In the most difficult times of our Christian struggle, it isn’t easy to understand why God doesn’t give us what we want. In those most difficult times, we are called to a life of prayer and fasting, not to follow God’s rules, but to train our hearts to understand that God knows what we need better than we know. A life of prayer and fasting heals our hearts when we don’t get what we want from God.

Transcript:

My brothers and sisters, this morning’s gospel lesson is a lesson that goes to the core of our faith. It goes to the core of our understanding the importance of prayer and fasting and faith in our life.

Just to remind you of the scene, the Father brings his son to Christ, and in a way he’s complaining. He says, “Lord, if you can help him, please, because even your disciples couldn’t do anything for him,” and the Lord’s response is what gets straight to our core. “Oh, faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to me,” as if to say, by now, we should have learned our lesson. By now, we should have learned what it means to have faith in Christ.

So we, my brothers and sisters, in our struggle… The baby doesn’t have to leave. The baby’s okay. The baby’s okay. The baby doesn’t have to leave.

I want you all to know that children are always welcome in our church, even if they’re a little fussy. Especially in this morning’s gospel, we’re talking about the healing of a child.

But Christ says, you faithless and perverse generation. We should know by now, my brothers and sisters, just what it means to have faith. In that moment, Christ sends out the demon and the boy is healed, and then come the apostles, and the gospel says, privately they approach Christ, because now their ego has been bruised, because this father says to Christ, “I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t do anything for him,” and my brothers and sisters, the response of the apostles, I have found is our response to prayer and fasting when we don’t get what we want.

The apostles ask him, “how come we couldn’t cast him out?” They’re challenging Christ in this moment. “We’re doing everything you told us to do,” they said. “We’re following you. We’re being obedient to you. We’re having faith in you. How come we couldn’t do it?”, and my brothers and sisters, this is where we are every day in our faith struggle. We ask God in our prayers for a variety of things, and then when we don’t get what we want, we complain to God. “God, how come you didn’t do for me what I wanted you to do?”

This is why this morning’s gospel goes straight to the core of our faith. Because the answer for us, my brothers and sisters, is the same as the answer was for the apostles and for this father. Christ is saying, “You faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you?”, and then Christ says, “This kind,” meaning the demon, “can only go out through prayer and fasting.”

My brothers and sisters in this season of fasting for Panagia in the 15 days of August, I’m often asked, why does the church always ask us to fast? Several years ago, I calculated on the calendar. Over 200 days a year, the church asks us to fast, and the answer is to change our hearts.

You see, my brothers and sisters, we do not fast because God said to fast. We fast to learn that we can’t always have what we want. God is not up there with a tote board. “Oh, he said 13 prayers and he fasted for 75 days? Now I’m going to give it to him.” God doesn’t work that way. When we pray and when we fast, we are training our hearts to understand that we do not know what is best for us. God knows what is best for us, and there will be times where we don’t get what we want from God.

This morning’s gospel is a sad image, a parent with a suffering child. I have experienced so many families in my ministry that come with a suffering child wondering why God hasn’t healed their child, and we don’t always have the answer, but the answer is always that God knows what he is doing. God knows what is best for us, and so when Christ says this kind can only go out through prayer and fasting, he’s calling us, you and me, my brothers and sisters, he’s calling us to a life of prayer and fasting, the Orthodox life, where we train our hearts to listen to God first, and to understand that in our struggle, sometimes we don’t have all the answers.

This morning’s gospel ends on a positive note. The son is healed. Many of us know families that aren’t so fortunate, where the children are not healed, where the family members are not healed, and for that, my brothers and sisters, I offer you a story of my own life.

My mother has been gone for 15 years now because of cancer. At the young age of 68, my mother went to be with the Lord. For three years, I prayed every day, “God, please heal my mother.” After three years, I realized God gave me exactly what I wanted. He healed my mother, just not in the way that I wanted.

My mother doesn’t have cancer any longer. So I got what I wanted. But God knew better and he knew what to give me, and so my brothers and sisters, I invite you, in the most painful time of your life, it’s okay to turn to God and say, “I don’t know where else to turn. Help me understand your will for me. Help me understand why I’m not getting what I want,” and then in our prayer and in our fasting, God will speak to our hearts and he will comfort our heart to understand faith and to understand that this life is only temporary.

This life is to prepare us for the next, and I don’t know about you, but when I am face to face with God, I don’t want God to turn to me and say, “You faithless and perverse generation. You didn’t get the point.” I don’t want to hear that from God, and so join me in giving over our hearts to God. Allow him to love us the way he knows how to love us, and then together, we will learn how to understand his love in our prayers and in our fasting and in our participation in the life of the church. It isn’t always easy. You could say it’s never easy, but it’s always blessed by God. In those moments, sometimes we least understand. Glory to God for all things.