First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
January 7, 2001
Scripture: Luke 11:24-26
When I reached what I thought was my lowest point, somebody said to me: “Cheer up; things could be worse.” So I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.
That line did not originate with me. But it could have been written by this poor, unnamed man in Luke’s little parable. The man once harbored a demon. Then the demon left, or was expelled…. the story doesn’t say. The demon wandered the desert in search of lodging. Finding none, it returned to the man. In the meantime, the man had swept, scrubbed and tidied his soul. So the demon went out and collected seven demons worse than itself. Whereupon they entered in. And the Bible says that the man’s “last state” was considerably worse than his first.
It’s a great little story….easy to visualize, albeit hard to understand. But don’t blow any chance at understanding by getting all hung up on whether you believe in demons. What you think doesn’t matter. What matters is what people thought in Jesus’ day. And, concerning those people, there is little room for doubt. First-century folk believed in demons. They believed that demons caused disease. They believe that demons caused dementia. They believed that demons caused depression. And they believed that demons caused deviancy. Much of this belief they borrowed from the Persian and Iranian cultures of their day. And it’s possible that Jesus believed exactly as they did. But it’s also possible that Jesus simply worked within the cultural assumptions of his time. I’m not equipped to solve such questions here. And if I’m not, neither are you.
In present-day conversations, however, I hear precious little talk of demons. People seldom tell me that demons have entered them….or left them. Some people come close when they say things like: “I just don’t know what’s gotten into me”….or “Whatever possessed me to do something like that?” But when I push them, they shy away from demon-talk as such.
I think it fair to say that whatever was bothering this man was both personal and powerful. I also think it fair to say that it was disagreeable and uncomfortable. But then it left. How? Nobody knows. Why? Nobody knows. To go where? Nobody knows. It just left. The man felt better. He breathed a big sigh of relief. He slept nights. He smiled more. He sang in the shower. People began telling him that he looked like his old self. And it must have felt like a monkey off his back….a breath of fresh air in his lungs….and a new broom sweeping clean.
Which is what Luke said. This man was like a tidied-up house. He’d gone through and swept out the corners, ridding the place of crud and cobwebs. He’d gotten it in order. He’d gotten it together. Then, whatever left, came back. Worse than before. Seven times worse than before. And why was that? Because, as Luke tells us, the demon couldn’t find anyplace else to go. For it was believed, don’t you see, that demons couldn’t just run loose. They had to lodge somewhere.
I remember another story about a man who was full of demons. One day, Jesus called their bluff. “Get out of the man’s life,” Jesus said. The demons answered: “We’ll go, but only if you send us into those pigs over yonder.” Demons had to go somewhere, you see. So Jesus obliged, sending the demons into the pigs. Whereupon the pigs got crazy and tumbled over a cliff into the sea. Which is important. Don’t miss that. For it was believed that demons could be neutralized by water. Which means that Jesus played “Let’s Make a Deal” with the demons and still won. Water will trump demons every time. Which is why the demon that departed from the man in Luke’s little story wandered through “waterless places,” looking for lodging. Finding none, it came back to this tidied-up house of a man….bringing seven friends.
And that’s the story. Short. Hardly sweet. More than a little sobering. Minimally edifying. Especially on “New Broom Sweeps Clean Sunday”….which is what the world might call this Sunday (if the world were setting the church’s calendar). It’s “Resolution Time,” is it not? I’m talking about making them….breaking them….pooh-poohing them. I don’t know where you are with them. All I know is that this strange little story somehow speaks to them. But if you don’t believe me, let me hand you three points on a platter….in hopes that one of them might keep you sufficiently interested so as to enable you to hang in there with me. They are as follows:
1. It’s hard to keep a clean house clean.
2. A full house beats a clean house in the great poker game of the soul.
3. Cleanliness is a far, far cry from goodliness.
Let’s start with the obvious. It’s hard to keep a clean house clean. Whenever I go through and clean the parsonage from top to bottom, I say to the wife: “Wife, let’s see if we can keep it this way for a while.” Alas, it seldom works. Someone leaves a coat here, a sock there, a banana peel someplace else, or a dish in the sink. It’s hard to keep a clean house clean. Truthfully, in our house, it is Kris who bears the greater burden and voices the greater complaint. But you knew that anyway. Most of the time, she rolls with it pretty well. I am told that some women can get downright volatile, yelling things like: “What’s the matter with you? Were you born in a barn?” I wonder if Mary ever said that to Jesus? I wonder what Jesus answered? For he was, you know. Born in a barn, that is. Sort of.
