this particular scene.
Now at this point in this podcast, we would normally look
at paragraphs from the Catechismof the Catholic Church to see
what the Church says about this passage.
But there aren't any for us to look at today.
The Church doesn't see anything profound that is that needs to
be included in the summary of Catholic teaching, which is the

(15:32):
Catechism. There's nothing in our passage
today which isn't repeated elsewhere in the Bible.
So there's you could say there'snothing in here that we need
that's essential for our faith that we couldn't learn from
elsewhere in the Bible. That's one way of looking at why
we don't have any references today.
So we'll leave it there for today.
Thank you once again for tuning in.
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(15:54):
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(17:01):
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