Today in the Spirit: Proper 19B
At Proper 19B, the church moves forward the last year of Jesus’ ministry (two chapters ahead in the Gospel of Mark) to an incident immediately following the Transfiguration. Mark 9:14-29 tells the story of Jesus’ healing a boy with an evil spirit, a deed his disciples (those who did not climb the mountain) could not accomplish. Jesus explains to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer” (29). In the course of the healing itself, we hear in our worship the well-known plea of the boy’s father, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (24).
In the assigned OT reading from Isaiah 50:4-9, we have the third of what are called the Servant Songs in Isaiah. Here, in a fashion that follows from the second song and prepares for the fourth, the messianic figurehead of the people of God shows determination to carry out his hard mission in the world with the help the Sovereign LORD has given him. We see the grit of this figure in Isaiah in Mark’s portrayal of Jesus, who must minister to the young boy in the face of opposition. In saying or singing the assigned Psalm 116:1-9[10-16], we take up in our worship the voice of the boy (or the boy’s father) in the Gospel reading, who, having experienced healing, might exclaim, Gracious is the LORD and righteous; indeed our God is full of compassion. The LORD preserves the simple; I was in misery, and he helped me (5-6, BCP New Coverdale).
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The second installment in the Year B series in James is James 2:1-8. This reading covers the elder’s condemnation of favoritism in the church’s life as a grave sin against the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (8). The reading carries forward to James’ well-known mini-discourse on faith, which is proven by deeds. The assigned Collect this week, with its plea to God to “direct and rule our hearts” by the Holy Spirit, provides a suitable response to the conviction we may experience as worshipers hearing the father of the boy confessing his unbelief to Jesus’ face, and James’ teaching, So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
The Collect
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Lord God helps me (Isaiah 50:4-9)
4 The Lord God has given me
Isaiah 50:4-9
the tongue of those who are taught,
that I may know how to sustain with a word
him who is weary.
Morning by morning he awakens;
he awakens my ear
to hear as those who are taught.
5 The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious;
I turned not backward.
6 I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from disgrace and spitting.
7 But the Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the Lord God helps me;
who will declare me guilty?
Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will eat them up.
In this third Servant Song, we hear wonder on the part of God’s servant (see v. 10) over the insight the LORD God has given him to minister to the exiles returning from Babylon (5) and over the opposition he faces in doing so (10). The picture is one of the prophet standing before his accusers in a court of law. We hear the grit in his voice (I have set my face like flint, 7), which he admits comes from God. See how he repeats the Lord God helps me (7,9), once to explain his personal protection and again to feel assured of victory over his adversaries.
Those who put themselves on the line for Christian ministry will often find an initial rush of adrenaline over success. We speak for the Lord, and people listen. We pray, and good things happen. It is when the opposition inevitably comes that the Holy Spirit seeks to work in us the resolution of this Servant (the same determination we see in Jesus healing the young boy in the Gospel reading).
See how Paul in Romans, like the Servant in Isaiah, progresses through rejoicing in justification to rejoicing in suffering:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Rom. 5:1-5
The Holy Spirit is God’s help (Jn. 14:15) so that we will not be put to shame.
Holy Spirit, today, I find encouragement in the Scriptures to venture out in the ministry that you have called me to undertake, knowing you will help me produce good fruit and upend the policies of the opposition.
The LORD Preserves the Simple (Psalm 116:1-9[10-16])
1 I love the Lord, *
Psalm 119:1-9, BCP New Coverdale
because he heard the voice of my prayer,
2 Because he inclined his ear to me; *
therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me, and the pains of the Grave laid hold of me; *
I suffered trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called upon the Name of the Lord: *
“O Lord, I beseech you, deliver my soul.”
5 Gracious is the Lord and righteous; *
indeed, our God is full of compassion.
6 The Lord preserves the simple; *
I was in misery, and he helped me.
7 Turn again to your rest, O my soul, *
for the Lord has rewarded you.
8 You have delivered my soul from death, *
my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.
