[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! Let me begin by saying that in the whole theological literature in general, both Catholic and Protestant, there is a welcome phenomenon that is becoming more and more apparent. Namely, the increasing importance which theologians attach to the laity, the lay element of the Church. It is in the laity that the Church is living out and living out the function and the ministry that the Church is called to in this world. So the layman is in no way the ignorant element of the Church, as opposed to the trained and ordained ministers, but the layman is the person who represents the Church in the world. For out in the world, that is, in the world outside the church, in the world of everyday life, it is the laity who represent the Church. Let us also say it this way: Christ! Because every believer, wherever he is, represents Jesus Christ. And in the church, the difference between the robed man and the unrobed man, or let's say the pastor and the unpastor, is really only that one represents Christ in a robe and the other without a robe. But he represents Christ in the same way. And the places and the occasions today where Christ can be represented in a robe are becoming more and more limited. On the other hand, the places and occasions where Jesus can be represented without a robe are expanding ad infinitum. Practically speaking, there is no place or occasion where a believer cannot be a representative of Jesus.Now, Brethren, this is why it would be of such great importance if we were people of living faith who truly represented Jesus in every place and on every occasion. In other words, I would say, we would be people of living faith through whom the miraculous powers of Jesus would flow out into this world. Because that is what this Word encourages us to do. Notice, here we have a desperate, sad-hearted father bringing his only son to the disciples of Jesus. From the description we can tell - in today's language, you might say - that this son had epilepsy. He is called a lunatic in Scripture, and in another place he is described as a mute devil who possessed him, tearing him apart and frequently throwing him into fire and water. So you could say he was epileptic. His father did everything for his child. He took him to grass, to the greatest scientists, spent a lot of money in vain, and finally, when he heard Jesus, he took him to his disciples. He asked them to heal him. And the disciples could not heal him. So painful is the frustrated complaint on this father's lips: he told the disciples to cast out the devil, and they could not. They could not! It is astonishing what this father demands of Jesus' disciples: he expects of them, he asks of them, he hopes of them what even the greatest scientists and the greatest doctors of his time could not do: to cast the disease out of his child. In short, it could be said that he expected them to perform a miracle. A special miracle, the kind of miracle their Master would perform and the kind of miracle their Master had empowered them to perform.
You have heard the Word. Is this perhaps a very heightened demand for ordinary people like Jesus' disciples? But Brothers and Sisters, a very big warning too! It illustrates to some extent what this world would expect of the disciples of Christ. This world would expect them to give some help to the many millions of troubles and miseries of humanity, of human life, to help heal life. That is what this world expects from the disciples of Christ. You know, this demand, this expectation, is often not expressed in such a positive and conscious way to the disciples of Christ, but rather in the form of a disappointed complaint. For example, you may be aware of the fact that Gandhi, at a very young age, wanted to join a Christian denomination and, in Africa, where he was, wanted to enter a Christian church. But he saw a sign on the door which read: "Negroes not allowed". And even though Gandhi was not a Negro, he did not go into that church, he did not want to go in, and from then on he never wanted to go into a place where Negroes were not allowed. For he expected that the followers of Jesus, following their Master's example, would want to heal the wounds that racial and social discrimination had inflicted on the body of humanity. That is what he expected! And he was disappointed!
And many people have been disappointed. But Brothers and Sisters, all those disappointments show that they expected something from Christians, they expected something from Christianity. They expected Christian people to be a different kind of people from other people. Somehow, people on whom the power of evil would be broken, people who would infuse the beauty and goodness of the heavenly world into the ugliness and abomination of the earthly world. In a way, they are those who truly struggle, struggle in the spirit of Christ against poverty, against inhumanity and injustice. And Christian young people are expected by this world to help other young people to resist the passion of blood and drink. And Christian marriages were expected to be blessed communities, sanctified in Christ, from which healing powers would flow to the wounds of other families. The world expected something like this, and was disappointed. Do you know, Brothers and Sisters, that after all this disappointment, there is still something to look forward to in Christianity? It is most evident from the fact that the same sin, the same fall, which the world takes for granted in a non-believer, cannot be forgiven in a believer. He resents it terribly. Because the fall of a believer is more offensive because more is expected of him, something else is expected of him. And then the world says, if one cannot expect something more beautiful and something more pure from those who preach the most beautiful and pure principles, from whom? Then from no one.
Do you feel, Brothers and Sisters, that the world, even if it does not say so, has some great, great claim on us? It is not in vain that it is written in the Epistle to the Romans that this created world is eagerly awaiting the appearance of the sons of God. This created world is longing for people who will show the way, who will show the way out of sexual confusion, who will be examples of beauty and honesty and trustworthiness, who will be people to hold on to, who will help. That's what the world needs! It eagerly awaits the emergence of the true sons of God. And what would it be, Brothers and Sisters, if this world would not only unconsciously, but consciously, express its need for us? And would say that you are a Christian man, you are a follower of Jesus, who healed the sick, who raised the dead, who preached love: give me something to heal my pain, give me something to help me in the struggles of my life, give me something to cleanse my life, give me strength for my temptations!
