Prop: mustard seeds, brew pot

[Optional beginning: stew.... adding one small anise seed, or garlic flower, or mustard seed can radically change the taste of your stew, can transform it in fact.]

As we come into the new year, many of us have plans stewing, ideas brewing, and we mean to go forward with resolutions in hand and resolve in order. We want to change our lives. We want to alter our behavior. We want to make things happen. We want to move mountains.

And yet, our scriptures for today would challenge those well-intentioned plans and blueprints. For what does the scripture tell us when Jesus’ frustrated disciples tried in vain to exorcise a demon? When they found, they couldn’t do it….

“Afterward the disciples came to Jesus privately and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” “Bec…