Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

Romans 6:20-23, Matthew 12: 43-45

“It finds the house empty…” Matthew 12:44

Is it appropriate to have a thorough summer cleaning in July? We missed our annual spring cleaning this year. As most of you know, our family lives in a neighborhood where the firestorms burned most of our neighbor’s homes. This winter we had ash and then in the spring began the construction dust. As a result, our home needs a thorough cleaning and some repairs that I have been putting off.

What happens if we let something fall into disrepair, failing to keep up with maintenance? What is not maintained, deteriorates. An empty house eventually fills with dust and spider webs. This was as true in Jesus’ day as it is today. Perhaps this is the reason that the people of Jesus’ culture often believed that abandoned houses were haunted by evil spirits. The people could see the deterioration as though the house had a decadent life of its own. Jesus used the image of an abandoned house to warn us of the dangers of not maintaining our spiritual lives.

"Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.

"Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and (B)the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."

Matthew 12:43-45

I hate house maintenance and repairs. I can enjoy the humorous account of the man who ended up filling out an insurance report about his accident during a repair job. He was asked on the form to describe in detail how the accident happened. Here is his description:

“When I found that the hurricane had knocked some bricks off the top of our apartments, I decided to rig a beam with a pulley to hoist the bricks onto the roof. On completion of the task I had several bricks left over, so I loaded them into a barrel and then went to the bottom and cast off the line. I immediately discovered that the bricks were heavier than I was. The barrel of bricks started down, jerking me off the ground. I decided to hang onto the rope. As I was headed up, I met the barrel of bricks coming down and received a hard blow on the shoulder. I continued to the top where my head hit the beam and my fingers became pinched in the pulley. Meanwhile the barrel hit the ground and burst its bottom, allowing all the bricks to tumble out.

I was now heavier than the barrel and started down again at high speed. Halfway down I met the barrel coming up and received injuries to my shins. When I hit the ground, I landed on the bricks, injuring an ankle and getting several cuts. At this point I must have lost my presence of mind, because I let go of the rope. The empty barrel came down, giving me another blow on the head and putting me in the hospital.”

Anyone who has ever done house maintenance and repair knows that it involves balancing two separate activities. Removal of the old, broken material is only half of a repair job. Once the old is removed, then we must replace it with what is fresh and new. Jesus talked about this in his parable of the empty house. The removal of the evil spirit was not enough to keep the house safe and clean. Leaving the house unoccupied led to the return not only of that same spirit but also of seven worse spirits.

Of course, Jesus was not giving advice on home maintenance and repair. He was using this image to talk about spiritual truths. Maintaining our spiritual lives is similar to home maintenance and repair. Spiritual life involves ongoing removal of the old and replacement with the new.

The first step in our spiritual lives is asking God to remove the sin, forgive the past, and give us a fresh start. The old fashioned word for this is repentance. We repent when we admit that we are not able to handle life on our own; we need God’s help. We admit our imperfections and ask Jesus to cleanse us.

This is an important first step in the spiritual life. Some times those who have been Christians for a long time forget to talk about this first step in faith. It happened so long ago that it is almost forgotten and discounted. We must never forget this first step if we are to reach people who have not yet met Jesus. However, this first step was not the focus of Jesus’ parable of the empty house.

The weight of Jesus’ parable falls on the second step, the need to replace the old with something new. The cleansed house in Jesus’ parable just sat empty. Jesus warned his listeners that an empty house does not remain empty. Something always comes to live in it. If we do not intentionally seek the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to lead us into sanctification – the process of growing into holiness and deeper love for God – then we risk possession by an evil spirit. Jesus warned that the final situation could end up worse than the original situation. It is possible, according to this parable, for a person to get just enough religion to get worse instead of better. How could this happen?

Her mother was an alcoholic. She was teary as she revealed to me the secrets that she dared not share with the rest of the youth group. She described scenes of emotional abuse by her mother. She told me some of the awful names her mother called her. As much as she hated her home life and wanted out, this girl knew it wasn’t her mother, it was the alcohol.

We prayed together that God would touch her mother and set her free from the alcohol addiction. Then an amazing thing happened. Her mother stopped drinking entirely. Perhaps God used the threat of serious illness to motivate her. One thing was sure. It was so sudden that the daughter and I counted it a miraculous answer to our prayers. I remember the daughter’s tears of relief when her mother stopped drinking. Everything would be better now.

Soon, however, the daughter was back in my office asking for advice. The hurtful words and emotional abuse were continuing. Now the daughter could no longer blame it on the alcohol. In her “Teen Alanon” group the daughter learned a new phrase: “dry drunk.” “I think my mom is a dry drunk,” she shared with me.

