Megan Wildhood is a longtime friend. I respect her insights without reservation even though we have often divergent paths and perspectives. I was delighted to receive this submission recently. What follows are Megan’s insights and not my own. Happy reading and Happy New Year!
“14And when [the disciples] came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like 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 for you.”
~Matthew 17:14-20, English Standard Version (ESV)
Intro
There are many strange things in this passage, as is true about nearly the whole of Scripture. This is why it is imperative to read these words (and let them read you) in community and with the Holy Spirit. My prayer for you, reader, is that you take this text as well as my words about it into your secret place with the Lord and let Him use (or not use) them as He will. I do not pretend to be an authority; I simply offer what I believe the Lord has revealed to me about His word in Matthew 17; but we all see through a glass darkly.
I won’t be able to discuss all of the riches of this piece of Scripture in this short post. What I’ll be highlighting from this passage are a few lessons we can learn about Jesus’ attitude toward mental illness and how we as the body of Christ can welcome and care for those who have it: 1) we are to be known for healing just as Jesus and his disciples were known for healing, 2) we need to have faith in the one who provides that healing, though that faith can be tiny, and 3a) healing comes from the Lord 3b) in community.
Disclaimers
In ESV, it’s not obvious that this passage might be about mental/emotional distress. In other translations, the phrase “he has seizures” appears as “he is a lunatic” (King James, New American Standard, The Darby Translation) or “he goes out of his mind” (The Message) or “he is off his head” (The Bible in Basic English). It is difficult to draw a line between the physical and the mental/emotional and much has been written elsewhere about the nature of suffering, pain, and consciousness. Suffice it to say that, whether this boy had seizures “or” was not in his right mind is not the point of this passage and Scripture, as far as I understand it, does not make much of an effort to delineate between physical and mental sickness in general. What it emphasizes is the healing power of Jesus and the covenant commitment to the eventual and complete healing of the cosmos God made on the cross.
The debate about what causes mental illness continues both in the secular and in the faith-filled world. In the interest of transparency, I will say that, based on my experience personally and in the social work field, I believe that most but not all of what presents as mental (and physical) illness has a spiritual component to it. I believe Scripture demonstrates that demons can and do cause mental as well as physical illnesses, though I don’t know in what percentage of cases.
In this passage, the boy was suffering from seizures/insanity for some time; Jesus casts the demon out and the boy is healed instantly. In Mark 5, the man living among the tombstones and unable to be restrained even by chains is in his right mind after Jesus briefly speaks with the unclean spirit afflicting the man and casts it out into a herd of pigs. According to Matthew 8, Jesus’ disciples have the ability to heal the sick, cast out demons, cleanse lepers, and raise the dead (otherwise why would He have commanded them to do so?). Getting rid of demons is important to Jesus. Yet, Jesus does not spend time parsing physical from mental when He encounters an afflicted person. Sometimes He casts out a demonic spirit, and sometimes, He uses His spit to make mud to smear on blind eyes. I take this to mean that we need to rely on Jesus for discernment in how we are to pray for those who need healing and not that we should seek a formula relating demonic possession/ oppression and illness of any kind. It’s possible that the spit/dirt mud concoction was how that particular demonic spirit of blindness flees!
Whatever the case, this should not be taken as advice to start or stop medications or other treatments readers may be undergoing. Those decisions should be made by the reader in communication with their care team, loved ones, and the Lord.
Known for healing
Much has been written and preached on the role of persistence in prayer, specifically “contending for healing.” But what we don’t hear a lot about, to our detriment, is the role of other people in our healing. This passage shows us two ways community is involved in the healing of this young boy.
First, the father is taking a stand for his son’s wellness. He has already taken him to the disciples and, when that did not cure his boy, he did not give up. He took his boy to Jesus. We don’t know anything from the passage about the level of faith this father had—it could have been sheer desperation that was driving him to try anything—but he did not give up after his first attempt(s?) did not restore his son to full health. What we see here is someone contending for a loved one’s healing when that person is presumably unable to do so for themselves. The story in Mark 2 of a paralyzed man’s friends tearing a hole in the roof of the place where Jesus was preaching echoes the point: we are meant to pursue Jesus for healing for others as they are not able to for themselves.
Second, it was not just Jesus that was known for healing; his disciples had gotten the reputation among the crowds for being able to heal as well. Why else would the boy’s father in verse 16 say that he brought his afflicted son to the disciples? He brought his sick child to the disciples first, which could have been mere logistics, but either way, the father knew to seek healing for his son in Jesus’ community. What a difference would it make in the lives of those who deal with mental illness if the church was known specifically for being a people of healing?
Little Faith
The disciples, however, could not heal him. These are the people who had just personally witnessed the Transfiguration of Jesus shortly before this passage. Jesus rebukes not only them but their entire generation for being “faithless” and “twisted,” bemoaning how long He must put up with them. This is not as harsh or passive aggressive as it might seem: Imagine demonstrating your love to a friend or partner over and over again only to have them continually mistrust you and dismiss your efforts. You’d probably be frustrated, too! You’d probably also be hurt.
Pop Christianity has it that, when someone doesn’t get healed, it is that person’s “fault” for not having sufficient faith. But if we read Jesus’ words in verse 20 carefully, it is actually the faith of the disciples—not the boy—that was lacking such that it prevented his healing. The disciples had been walking with Jesus for a while now, and still were not able to keep His commands, which He says in John 14:15 is what those who love Him do. The small amount of faith the disciples possessed hurt Jesus—they had just seen Him transfigured before their eyes and that still left them with little faith. Since faith is a gift (2 Peter 1:1, Philippians 1:29, Acts 3:16), possessing little of it might even mean that the disciples have rejected what Jesus has freely offered.
Ultimately, I think what Jesus means here by “little” faith is actually no faith. In response to the disciples’ question about why they could not cast out the demon afflicting the young boy, Jesus says in verse 20 that all the faith that is needed to move a mountain is that the size of a mustard seed. The disciples were focused on themselves and their failure to heal this boy, but Jesus says that, if they had had even miniscule faith in the right place—in God and not themselves—they would be able to command mountains to move with just their words. And, lest we presume this demon was bigger than a mountain (it can feel that way sometimes!), He promises that faith “like a grain of mustard seed” will make it so that “nothing is impossible for you.”
What is faith like a grain of mustard seed? The common understanding is about size: you don’t need a lot of faith at all when it’s in Jesus. But what if it’s taking about the seed itself? Mustard seeds are teensy; yet they produce prolifically. What if faith like a mustard seed is putting whatever amount of faith one has “in the ground”—putting it to work, cultivating it, and caring for it even when it seems like nothing is happening. This is one way we care for those in our community who are sick or suffering.
Takeaways
Whatever the source of illness (physical or mental) is, a part of healing is surrendering one’s grip on self-reliance and allowing one’s community to support them. It is the Lord who ultimately brings healing. This means that we do not need to add another burden upon one already suffering from mental illness by telling them that they need to drum up more faith for their own healing. What we need to do, instead, is surround those contending with mental and emotional distress in community, which means, among other things, using our faith—that only has to be the size of a pinprick—to bring them to Jesus.
Megan Wildhood is a writer, editor and writing coach who helps her readers feel seen in her monthly newsletter, poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), her full-length poetry collection Bowed As If Laden With Snow (Cornerstone Press, May 2023, which you can order through Megan’s website or through the press’s website – scroll down to her name and follow the ordering instructions) as well as Mad in America, The Sun and elsewhere. You can learn more about her writing, working with her and her mental-health and research newsletter at meganwildhood.com.
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