Inadequacy of Discipleship

Gospel:  Matthew 17: 14-20

A man has a son in the grips of a demon.  He first went to Jesus' disciples to help him, but the disciples were not able to do so.  The man then comes to Jesus, stating that his disciples were not able to cure his son, and he begs Jesus to cure his son.  Jesus, of course, does so, but not without a lament about the lack of faith he continually sees.  Our first reaction to this lament of Jesus is to have pity on this father - how could he be blamed in all this?

But Jesus is not blaming this man.  He is finding fault with the lack of faith in his disciples.  In fact, Jesus rebukes them for their lack of faith in failing to help this boy and his father.  As so many other Gospel stories make evident, discipleship is not the goal of the Christian life, for to be a disciple in the Gospels always leads to inadequacy and failure.  The Gospels time and again remind us that the goal of Christian living is to imitate Jesus, to be illuminated and divinized by him.

The father in this story is a model for us as well.  When we find inadequacy in churchmen - when we find they are unable to help us and in fact are obstacles to us - then we go to Jesus.  We let him know that his disciples were not able to help us, that their faith was inadequate.  We then seek to imitate Jesus, not the disciples, and in imitating Jesus we are freed from our demons, we are illuminated, and we are divinized into his likeness.