Mustard Seed Faith and Spiritual Victory

In this powerful sermon, Fr. Nicholas explores faith, humility, and the essential spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting. He reflects on the story of a father's plea to Jesus for his son’s healing and challenges believers to nurture a living faith. With wisdom and compassion, Fr. Nicholas guides the congregation towards spiritual growth.

Transcript

In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In today's gospel, we see a scene filled with both human weakness and divine compassion. The Father comes to our Lord, kneeling before him, crying out for his son. "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely, for he often falls into the fire and often into the water." This boy is under the torment of a demon driving him to destruction. The disciples have tried to cast out the spirit, but they could not. And here Christ rebukes, "Oh faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?" and then rebukes the demon and the child is healed instantly.

The apostles ask why they could not heal him. Christ answers plainly, "Because of your unbelief. Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you'll say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you." And he adds, "However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."

The father does not begin with theological argument or self-justification. He does what every sinner must do first. He kneels and cries, "Lord, have mercy." Before faith becomes great, it begins with this simple turning toward Christ. St. John Chrys notes that the man's kneeling is itself a confession of Christ's lordship. He observes, "He did not draw near boasting of his own merits, but kneeling, making supplication." And this is the part of one who feels the weight of his affliction.

In this father's cry, we also hear the voice of countless parents pleading not only for physical healing but for salvation, for wholeness, for the children's return to God. The church has always seen in this cry a model for our prayer, earnest, persistent, humble. This is always the first step towards healing. Placing ourselves at the feet of Christ. Not defending ourselves but begging for mercy.

How often do we, when faced with affliction, first turn to self-reliance or despair or endless explanation? When the first and most important step is simply to place ourselves at the feet of Christ in humility.

Christ's words, faithless and perverse generation, sound harsh to our modern ears, but this is the language of a physician to a stubborn patient. Faithless means lacking trust in God's power. Perverse means a turning away from the straight path. Blessed Theolac explains, "Faithless because they trusted more in themselves than in God. Perverse because they turned aside from the straight way of humility. When faith is absent, life bends inwards on itself. When trust is present, the heart is straightened towards God."

Here Christ exposes not only the disciples' weakness but ours as well. The same Lord who gave them authority over unclean spirits now allows them to stumble to show that power in ministry is not automatic. It is sustained only by a living, active faith.

The Lord does not say we need faith to see the size of a mountain, only that of a mustard seed. Small but alive. St. Theophil explains, "The mustard seed is tiny, but when planted, it grows into something expansive. Faith, if genuine, contains within it the energy of God's grace, and nothing can stop it from growing unless we uproot it ourselves through sin or neglect. We must ask ourselves, is my faith alive, even if small, or is it a stone, solid looking but lifeless?"

The seed grows when it is watered with obedience, prayer, and repentance.

Finally, the Lord reveals the means of spiritual victory. "This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting." Some demons yield to simple rebuke, but others require that one who prays is himself burning with the fire of ascetic discipline. Prayer unites us to God. Fasting weakens the passions that give demons a foothold. Together they make the soul a fortress.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes, "Fasting humbles the soul, and the humbled soul God will not despise." In our age where indulgence is preached as freedom, the church calls us back to fasting not as an old custom but as a living medicine for the soul. Prayer aligns us with the will of God. Fasting disciplines the flesh and trains the soul to hunger for the eternal. Together they open our hearts to true faith. Not merely belief in ideas but trust in the living God.

And so we must ask ourselves, what in our lives remains unhealed because we have not labored in prayer? What demonic forces, anger, pride, lust, despair still control us because we have not fasted with intention or prayed with tears?

At the end of this passage, Christ reminds his disciples, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and the third day he will be raised up." The healing of the boy is not an isolated miracle. He points to the greater healing of all humanity through the cross and resurrection. Every victory over the demonic, every strengthening of faith flows from Golgotha and the empty tomb.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, let us then imitate the father in his humility, the disciples in their willingness to learn from failure, and Christ in his unshakable union with the Father's will. If our faith feels small, let us remember that a mustard seed is enough. If it is alive, let us water it with prayer, strengthen it with fasting, and anchor it in the cross of Christ. Then when the enemy comes, we shall stand not in our own strength, but in the power of him who conquered death. Amen.