If You Can

Mark 9:14-29

“If you can….!”

23 Yeshua said to him, “What do you mean, ‘if you can’? Everything is possible to someone who has trust!”

In the Greek, the phrase ‘what do you mean’ just isn’t there. Not. There.

This is a very vivid story. Jesus is standing there watching this boy straining in convulsions on the ground in front of him, and very clinically and dispassionately asks the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” When the father says, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” Jesus gets snarky and mimics him— “If you can…!”  Now, I feel compelled to ask, “What’s the point of all these stories about Jesus being sarcastic, impatient, frustrated, and exasperated?”

I found all kinds of convoluted explanations on the internet, most of which tried to defend Jesus from any implication that he might have ever been exasperated, or mocked anyone, or said anything caustic, sarcastic, impatient or dismissive. I was discouraged and incredulous at this. It led me to wonder why it is that the simple, straightforward, descriptive accounts of Christ’s words and conduct should be twisted and manipulated to make him conform to our delicate sensibilities. Honestly, that is such a lousy thing to do! I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole by trying to analyze why we might want to whitewash Jesus’s character this way. Instead, I want to paint a picture of Jesus as a strong, vigorous, concise, astute, observant, intuitive, insightful person with a wit like a razor-blade. Let’s not give in to the temptation to dumb Jesus down! The question of why we would do that is a topic for another day.

So here we are with a story of ineffectual disciples who are trying to do what they think Jesus does, and failing. The story starts out with a raucous argument. Jesus wanders in, and everybody gets excited and runs up to him. Jesus wants to know what the dispute is about. People enthusiastically recap the disagreement for him, which seems to have been mostly about the disciple’s failure to perform. Jesus gets fed up, and lets loose: “Untrusting generation! How long must I be among you? How long must I put up with you?” Why did Jesus get mad? Could it have been because they were more concerned about other people’s opinions of them, and their own need to defend their reputations, than they were about the poor kid with fits? No wonder Jesus gets a little wound up!

Apparently the boy wasn’t even nearby, because Jesus says, “Bring him to me.” As soon as the boy arrives, the argument is over, because he falls down right in front of everyone and demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt what is more important than their egotistic arguments. Of course, then the father puts his foot in it even farther by saying “if you can” to Jesus. Jesus just loses it right here— “If you can!.... it isn’t about whether or not I can! Anybody can if they just have a little trust! Are you still going on about who can and who can’t? Are you going to go back to that stupid argument right here while your poor son is thrashing around on the ground right in front of you? Idiot!”

And after it’s all over, the disciples still want to know why they couldn’t do it. Jesus just shrugs and says, “Prayer.”

Do you suppose that Jesus was just plain tired of telling people, “It’s not just about you!” ?  Could it be that, in the end, he had to give up on words altogether? Maybe the only way to teach people about the power of trust, was to show them— step by step— all the way to death on an execution-stake.