The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (17:14-23)
In today’s gospel our Lord Jesus Christ encounters a boy with a terrible form of epilepsy. This disease causes seizures, which are sometimes violent and can occur at any time, unexpectedly. Now in the case of this particular form of epilepsy, there cause of the illness was not simply physical. The issue was deeper. We are told that it was demonic. Modern writers will try to understand these passages through a secular or material worldview that is dictated above all by the rational mind and “scientific” reasoning. So they will dismiss the idea of demonic possession by saying that the gospel writers were unsophisticated men who did not have a proper understanding of medicine and the human body et cetera. But my brothers and sisters this is false. The Lord Jesus Christ had a better understanding of reality than ours. He sees beyond the physical into the spiritual depths. His understanding and comprehension of “what is really going on” is far above anyone else’s either ancient or modern.
The evangelist St. Matthew tells us that Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him. This led to a brief exchange with the disciples. The disciples came in private and asked “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus said to them, “Because you have no faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” The Lord gave a very matter of fact assessment of the situation. The reason why they could not heal the boy was because they lacked the faith necessary to make it a reality. But then the Lord goes on to say something rather curious. He tells the disciples that “ This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.” It is a statement that gives us pause, it makes us curious. These two statements are connected, the statement about their lack of faith and the statement about prayer and fasting. They are connected because according to the Lord when we pray and fast our faith increases, or this allows our faith the ability to increase. Is it any wonder then that in the life of the Orthodox Church we fast more than 200 days of the year? The Church is faithful to her Lord and she desires her children to grow in faith through such tools. Many of you have heard me speak about fasting but I thought it might be nice to share some words about the practice of fasting from our rich and holy Orthodox Christian tradition.
St. Theophan the recluse writes, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” [Matthew 17:14-23] If this kind goes out by the prayer and fasting of another person, then it is even less able to enter one who fasts and prays. What protection! Although there are a slew of demons and all the air is packed with them, they cannot do anything to one who is protected by prayer and fasting. Fasting is universal temperance, prayer is universal communication with God; the former defends from the outside, whereas the latter from within directs a fiery weapon against the enemies. The demons can sense a faster and man of prayer from a distance, and they run far away from him so as avoid a painful blow.”
+ St. Theophan the Recluse
And St. Gregory Palamas who was bishop in the 14th century taught about fasting in relation to Adam as well as to the new adam, who is Jesus Christ when he wrote,
“… Adam chose the treason of the serpent, the originator of evil, in preference to God’s commandment and counsel, and broke the decreed fast. Instead of eternal life he received death and instead of the place of unsullied joy he received this sinful place full of passions and misfortunes, or rather, he was sentenced to Hades and nether darkness. Our nature would have stayed in the infernal regions below the lurking places of the serpent who initially beguiled it, had not Christ come. He started off by fasting (cf. Mk. 1:13) and in the end abolished the serpent’s tyranny, set us free and brought us back to life.” — St. Gregory Palamas, The Homilies Vol. II
St. Gregory goes so far as to say that the salvation of the human race was linked with Our Lord Jesus Christ’s fasting in the wilderness before His earthly ministry. We get the sense from this that fasting was considered a very serious aspect of spiritual life and not something to be discarded or cast aside lightly.
One of the great defenders of the faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria writing in the 4th century said, “Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkenness and bodily comfort. Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things. To fast is to banquet with angels.”+ St. Athanasius the Great
But in all of this we are also frequently given reminders from the Fathers that fasting alone, is not enough. It is a tool to be wielded with a humble and good heart. St. Maximos the confessor writes,
“Many human activities, good in themselves, are not good because of the motive for which they are done. For example, fasting and vigils, prayer and psalmody, acts of charity and hospitality are by nature good, but when performed for the sake of self-esteem they are not good.” -Four Hundred Texts on Love 2.35, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 2)
I share these words with you as an encouragement for those of you who wonder why we undertake such practices in Holy Orthodoxy. Prayerful fasting is one aspect of the grace filled and life giving practices or we might say, therapies of the Church. These all work together by the grace of God to offer us healing and renewal in Christ. May the Lord heal and renew each of us as the lover of mankind. AMEN.
Source: Sermons