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43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it returns, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”

 

This Gospel passage is one of those that can be puzzling at best and frightening at worst. Matthew includes several passages like this one that may unsettle us as modern readers. What are we to learn from this today? When we aren’t sure, it is always helpful to turn to the overall context and narrative:

In the context of this passage, Jesus speaks to religious leaders of his time—those who would view him as an imposter, a lower-ranking Jewish Rabbi, or in some other way less than they were. Nevertheless, the Jewish leaders were proper observers of what they understood and taught to be God’s law—to the extent that it could be done by a human being. That was the problem. To the extent that it could be done by a human being. They had laboriously rid themselves of uncleanliness in their bodies and lives. They had rid themselves of what their religious culture considered to be sin. What Jesus warns, here, is that the labor of ridding oneself of sin is not only fruitless, but even dangerous (yes, you heard me right: dangerous), if it is not then filled up by submission to God’s grace found only through the new life God offers us in Jesus.

If we rid ourselves of sin only to be left empty, without grace-filled community (baptism, Lord’s Supper, joyful fellowship time, corporate worship, small-group study and relationship, working together for justice), then Jesus teaches that we will be left worse off in the end than the sinful nature with which we started.

Does that resonate? It does with me. Think of someone who is so focused on ridding themselves or the people around them of “sin” but is not living in God’s grace and has not submitted to the grace found in Jesus, that they are actually causing themselves or others harm. (Jesus IS grace. Jesus IS social justice. Jesus IS peace. Jesus IS love. That’s how you can tell the difference in people living in sin-ridding consciousness versus grace-filled consciousness.) This is perhaps one of the MOST important passages for the world today, I think.

God, let us pray for our world and its leaders, that we may all be led by Grace—by Jesus—by love, mercy, justice, and peace. As you have already freed us from sin by grace, help us to live out of that freedom, as you send us to be your faithful people, courageously showing up with your grace in the world. Amen.

Pastor Beverly Struckmann

pastorbev@livinglord.org