After the 'high' of the Transfiguration  on the mountain-top, it's back to business as usual down below. A little like coming home to the Rectory after being in retreat! First up we hear of the Scribes (theologians?) disputing with the apostles who hadn't been privy to the Transfiguration up there. We need theologians. But if theology becomes a matter for dispute rather than God-building or Body-building, we need to take our spiritual bearings. So, too when people are rushing us for answers, decisions,  etc. when that's not really the function we're meant to be playing at the time.

We don't need to put today's scientific knowledge back into 1st C C.E. understandings. In today's terms [let's call the young(?) man, 'Ben'] Ben is likely to have been a sufferer from eplilepsy. We don't need 'demons' to account for Ben's state in the light of today's knowledge. If we aren't prepared to live with & grow with knowledge as it is revealed to us, then we're living in the dark ages when we're meant to be living as children of light.. We mustn't pander to ultra conservatives who want to put the world clock back. God doesn't work that way. YAHWEH is always I AM, never I WAS! Tackling fundamentalism & literalism sensitively but head-on is the only way open to us if we're open to the living God.

Jesus' compassion is as ever to the fore. How do we recognize God? Through Jesus. How do we recognize Jesus? Through his compassion. How do we recognize compassion? By seeing it in each other. Or not at all. "WE are the Body of Christ" we proclaim Eucharist by Eucharist. When that mini-creed is translated into compassion for others outside our church walls & out into life's margins, God is alive & well & at work today. God & Gospel are real.

"Why can't we do it?" as the apostles ask is a question that burns deep in those of us who want to take God's healing ministry through his church seriously. Whatever answer we come up with (some of them are complicated) in the end, no matter how Christ-like we become, we are still not God. But we must keep praying as Jesus teaches here. Not give up because it doesn't work. Keep at it. But a word of warning, let's not be tempted into becoming shysters or falling for them either. It is better to confess failure than to counterfeit success! The great mountain tops are inevitably followed by their Golgothas, for us no less than for Jesus.