9 I will walk before the Lord *
in the land of the living.
See the distance the psalmist has traveled spiritually in the first half of this song of praise. Recalling what sounds like an extremely dangerous set of personal circumstances, he moves from paralysis (The snares of death encompassed me) to prosperity (I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living). How, in the end, do we find that he has made this internal journey? Is it that he has convinced himself of a theological truth about God? Is it that he has stepped up his spiritual disciplines? Is it by anything at all that he has done? No. His testimony is that it is by God’s work that everything inside him (his own state of mind) and outside him (the circumstances themselves) have been corrected. In fact, he concludes flat out that he has proved to be an incapable and undeserving recipient of God’s grace: The Lord preserves the simple; I was in misery, and he helped me (6). The positive movement of his soul has been nothing of himself and all of God.
Devotionally, we must recognize the Lord is continually bringing us closer to this psalmist’s state of humble dependence on him and, like him, to rejoice over God’s ability to save against our own inability to do so. What is your first instinct when facing times of trouble? Is it still toward applying some sort of self-help, especially the “religious” kind? You set yourself down to pray and read the Scriptures more. Good. But tell me, are you listening to the word of God given to you in your prayer and reading? Are you hearing the voice of the Lord saying, “Yes, I know your circumstances and your pain. I am enthroned over it. I love you. You are simple and vulnerable in the world. Learn, here, yet again, to trust in me and not yourself.”
Today, in the Spirit, speak this psalm on Sunday, praying into your own trouble and sorrow, and as you do, take on the conviction of the psalmist: In God I trust, and in him I turn again my soul to rest.
The Law of Liberty (James 2:1-18)
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:8-13
The middle part of this reading (vv. 8-13) ties together the prior section on showing partiality (or favoritism, NIV) and the following section on faith by my works. You’ll notice these verses consist of a series of conditional (if) statements followed by a directive (So speak and act…), a declaration (For judgment is without mercy…) and a didactic (Mercy triumphs over judgment).
Devotionally, we find there are only two ways we can ever rest easily with this passage: 1) Judge yourself to be one who keeps the royal law and has earned the approval of God, or 2) Admit that you are not keeping that law and look for the law of liberty that transcends and supersedes the straightforward judgment by God on your actions. Honestly, is there anybody who thinks that #1 is a serious option? Who can judge themselves to have loved their neighbor as themselves without fault? No, for us, the only true alternative is to request and receive the liberty that comes by the grace of the Father through faith in the Son. Jesus is the law of liberty for us. It is mercy through him that comes to us that triumphs over condemnation at judgment.
Today, by the conviction of the Holy Spirit that has inspired this text, I will speak and act as one who is humbled by my lawbreaking and who leans on my Savior, Jesus Christ, for liberty.
I Believe; Help My Unbelief (Mark 9:14-29)
14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15 And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. 16 And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”
Mark 9:14-19
Only Mark’s version of this story includes the full conversation between the boy’s father and Jesus. The father readily admits that he believes in Jesus (why would he be there otherwise?), but there is unbelief in him, too. And Jesus knows this is true about him. See how our Lord produces in the man added faith–not by brow-beating him to trust more, but through a declaration of truth (All things are possible for one who believes), provoking repentance and greater trust in the Lord.
Oswald Chamber writes of Christians as those who have “rivers” of faith flowing within them that need to be let loose to flow:
Think of the healing and far-flung rivers nursing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up marvellous truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is an indication of the wider power of the river He will flow through us.
I have faith within me, Lord. You know how easily I become puffed up with my fastidious attention to religious duties and loud assent to doctrine in the creeds. But you know, too, that when a crisis comes, I fail to trust the way I should. Lord, let me hear your gentle but firm rebuke; all things are possible for one who believes. If you are saying it, Jesus, I know, with this man in Mark, I will turn from unbelief, and you will respond.
Today, Holy Spirit, through you who are the life of the Son of God in me, I plead for an increase of trust in you for every part of my life.
Today in the Spirit
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