Ah, but we’re not talking “housekeeping,” are we? We’re talking about more serious stuff. We’re talking about the tendency to relapse. We’re talking about slip-ups and fall-backs. We’re talking about how easy it is to lose all the ground that one has gained. “Clearly,” says Joseph Fitzmyer, “this saying of Jesus’ warns against any smugness about the defeat of evil.” Don’t get too comfortable, it seems to say. Don’t get too cocky. The thing that tripped you up once can trip you up again.
Consider the diet business. Which we were doing in the church office along about 2:00 on Friday afternoon. Janet Smylie was going through the mail when she read aloud from a printed page: “Banish your belly, bottom and thighs forever.” The epistle wasn’t addressed to Janet. I know who it was addressed to. But in the interest of staff harmony, you won’t hear it from me. But as soon as the words were out of Janet’s mouth, Tina Grubb chimed in: “You know, I’ve heard you can go on the Mayo Clinic diet and lose 52 pounds in two months.” Which prompted Nancy Keesee to counter: “Yes, but do you gain it all back?” There’s the rub, isn’t it? Most of us do….gain it all back, I mean. With more to follow.
The same is true in the drug rehab business. You would think that modern treatment modalities would lead to higher success rates. They don’t. The relapse factor hasn’t changed in 25 years. Would you believe that 30% of those released from a first hospitalization will relapse in 90 days. And the number will jump to 65% in 180 days.
When you apply the “relapse factor” to imprisoned criminals, only the name changes. Among penal authorities, it is called “recidivism.” But whatever you call it, it all points to the same reality. A whole lot of people who get out of jail, go back to jail.
We see the relapse factor in every sphere of life. Bad habits broken are bad habits slipped back into, just when you think you’ve conquered them for good. Destructive thoughts, against which you have barred the front door, reenter through unlocked windows in the basement of the soul. Crippling emotions defy even the best therapies and reappear in moments of weakness and vulnerability. Husbands and wives target harmful postures for removal, only to find that (20 years later) they are still doing the same dumb stuff that has worked against them from the outset. In fact, most every marriage has one issue that simply won’t go away….that threads itself through the history of the union….reappearing at regular intervals. It’s hard to keep a clean house clean.
But a full house beats a clean house, every time out. Notice that in Luke’s little story, the fact that the man cleaned and tidied his house almost invited the demon to return, bringing seven friends along for the ride. If nature abhors a vacuum, so (too) does the human spirit. A swept room is to a demon as a red flag is to a bull. “An empty soul,” says William Barkley, “is a soul in peril.” To which Adam Welch adds: “You’ve got to fill a person with something. It is not enough to merely drive out the evil.”
Years ago, in a sermon by a colleague, I had this explained to me in a way I could understand. Adopting a horticultural image, he suggested that there are two ways to keep weeds from overtaking your lawn. The first way is to pull them out, one by one. You take a knife to the roots. You wear out your knees. You add calluses to your fingers. And you kill countless hours in the process. The second way is to feed and fertilize whatever grass exists….adding seed…. introducing nutrients….aerating the soil….thickening the turf….so that weeds are literally driven from the lawn by the fertility of all that is green and growing. Strangely enough, we are seeing the same subtle shift in the practice of oncology. Whereas once we treated cancer by “destroying the bad calls at any cost,” we now make room for a mentality that includes (and sometimes favors) “reinforcing the army of good cells, the better to repel the invader and hold the enemy at bay.”
Consider the old cliché: “Idle hands are the devil’s playmate.” It could well have its origin in this text. Why do you think that judges are more willing to sign an “early release” for a criminal who (while still in prison) has learned a new skill, lined up a new job, and generated a network of friends who will lend support in the initial days of freedom? Why do you think that recovering addicts go to halfway houses after hospitalization, where they can reprogram their future with minimal risk? And why do you think that no therapy is ever complete until the therapist helps the client deal with the future as well as the past? Because a house that has merely been swept and tidied invites a relapse….while a full house beats a clean house in the great poker game of the soul.
