Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
September 15, 2024
by: Rev. Peter Mills and Rev. Dean Kavouras
Pentecost 17
Tongue/Listen
“The Lord God gives Me the tongue of the learned, so as to know when to speak a word at a fitting time; and He causes my ear to listen each morning.” (Isa. 50:4, NKJV)
For Isaiah, before Jesus would become the “Suffering” Servant, he is first God’s “Listening” and “Learning” Servant, confident and faithful in his instruction from the Father, and in possession of a “learned tongue” for us men and for our salvation!
Today’s Gospel is preceded by Jesus on Transfiguration Mountain with Peter, James, and John who observe their Lord instructing Moses and Elijah; Moses who is God’s OT prophet of Word, and Elijah the prophet of Jesus’ coming passion, which is our salvation, and without which we are still in our sins, and to be most pitied of all people.
The 3 disciples went into a fugue state to view these two GREAT witnesses with their own eyes! But God, from His cloud, directed their attention to His Learned Servant, Jesus saying, “Listen to him!” (Mk. 9:9b). And so the church says today to all the world, to all religions, and to all self-righteous persons. “Listen to him!”
Having descended the Mount Jesus was confronted by pandemonium.
His disciples were being verbally abused by hostile a crowd; because they could not rid a possessed child of a horrid demon. Presumably the “deaf and dumb” demon neither heard nor listened to the disciples’ commands.
But Jesus they could not resist!
The boy’s father drained by helpless years of demonic attacks on his son’s life, as many fathers are also today, had become disconsolate. Meanwhile the disciples were utterly confused. Their commission to proclaim the gospel included power over demons which was a chief sign of their God-given authority (6:7). In this instance the disciples were unable to effect the boy’s release. They were like bald-headed Samson, once mighty, but now powerless.
Jesus was disturbed and called both his disciples and the boy’s father “faithless”. The father responded in prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24). This brings to light our congenital condition, that even as the Baptized of Christ, we are at one and the same time saints and sinners.
Still, questions remain: what faith are we talking about; and whose faith? Jesus suggests the answer, “This spirit cannot be driven out by anything but prayer” (v. 29); but again, what and whose prayer?
Last Sunday St. James denounced vacant belief in Jesus but taught the church that God’s Learned and Suffering Servent is the substance, content, power and captain of our faith.
As the disciples failed to comprehend “the loaves” as we well learned over the last seven Sundays – neither did they understand Jesus’ coming passion! (Mk. 9:32; cp. 6:52).) It is no accident that following his transfiguration Jesus repeats his passion prediction, but they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask.
Elijah’s presence on Transfiguration Mountain witnesses to the necessity of prayer. Elijah was the prophet of Jesus’ passion. He who himself ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire, even as Jesus would ascend after his fiery baptism on the cross.
On their way down from the Mount Jesus explained that John the Baptist is Jesus’ latter-day Elijah. A man taken to where he did not wish to go (cf. Jn. 21:18b), to prison and death by a woman scorned. Elijah’s presence with Moses was a pivotal sign of the Lord’s imminent passion, which began with prayer in Gethsemane’s Garden! And may our every daily task begin with prayer!
Prayer that the Father remove the cup of wrath from him, but it did not end there but continued: “yet not what I will, but what thou wilt” (v. 36b); a prayer faintly reminiscent of the boy’s father to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief.”
So, for what do we pray? Like Elijah, John the Baptizer, the boy’s father, and Jesus crucified we are on the way to a place that as sinners we would rather not go! Nevertheless, by Baptism we are attached to Jesus and to the place of his death and we pray in faith’s resolve, “not what I will, but what thou wilt” and again, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief”.
Unlike the Father’s Learned and Listening Servant we are neither attentive listeners nor obedient to the Father’s word through his Son. Rather, like today’s wearied father, we are confronted by circumstances requiring us to acknowledge our faithlessness.
And so we rely on God’s Promise to give us the tongue of Christ, and the ears of Christ to help us in our unbelief – so as to speak a prayer at a fitting time; morning by morning.
As regards faith, faith born of ourselves, or by our “decision” is, again, like Samson after his haircut. But when Jesus says to us “all things are possible to him who believes,” we can take that to the bank. Which is to say to the struggles of our lives, to sleepless nights, to sorrow, fear, frustration, guilt, to regrets from yesterday and anxiety regarding tomorrow. And most especially for our children who are under heavy attack by deadly demons.
In the resurrection there will be no demons to torment us. But only the Learned Tongue of Jesus to speak tenderly to us. All unbelief will be gone. And tongues that both bless and curse, a thing of the past – for they will joyously Bless the Lord at all times, and never grow tired of it.