August 9th, 2026

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Quite literally, in

the light of the Transfiguration, what the Church

calls its Afterfeast, where the Lord takes Peter,

James, and John up Mount Tabor to enter into

the cloud and atmosphere, Of the spirit. That

they would see Jesus transfigured before them.

In uncreated light. With Moses and Elijah. And

hear the voice of God the father speak to them.

About his divine son. To listen to him. The Lord

now leads these three disciples. Back down the

mountain. Into a crowd of people. To encounter

another father. speaking about another son. According

to this father, however, this son doesn't need

to be listened to. Rather, he needs mercy. Lord,

have mercy on my son. Like the centurion a month

or so ago, maybe six weeks ago, this man doesn't

need to experience something like the transfiguration.

or what the disciples regularly see to address

Jesus with the divine name of Israel's God. Not

a title like Master or Despotah, but again, Lord,

Kirios, the divine name, God. The man's son has

been possessed by a demonic power, which is trying

to drown him in water. and trying to burn him

in fire. Sometimes modern translations render

the son's condition here as epilepsy, but that's

not right. The boy isn't suffering from a neurological

disease. Rather, the son has quite literally

been moonstruck. Selene, purportedly a Greek

goddess embodying the moon, or is lunatic, as

the King James puts it, luna being the Latin

for moon. And the father, the boy's father, likely

having heard that Jesus gave power over evil

spirits to his disciples back in Matthew 10,

asks the other nine disciples, those not with

Christ on the mountain, to heal the boy. But

they can't. Particularly since we've just seen

the Lord and Moses together on Mount Tabor, here

the narrative echoes what came before in the

Old Testament. As Moses was up on Mount Sinai,

in the cloud, speaking with the Lord what Aaron

and the Israelites were doing down below, faithlessly

worshiping demons in the form of the golden calf.

Here, the other disciples aren't worshiping demons,

thankfully. Rather, they are trying to cast them

out. Nevertheless, as he rebukes the demon and

heals the boy, Christ says the very same things

about the disciples that he said to Moses all

the way back in Deuteronomy. You faithless and

twisted generation getting to the heart of Matthew's

point. The point of today's gospel isn't about

what Jesus can do. It's about what his disciples

should be able to do. Empowered. It's about discipleship

and faith, the power of faith, or perhaps its

lack of power here. The question isn't, why can

Jesus heal the boy, with the answer being, well,

he is God. The question here is, why can't the

disciples heal him? Exactly what they asked Christ

in private. Why could we not cast it out? Because

of your little faith. That's the Lord's response.

That's the better rendering. It does say unbelief

two times in the narrative. But that third time,

it says, because of your little faith. That's

technically what it says. That's what the Lord

says. The character of their faith is little.

The idea here is that the offering of their faith

is meager, tiny. It is small. I think a better

way to put it, maybe, to really kind of viscerally

feel it, it is stingy. Generous with respect

to the things of this world, and yet stingy towards

God. Christ adds that their faith is also twisted.

and perverse, convoluted with the things of this

world. It's character. In Matthew's gospel, there

are different kinds of faith that one can express

in God, a spectrum of sorts of faith. For example,

a faith that believes that Jesus is who he says

he is, the God of Israel and human flesh, even

the Son of God. That's faith. An intellectual

ascent. That's faith. And yet, that kind of faith

alone isn't ultimately what Jesus is looking

for and trying to cultivate in his disciples.

Now, because he is kind and patient with us,

he will accept that kind of faith. Nevertheless,

if his disciples want to experience the power

of Mount Tabor, The transfiguration, that same

uncreated light and energy which pours forth

out from the depths of God to course into his

people and animate their faith, to share and

to benefit in his divine power and life. Even

now, they must actively set their mind on that

same life in prayer and in fasting. as Christ

puts it very plainly, cultivating an active and

living faith, a faith that believes in God as

the one who spoke and the world came into being,

to use an ancient Jewish saying. That's the faith

that animated Peter last week to walk out onto

that sea toward Christ until he took his eyes

off Christ and looked at the wind. And started

sinking. That's the faith that according to Jesus

can move the mountains to perform what is humanly

impossible in our own strength and wisdom. The

point today is not for me to stand up here and

say to all of you, just have more faith. Rather,

it's to ask us, brothers and sisters, is our

faith rooted in God's power in life? Does our

faith have an active life? Is there a heartbeat

in our faith? Does our faith pound like our heart

pounds when we are strenuously exercising? Or

is our faith meager? Is it generous towards the

things of this world? Generous towards the cares

of this life? but stingy towards God. The fact

of the matter remains that the Lord loves us

regardless of our faith. Full stop. But our experience

of that love will be commensurate with how much

of ourselves we give away toward God. What I

mean is how much of God's love we experience.

it corresponds to how much we love God, to how

much we give of ourselves away from our own pursuits,

from our own comforts, from our own pleasures,

from our own desires, from our own cares. And

we give ourselves to God in love for Him. We

empty ourselves. Of the things of this world.

