Saturday August 12, 2017
The disciples had been sent out earlier with “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Mt 10:1). But here was a case that defeated them. They were a long way now from the top of the mountain and the experience of the Trans¬figuration (see yesterday’s reading). Now they were in the valley, or what Bunyan called “the Slough of Despond”. Mountains are for the big vision. But the three principal disciples on that occasion had been asleep, and awoke only for the peak experience. Now in the valley they wonder why they can’t do anything. Their faith, Jesus told them, was less than the size of a mustard seed. This was the small vision!
But if their faith were the size of a mustard seed, he told them, they could move mountains. Even if they were not up to the big vision, they could still do great work.
How he stretched them! How humble they must have felt, much of the time, and how uneasy with themselves! There’s not one of us who hasn’t slept through mysteries; we are those sleepy disciples. When we want to feel ‘comfortable with our faith’ he wakes us up. How? Through disappointments, through unflattering insights into ourselves, through suffering….
