Text: Mark 9:14 " Why could we not drive it out? 'This kind can be driven out only by prayer.' "

And when he had entered the house his disciples asked him privately, " Why could we not drive it out? And he said to them, 'This kind can be driven out only by prayer.' "

Thanks heavens this was handled privately, after they had entered the house, and not outside where so many might have heard. You wouldn't want it to get out that the disciples didn't pray. Just the sort of thing that gives the Church a black eye and bad press. And don't think the Pharisees and the Scribes wouldn't have taken advantage of that one!

A man, desperately hurting, in great anguish because of the suffering of his little boy, comes to the Church, to the disciples, to those who follow Jesus Christ. His son is tortured, suffering serious recurring convulsions and driven to self-destructive behavior, casting himself into fire or water in a dreadful bid to end the suffering and find release no matter how violent. And this man, full of hurt and hope, full of fear and faith, brings his boy to the disciples, seeking help, health, wholeness. As he later related to Jesus: "I brought my son for he has a dumb spirit and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid, and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able."

And those same disciples asked Jesus, later, in the house, why they had not been able to cast it out. And our Lord told them, privately, why they were not able. 'This kind can be driven out only by prayer.'

It is staggering to come to the only conclusion one can reasonably come to: the disciples were trying to do something, something important, without praying about it. Not very edifying, but very enlightening. How often do we, does the Church, try to do some great good thing, some wonderful and worthy thing, without praying sufficiently beforehand, and during, and even after, our intervention in?. How much damage have we, the Church through all the ages done, when we all we sought was to do good, but tired to do that without great payer, attempted to do good, on our own as we saw fit, as we assumed was best. How often have we promised more than we can deliver and badly disappointed people who come to us and do not find what they seek or the help they need or the result they hope for.

This Gospel passage would be such a discouraging thing, such an indictment, were it not for the really startling aspect of this morning's Gospel. All of the disciples' shortcomings, failures, inabilities do not deprive the man of his faith or hope or courage or belief that Jesus can help, Jesus can make a difference.

Oh my yes, the disciples, like the clergy, and like many well intentioned laymen bustle about - ever so busy, filled with great intentions and even grander dreams, and how often we fall flat on our faces, humbled by the belated remembrance that we never prayed or never prayed enough. How often we loudly proclaim our willingness to help, to assist, to inspire and motivate only to fall flat, to fail to deliver, to disappoint those whose hopes were raised by us.

But for all of that, there is this wonderful man, this still-believing man who will not be discouraged will not be put off or away from the saving, healing power of Jesus, simply because of the insufficiency of Jesus' followers. He has had, in today's parlance, a lousy experience with the Church, he has been burned badly but he has not been driven off, has not given in to despair, has not turned away forever to some other odd religious path that will in the end let him down even worse, despite experiences with the Church's servants that would have driven many away. Instead, he perseveres and will not be driven away from the Church's Lord. Because the disciples couldn't do it, because the clergy couldn't do it, because the Church couldn't do it, does not lead this man to believe that Jesus couldn't do it. He knows better. He seems to know that curious interplay of faith and lack of faith that plague so many. And he knows to go to the one place the one man, the one Lord who can resolve that. How many people in our own place and time, seeing, experiencing, suffering from the admitted mistakes of the Church foolishly then refuse to go on to Christ themselves, directly, secure in the faith they have, acknowledging the doubts they themselves also have, and not being put off forever by a Church that may, from time to time, disappoint them and let them down. How many people have the courage and the will and the sense to go to Christ himself, as this man did. May he encourage and strengthen and sustain by his example, all those who need his witness and his reminder.

No, we, the followers of Jesus, do not always succeed, because we do not always pray as we should. But faith, however faltering, will always lead to Jesus who never falters, never fails, never disappoints, whose whole life is a prayer that never ends.