In order that we might be filled by his light

and life and spirit. And that he might animate

us. So that we might experience the love of God.

Coursing and pounding in our heart. On fire for

him. And so we have to ask. Because the text

very plainly forces us to. Do we pray? Do we

situate ourselves in the life of the church?

Do we look at our lives and what we do in our

bodies with our time, with our resources, with

our talents, with our abilities, with our inabilities?

If we are younger, with our youthful energy,

if we are retired, with our retirement and availability,

do we look at these things as an offering toward

God? The very things that we come and set before

him at the Lord's table. Do we fast? I mean,

we are literally in the Dormition fast, of which

we started by processing around and celebrating

the cross and its power to heal, its power to

give life, its power to take away evil and disease.

and of which on the sixth day we beheld the uncreated

light of the transfiguration, what can give us

the life and energy to empty ourselves up as

tabernacles, to clean out the gunk and make room

for Christ, and depend not on our own power and

obsession with the cares and comforts of this

world, but the power to become partakers of the

divine life. as we depend less on food, ourselves,

and American comforts, and feel weaker, but depend

more on Christ to act through us, with the hope

that we might actually become Christians, and

not simply call ourselves that, to use St. John

Chrysostom's line. That we might become like

the mother of God who we're preparing to celebrate.

Who tabernacles, that we might become like her,

like tabernacles that house Christ in our bodies,

in our hearts, in us. So that what is corruptible

in us, what is perishing, what is dying in us,

might become incorruptible and be swallowed up

with divine glory, light, and life. That's exactly

what St. Paul gets at today in our epistle reading.

The apostles have become a spectacle to the world.

Humanity is looking in. Even the angels are looking.

They have become a theater to all. A laughing

stock as men condemned to death. Fools. Idiots

for Christ's sake. Weak dishonor. Inglourious,

hungry, starving, thirsty, poorly clothed, beaten

to a pulp, homeless, laboring with their hands,

when reviled, yet they are blessed, persecuted,

yet enduring, slandered, spoken behind their

backs, said false things about them, made to

be filth, treated as the dregs of society, the

scum of this world. I could use a worse word

than that. the refuse of all things. Or like

St. Herman, who we commemorate and we remember

today, who I won't say much about since I spoke

about him last night, but who left a celebrated

monastic life in Russia to give himself away

to oppressed people in Alaska, in the middle

of nowhere, who came with nine other guys, who

all died. and left him by himself, so that those

people there in Alaska, that they might know

God. To use Paul's words, the apostle doesn't

say these things to shame us. No, but rather

to warn us, to shake us up. Notice, he calls

us to imitate his way of life. Follow me, or

more literally, imitate me. as I imitate Christ,

which of course is the Apostle's way of manifesting

the cross of Christ in our life. The cross that

has the power to save, the power to animate faith,

the power to enliven and heal, the power to move

mountains, certainly the power to help us pray

fast and become less dependent and focused on

our earthly comfort. It is the same power that

courses from the cross that addresses the very

boy's sufferings. The same word is used by his

father to describe what the Lord will undergo

at the cross. Pascha. Sufferings. The cross destroys

the power of evil. In a season of fasting, where

we ought, we should be more introspective, we

might ask ourselves, if the apostles hung out

with us and sort of tailed us around, followed

us around, which they and the saints actually

do, believe it or not, would they see in our

life anything that resembles their own sacrifice

and faith? To be fair, to be fair, I genuinely

hope, and that isn't wishful thinking, I genuinely

hope that they would see something. But that

said, we all know here, all of us know, that

there would be massive blind spots, and perhaps

some spots not so blind, that they and the Lord

would call, that they would put their finger

on, and they would call faithless, stingy. and

twisted. It's those things in our faith that

we need to pinpoint, that we need to feel the

Lord's finger pressing on our heart, and with

Christ's mercy, with Christ's compassion, with

his help, with the power of his cross, repent,

let go of, confess, and then actually change

our lives. actually turn our lives towards Christ

without wasting the season of this past, but

letting it work on us without shame and bring

into His light the light of Mount Tabor and transfigure

so that our faith might have renewed vitality,

power, and life. May God help us and have mercy

on us. Amen.