There's an interesting scene in Matthew, Chapter 17, right after Jesus goes up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John and gets transfigured right before their eyes. While all this is going on apparently the rest of the disciples, who, if you remember had been given power to heal and cast out demons, have been trying to exorcise a "demon-possessed" boy without success.
As usual, there's quite a crowd gathered around and I imagine that they are not very happy. Now, different translations say the boy either was a lunatic, was demented or was an epileptic. Either way, he's having such severe meltdowns that it causes him to fall into the fire or into water and the father justifiably is worried about his son's safety. He says to Jesus, "I brought him to your disciples but they could not heal him." So whatever was bothering the kid was something that was visible. Did they pray over him only to see him have a seizure? This is definitely not what Jesus promised! So they are frustrated as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see (although Matthew doesn't say this) that some of the townspeople had rocks in their hands. And of course the local Pharisees and synagogue officials are standing by with smirks on their faces. Not a good scene at all.
So what does Jesus say? He gives them a lecture on unbelief and actually says, "How long must I stay with you? How long must I put up with you?" (Wait a minute, I thought the Christmas story said He willingly came to sacrifice Himself out of love for us, this sure doesn't sound like it here). Then he tells them to bring the kid to him, he tells the demon (aha! it was a demon after all!) to go you know where, and "at that very moment the boy was healed." No kidding.
Now the disciples want to know what's what, how come they couldn't drive the demon out, and Jesus says, "it's because you didn't have enough faith. If you have faith as big as a mustard seed you can move mountains. You can do anything."
"You can do anything." Now that's a pretty bold promise. And later on the disciples do get to do some pretty spectacular things. But it looks like faith, the kind of faith that's talked about here, pretty much died out shortly thereafter. As Pastor said one Sunday, "if you can heal the sick, raise the dead, then I want you to go out and do that." Well, apparently there isn't even a mustard seed's worth of faith in that church or any other.
Now there is something called the placebo effect, which is real, but poorly understood, except that faith, belief, plays a part in it. That is why we do so much testing where I work. We want to rule out the placebo effect in the drugs we test. And animals, not having any expectations about what they are being given or why they are being given it, are perfect for this because they cannot be affected by placebos (although we do test using known placebos as a comparison).
Every so often we sing a song called "Remedy", but I wonder, are we really offering a remedy or a placebo? Especially when the last line of the song says, "This world has nothing for me . . ." Yes, there are lives that have been turned around by religion. But a placebo is not a true remedy. Even though it has been shown time and time again that in some patients a sugar cube is just as effective as a drug when it comes to easing pain (for example), it would be irresponsible for a drug company to market that sugar cube as say, Vicodin. Yes, one has to have faith that what is being prescribed is safe, effective and is what it claims to be, but that is an entirely different kind of faith. Placebos violate that faith because they take advantage of trust.
As usual, there's quite a crowd gathered around and I imagine that they are not very happy. Now, different translations say the boy either was a lunatic, was demented or was an epileptic. Either way, he's having such severe meltdowns that it causes him to fall into the fire or into water and the father justifiably is worried about his son's safety. He says to Jesus, "I brought him to your disciples but they could not heal him." So whatever was bothering the kid was something that was visible. Did they pray over him only to see him have a seizure? This is definitely not what Jesus promised! So they are frustrated as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see (although Matthew doesn't say this) that some of the townspeople had rocks in their hands. And of course the local Pharisees and synagogue officials are standing by with smirks on their faces. Not a good scene at all.
So what does Jesus say? He gives them a lecture on unbelief and actually says, "How long must I stay with you? How long must I put up with you?" (Wait a minute, I thought the Christmas story said He willingly came to sacrifice Himself out of love for us, this sure doesn't sound like it here). Then he tells them to bring the kid to him, he tells the demon (aha! it was a demon after all!) to go you know where, and "at that very moment the boy was healed." No kidding.
Now the disciples want to know what's what, how come they couldn't drive the demon out, and Jesus says, "it's because you didn't have enough faith. If you have faith as big as a mustard seed you can move mountains. You can do anything."
"You can do anything." Now that's a pretty bold promise. And later on the disciples do get to do some pretty spectacular things. But it looks like faith, the kind of faith that's talked about here, pretty much died out shortly thereafter. As Pastor said one Sunday, "if you can heal the sick, raise the dead, then I want you to go out and do that." Well, apparently there isn't even a mustard seed's worth of faith in that church or any other.
Now there is something called the placebo effect, which is real, but poorly understood, except that faith, belief, plays a part in it. That is why we do so much testing where I work. We want to rule out the placebo effect in the drugs we test. And animals, not having any expectations about what they are being given or why they are being given it, are perfect for this because they cannot be affected by placebos (although we do test using known placebos as a comparison).
Every so often we sing a song called "Remedy", but I wonder, are we really offering a remedy or a placebo? Especially when the last line of the song says, "This world has nothing for me . . ." Yes, there are lives that have been turned around by religion. But a placebo is not a true remedy. Even though it has been shown time and time again that in some patients a sugar cube is just as effective as a drug when it comes to easing pain (for example), it would be irresponsible for a drug company to market that sugar cube as say, Vicodin. Yes, one has to have faith that what is being prescribed is safe, effective and is what it claims to be, but that is an entirely different kind of faith. Placebos violate that faith because they take advantage of trust.