And what if they brought in really incurable sick people, and then laid them here, like that father laid his sick son, and asked us to lay hands on them and heal them? As our Master did, for we are His disciples and we have received such a mandate from Him. Do you think this is some kind of excessive demand on Christians by the world? If this world knew what promises, what promises of Jesus we have broken, this world would hate us even more than it hates us! The problem is that we can't believe that such things are possible, that such miracles can even happen. And that is a problem! It is that we ourselves do not believe - just as the disciples did not believe - that the healing effects of the Spirit of Christ can flow through a believer, into society and into the life of another person, and there healing can take place and miracles can happen. But oh, how people wait, oh, how they wait! Now I have also experienced in the hospital that where just a tiny little bit of Christ is experienced in a person, other people cling to him, open their hearts to him, tell him their problems, wait for help, wait!
In a case like this one, where a father was waiting for his son to be healed by the disciples, it became clear how much that something we call faith has shrunk in us. How deformed it has become in us, how it has become nothing. How we cannot even believe that miracles can be performed by a believer in Christ. Miracles that relieve and heal the millions of miseries of human life. Yes, we cannot even imagine it. The disciples could not believe it either, and when they asked Jesus why they could not heal this patient, Jesus said, "Because of your unbelief!" It was because they did not believe. The world is disappointed in Christianity because we do not believe. Because we don't believe in the power of God, that God is greater than the problem to be solved and the sin and temptation and tribulation to be overcome. So we do not believe in the power of God. So unusually powerful is this statement of Jesus when he says, "O faithless and degenerate generation, how long will I suffer you, how long will I remain among you!" If only we could feel the pain of Jesus! For Jesus is far more pained by the little faith of his own followers than by the unbelief, mockery, and intrigue of his enemies. And after the bankruptcy is thus revealed, Jesus then says something about faith that is quite breathtaking, which again we do not believe. One such statement is this: "All things are possible for the believer!" And another is, "If you had faith like a mustard seed, nothing would be impossible for you!" It also illustrates what all things would be possible. What promise, what authority, what power! And what a gift, what an opportunity faith is! This word of Jesus suggests that faith is the realization of the power of God. By giving itself as a means for the powers of God to be manifested, to be realized, to work, to be believed. May the powers of God work and be felt. For it is by faith, through faith, that the power of God works and acts. So it is not by faith's own power that the miracles of faith are wrought, but faith brings us into contact with that God before Whom nothing is impossible.
So it is not faith that is great and powerful, but to whom it is directed. God is great and powerful. And the Almighty. That is why he compares faith precisely to the mustard seed, which Jesus says is the smallest of all seeds, but is enough to make the power of God real, to make the power of God real. But the emphasis is not on the faith being big or strong, but on it being alive as a seed! So it must be a living relationship between me and God! Then it makes no difference whether it is big or small! Just as with a wire, it is not important whether it is thick or thin, but whether it conducts electricity. The quality of faith is also decisive in that it leads the heavenly energy into the hearts and makes us partakers of salvation, of forgiveness of sins, of a relationship with God. Get involved with God! And then all God's work in the midst of human faith is a miracle. And so miracles can be performed by the believer in Christ today. This is why Jesus questions the father about his faith when he asks: can you believe this? And then the paradox of unbelieving faith is on the father's lips: "I believe, Lord, help my unbelief!" How strange! You know, when the father finds out that all he has to do is believe, he snaps at him and says, of course I believe Lord, nothing is easier! And the moment he says it, he feels that, oh no, he doesn't believe, he doesn't believe! For that is the hardest thing! I can't even believe for myself! Well, the faith I have is little more than unbelief! And this is what the disciples experienced. They too thought they believed, and then it turned out that they didn't! So it is true for all of us. It is true that we believe and it is true that we do not believe. But how good it is that even in our unbelief we can ask for help! That I believe Lord, help my unbelief. Not in my faith, but in my unbelief. Even in unbelief we can come before God and ask for help.
In conclusion, let me just say that Martin Luther in the 16th century formulated the great question of the century in this way: how do I find a merciful God? This was the great question of the 16th century. Today, the great question of this century could be formulated thus: "How do I find a merciful man?" Man! Because that is what the world is looking for. Where can a merciful man be found today? A man who is willing and able to help. Where can we find the good man, the trustworthy man, the humane man, the man with a pure heart and a pure hand, the man with a pure eye, the just man? Where then, if not among the followers of Christ? Then feel always this unspoken demand and expectation of the world upon you! For this world longs for you to help alleviate and heal the millions of miseries of human life by the power of the Spirit of Christ. And however great this need may be, it is not impossible! Jesus says, "All things are possible for the believer!" So, Brothers and Sisters, for this miracle of God-given faith and for this faith of God-performed miracles, let us pray together, like this:
Teach us to believe, Lord, teach us to ask!
Childlike, teach us to ask for great faith!
Revive my heart,
Inspire me, for thee
Gather souls! Teach me to ask!
(Canto 479, verse 1)
Amen.
Date: 13 February 1966.
Lesson
Mt 10,10-18