Ash Wednesday 2019: Lord, I Believe, Help My Unbelief

Here in Greene, we do ecumenical midweek Lenten worship services with the Greene United Methodist / Brethren Church, First Presbyterian Church, and St. Peter Lutheran Church. This year for our Lenten worship, we’re using the book Embracing the Uncertain: A Lenten Study for Unsteady Times (Amazon link), by Magrey R. deVega.

I had the privilege of preaching for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. This week, the readings are 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10, Psalm 51, and Mark 9:14-29. Much of this sermon is drawn from the first chapter in deVega’s book, “The Desparate Father and the Uncertainty of Faith.”

Welcome to my favorite service of the year, Ash Wednesday. To begin our Lenten theme Embracing the Uncertain, we’re looking tonight at this desperate father and the uncertainty of faith.

We pick up the story immediately after the Transfiguration. Jesus and his inner circle of Peter, James, and John are up on a mountain, and Moses and Elijah appear, and they hear God’s voice confirming Jesus’ identity as God’s Son, and it’s amazing.

Peter’s so excited he’s ready to build shelters and stay up there, but then it’s all over and they come back down. When the four of them get down the mountain, there’s a crowd gathered. The other disciples have been trying to heal this boy, trying to cast a demon out of him, and it’s just not working.

Imagine the transition for Peter, James and John, from this incredible mountaintop experience down to this mess with a confused crowd, frustrated disciples, and a child rolling around foaming at the mouth.

It’s a jarring collision from the certainty of this spiritual experience into world’s brokenness and uncertainty.

And then there’s this man in the crowd, the father of the boy with the demon, the one with the most words in this story. Again, imagine what he’s feeling. He’s gone through the effort to bring his boy to for healing, hoping against hope for a miracle from the disciples, and when they go to cast out the demon, nothing happens. The treatment doesn’t work. His hopes are dashed.

When Jesus gets there, the man blurts out his son’s entire medical history file. Like any good parent, he wants more than anything for his son to be healed. He’ll do anything. But he’s not sure it’s possible. Jesus’ disciples had failed, everything he’s tried has failed, and it’s been years and years of trying, with nothing he does working. So he comes to Jesus.

Jesus’ response sounds pretty frustrated, and I think it’s because he is frustrated, but notice who he’s frustrated with. He complains, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”

He’s frustrated with the disciples. There’s a bit of “If you want it done right, do it yourself.” Really, though, Jesus is reminding everyone there he won’t always be with them, at least not walking around in the flesh.

If they’re having trouble believing in Jesus when he’s standing right there with them, so soon after the transfiguration, how are they possibly going to keep believing and carrying out his mission when he’s not there?

I think the disciples’ problem is everything had been going well for them. They started thinking, “You know? We’re getting pretty good at this healing thing. We’ve got this.” They started thinking they could handle just about anything, and maybe, just a little, they started to think they were doing all this healing on their own.

After Jesus takes care of the boy, the disciples come ask him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” Their confidence is shaken. “What went wrong? What happened?” Jesus tells them, “This kind can come out only through prayer.” Some manuscripts say “through prayer and fasting.”

Here at St. Peter, we’ve been talking about prayer for several weeks now, and as I’ve said a few times, praying is always an act of worship, because praying means admitting God is more powerful than you are, humbling yourself and acknowledging that you are not God. It means asking for help from someone else because you can’t do it on your own.

Ash Wednesday calls us to the same recognition. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You and I are not God. We’re made of dust. Only because God breathes into dust are we alive.

We live in a world that tells us the opposite. Our culture values self-reliance, certainty, and strength. You need to be strong, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Work hard enough, and you can do anything. Just believe in yourself. How often have you heard that message?

Ash Wednesday says the opposite. The message of Ash Wednesday is that you started as dust and you’re going to end up back as dust, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Believing in yourself is ultimately pointless.

No matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you try, your life has an expiration date, and you can’t take it with you.

Ash Wednesday says you and I are alive only by the grace of God. We can do great things in this life, and God calls us to live lives that matter, to make a positive difference in this world, but everything we do, anything we end up accomplishing is only because of God working through us. Without God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness, without God’s breath, all we are is dust.

Whenever we start thinking we’re in control, we run into the dust of Ash Wednesday.

Our lives are precarious. To quote Magrey deVega, “Relationships break, discernment fails, confidence falters, fears loom, shame builds, temptations grow, doubt increases. Chaos convenes without notice, even in times of apparent blessing… And lurking beneath all of it is one of the few guarantees in life: the reality of our own mortality.”

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

But there is good news in Ash Wednesday. When we humble ourselves and acknowledge our dustiness, when we face the reality that we will die, we also face the reality that we are alive, that God breathes life into dust.

When we accept the instability of our own life, when we let go of our delusions of controlling our own destiny, God breathes life into us. When we repent with David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit with me,” God forgives us. God comes to dwell within us. When you let go of yourself, God catches you.

That’s exactly what the demon-possessed boy’s father does. He comes to Jesus as his last hope. Jesus tells him, “All things can be done for the one who believes,” and his response is my favorite prayer in all of Scripture: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

Sometimes in life, belief is easy. Sometimes on the mountaintop experiences, on the church retreats, when you have encounters with God’s presence, faith makes sense. But other times, faith is hard. Really, really hard. When your child is sick and no one can help, when you hear the words, “There’s nothing else we can do,” when you lose the pregnancy, or the test results are bad, faith is hard.

When you embrace the uncertainty of life, when you embrace the looming fact of your own death, this prayer is always available. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” When all you have is the desire, the longing to believe, when even faith itself seems uncertain, it’s enough for Jesus.

Contemplative monk Thomas Merton prayed it like this:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Amen