Finally, cleanliness is a far, far cry from goodliness. The “good life” is a whole lot more than just avoiding the bad. It involves cultivating and harvesting the good. Years ago, I walked into a worship service, scanned the bulletin, and saw a prayer printed on the cover. I have since forgotten every line but one. The remembered line reads: “O Lord, I had thought it enough if my garden were weedless….but thou hast desired not weedlessness, but fruit.” Which suggests that God’s judgment is going to come down harder as a result of the fruit I do not grow, rather than as a result of the weeds I do not pull. One of the most vicious displays of anger that ever came from Jesus was not when he drove the moneychangers from the Temple, but when he cursed and withered the barren fig tree. Why? Because it had no fruit. It failed to bring to the world that which was within its capacity to bear.
Anyone can tend a weedless garden. Anyone can keep a clean house. But not everyone can bear fruit. Still, fruit-bearing is expected. And not just any fruit….but good fruit.
“Clean house people” are those who structure their morality around avoidances….defining their goodness by what they do not do. “We don’t smoke and we don’t chew, and we don’t go with girls that do.” Which I would not disparage….unduly. After all, nine of the ten commandments begin with “thou shalt not”….meaning the 90% of them are “avoidances.” But that ethic short-circuits both the “spirit” of the law and the “style” of Jesus. It also leaves the job half done. The Ten Commandments may be a good base-level starting point for morality. But the commandments are not the sum total of Christian morality. Not even close.
I have a friend who, when you ask him how he is doing, says: “I am staying one step ahead of the sheriff.” Which calls to mind a second friend who is “keeping his nose clean.” And then there are a pair of clergy friends, one of whom is “avoiding trouble at all cost,” while the other is “hiding from the devil.” Well, pardon me if I whisper (just out of earshot): “Big hairy deal.”
It reminds me of many people I bury. I am talking about the people whose family members tell me that “they never said a bad word about anybody.” Which is nice. Even commendable. But which always makes me wonder how many good words they ever said about anybody….to anybody….for anybody….or on behalf of anybody.
The second biggest group I bury are those who “never hurt a soul.” But how many souls did they help? And a third group are defined….usually by those living near them….as having been “good neighbors.” So I press the issue. When somebody says, “He was a darn good neighbor,” I ask for a clarification. In response to which I hear:
Well, he never caused any trouble.
He pretty much kept to himself.
You hardly knew he was around.
And he always cut his grass.
Which is great. I want to live near people who cut their grass and never cause trouble. But that bears no resemblance to what the New Testament has in mind when it talks about being a good neighbor. Let us never reduce our concept of “the good neighbor” to something as shallow as that. I recall the crusty old parishioner who said: “Preacher, I do what the Bible says. I mind my own business. And I give my neighbor plenty of space to mind his.” To which I said: “Tell me where you find that in your Bible.”
By contrast, I love what John Killinger once wrote about George Buttrick when he was invited by the Christian Century to submit an essay in praise of a favorite teacher. Killinger chose Buttrick who, for decades, both preached and taught preaching at Harvard. Fortunately, Buttrick had enough good years left in retirement to teach preaching at….you guessed it….Garrett-Evangelical. Buttrick was a scholar….a wordsmith….something of a loner….hardly an activist by personality or profession. But listen to this word of tribute:
The aspect of Buttrick’s personality that stayed with me longest was the way he coupled discipline with style. His faith was tough and wiry. He seemed, every morning, to pit himself against the chaos and confusion of the world, until he accomplished something that would leave things a little more orderly when he went to bed.
I like that. In fact, I like it so much, I am going to keep it on top of my desk. Now that I don’t have all that much time left, I find myself desirous of concentrating on those things I find truly important. And to pit myself, daily, “against the chaos and confusion of the world,” is several cuts above keeping a clean house. For it will leave things “more orderly at bedtime.” But it will do one thing more. It is the only surefire, money back, one hundred percent guaranteed way to prevent the return of demons.