I later had an opportunity to talk with the mother. In my conversations with her I realized what had happened. The mother wanted just enough spirituality to get free of the alcohol, but not enough of God to genuinely change her life. She welcomed the thought that Jesus would forgive her past, but didn’t think she needed him to guide her present or future. She wanted just enough spiritual life to be sober, but not enough to break old patterns and become truly healthy in her relationships.

I met one last time with the daughter. She came back from college to attend her mother’s funeral. Reflecting on her mother’s life, the daughter told me that the final situation felt worse than the former. She used to blame her mother’s actions on the alcohol. When it continued after her mom became sober, the daughter concluded it was just plain meanness. In her mind, meanness was worse than drunkenness.

Jesus’ parable of the haunted house forces us to ask some uncomfortable questions. How much of God do we really want? Are we asking for just enough of Jesus to have forgiveness but not enough of the Holy Spirit to let God genuinely change our hearts and transform our lives? If our spiritual life is a house, then have we invited Jesus into the living room and given him permission to rearrange the magazines, but refused to let him control the remote to the television? Are we saying in essence, “Jesus, I need you to rescue my finances, but don’t tell me I need to learn the discipline of tithing.” Are we trying to confine Jesus to the living room and refusing to let him cleanse the secret sins hidden in the hallway closets? “Jesus, what sinful stench are you talking about? I don’t smell anything.” Here is the real question: Are we willing to ask Jesus to help us not only toss the old worthless things, but also help us redecorate the entire house?

The shocking part of this parable, however, is that Jesus was talking about an entire generation. Yes, the private spiritual life is like house maintenance. However, Jesus told this parable as a warning that an entire generation could become like the haunted house. How could an entire generation lose its soul?

Maybe the problem is that we have redefined the meaning of generation. Today we use the word generation to refer to specific groupings. The “greatest generation” went through World War II and gave birth to the “baby boomers” born in the fifties and sixties. Sociologists reflect on the “buster” generation who grew up with computers and received more targeted marketing through their youth than any previous generation. This is not what Jesus was talking about when he used the word generation.

Jesus used this parable to address the cynical doubts of the religious leaders of his day. They were so locked in on the rules and traditions that it upset them to have him heal and help people on the holy day. When people in the crowd celebrated the healings as acts of God’s Spirit, these religious leaders denounced Jesus as having an evil spirit. Jesus was pretty severe with those religious leaders. “You brood of vipers!” “Evil and adulterous generation!”

Using their own image of an evil demon possessing Jesus, he tells this story about the haunted house being cleaned up only to become repossessed by multiple evil spirits. He uses the haunted house parable to describe a group of leaders who were so uptight about the rules that they forgot about the joy of God’s loving touch. They defined themselves by what they were against, not what they were for. They saw themselves as the gatekeepers to protect their congregation from anything and anyone who did not follow their rules.

Here is the truth: the Holy Spirit enjoys the freedom to work with abandon. The Spirit refuses to be confined to our rules and traditions. This is why Jesus was a threat. He represented the intoxicating power of the Holy Spirit who bubbles up in joy and healing, breaking the religious rules in a celebration of God’s love. The religious leaders, instead of becoming drunk on God’s bubbly, joyful Holy Spirit, as a group became a mean “dry drunk.”

Can a church feel like a mean “dry drunk”? When I went to a church in Arizona it was nick-named the “cemetery on the hill” by the community. The average age of the congregation was late sixties to early seventies. When Kate and I arrived with our four children we doubled the Sunday school population. Somehow, without meaning to, they had alienated the younger generation. So the congregation called me to bring in young families. That is what they said. Just one problem. What they meant was “bring the young families without upsetting what we are already doing.” Of course it never works that way.

In the first couple of years we made some intentional choices to become attractive to younger families. Pretty soon we had a vibrant youth program and an active children’s ministries. We opened a pre-school weekly program. While the services were filling with new young families, I knew the pressure was building as the long-time faithful members struggled with the changes. Then it happened.

One of the charter members of the congregation, a man in his late seventies, called me over during the coffee/fellowship hour following a service. He pointed to a young boy running across the fellowship hall and said, “That boy just knocked into me and I nearly spilled my hot coffee!” He paused and stared at me to be sure he had my full attention. I thought, “Here we go. I’m in for a lecture about why he doesn’t like the recent changes and all these new people.” He then surprised me with a smile as he completed his thought. “It sure feels good to have children back in our church!’