Don't Give Up

Don’t give up

Luke 9:37 – 43a

Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H Koplitz

Luke 9:37 On the next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large

crowd met Him. 38 And a man from the crowd shouted, saying, “Teacher, I beg

You to look at my son, because he is my only son, 39 and a spirit seizes him and he

suddenly screams, and it throws him into a convulsion with foaming at the mouth;

and only with difficulty does it leave him, mauling him as it leaves. 40 “And I begged

Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” 41 And Jesus answered and said,

“You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and put up

with you? Bring your son here.” 42 Now while he was still approaching, the demon

slammed him to the ground and threw him into a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the

unclean spirit, and healed the boy and gave him back to his father. 43 And they were

all amazed at the greatness of God

In Luke’s gospel chapter 9 starting on the 37th verse, we have an abbreviated story that

we can find in Matthew and Mark’s gospel. In Mark’s gospel, we have the full narrative

of what was going on. For some reason, Luke decided to abbreviate, and in certain

ways, made it more difficult to understand. But we’re going to look at it and see what’s

most important that Jesus is trying to tell us.

The story is about a father who brings his only son before Jesus, who is suffering from

epilepsy. We know that it is epilepsy because we get a description of what was

happening to the boy. And before I say a lot more about this narrative, I have to tell

you that people did not understand some of the medical conditions that occurred. In

this case, epilepsy was known, however in Jesus’ day the cause of epilepsy was attributed

to demons possessing the person. Therefore, the crowd that surrounded Jesus to see

the healing believed that the boy had been possessed by demons.

There were people known as healers in those days that certain roots mixed would calm

down the effects of epilepsy. Perhaps Jesus also used these roots to help this boy.

However, from the crowd’s point of view, it didn’t matter how Jesus cured the boy.

What mattered was he cured the boy, thus ridding him of the demons. So, we have a

narrative that tells us that Jesus’ disciples could not cure the boy, but that Jesus could.

The disciples did not have a lot of experience in healing people. Jesus sent them out on

a mission before this narrative, and they did what they could. However, they were only

partially trained. Therefore, when we find out in Luke’s gospel that at this point, they

were unable to heal the boy. Many times, interpreters would say they didn’t have enough

faith yet. I would say instead that they weren’t fully trained. They needed more

education.

Let me ask you this. Would you go to a doctor who wasn’t quite a doctor yet because

they hadn’t finished medical school and expect to be fully healed? Of course not. You

would want to go to a doctor who graduated from medical school and did his or her

residencies and their internships and knew their stuff. The disciples were men who did

not yet graduate from the school of Jesus. Therefore, they couldn’t cure the boy because

they weren’t fully trained yet as to how to handle that situation.

If you look at it that way, we see a different approach to the narrative. One of the things

that caught my attention when reading this narrative is that even though the disciples

failed to cure the boy, they did not give up. Instead, they were eager to learn why they

didn’t do it. Have there been any opportunities in your life where you couldn’t do some

tasks, and you gave up instead of trying again.

I bet if you think back, and I’m going to go way back to when we were little kids, that

there was a point where you did not know how to tie your shoes. Even though your

parents or your brother or sister showed you how to do it, you couldn’t do it. Did you

give up, or did you keep working until you figured out how to tie that shoe?

Now, maybe that’s part of the problem with kids growing up today. Now you’re

probably thinking, Mike, what do you mean by that? I do remember that when my

grandchildren were young, instead of giving them shoes to tie, they were able to buy

shoes that had Velcro, so they didn’t have to tie them. They only learned to tie their