July 9, 2008 + Fill the new vessel with goodness + Hayward Fong

Matthew 12:22-32, 43-45; Luke 11:14-26

Today’s study of another of Jesus’ parables deals with the realm of evil spirits. Belief in evil spirits was common among the ancient world. To a certain degree, cultures of today with ancient origins still believe in evil spirits of a sort. Acupuncture medicine deals with the c’hi of the various body parts as sources of illness. Yin – Yang deals with “spirits” of opposite natures. As a child, my father referred to certain illnesses as having a type of c’hi, which to me meant “air.” The adjectives used were words of temperature sensation…cold, tepid, warm, hot, etc. It seemed funny to say “I had hot air,” so for lack of a better term, I would think in terms of “evil spirit.” To this day, I still think like this.

In the ancient world, spirits were supposed to lurk when a man was eating and got into his body with the food. It was held to be especially true that they lurked in crumbs of food which had been lying around. They were also believed to lurk with unwashed hands and if a man ate with unwashed hands there was a great likelihood that evil spirits would enter that person’s body. They were also believed to be in the water drunk in strange places or given by a stranger. The lonely places were believed to be favorite hiding places. They believed that there was only one way to dispose of them and that was drowning them in deep water. Recall how the Gadarene demoniac was healed by drowning the swine where the evil spirit was believed to dwell.

Over and over, we read about Jesus healing people with evil spirits by commanding them to come out. These incidents present real problems to people who think of evil spirits as matters of superstition. There are many views on these reports of Jesus’ method of healing.

It may be held that Jesus was, in scientific matters, a child of the age and knew no better. It may also be held that Jesus was a wise psychologist and although He knew there were no evil spirits, He also knew they were real to people who believed possessed by them. Therefore, He treated them as real in order to cure the afflicted. Then finally, it may be that evil spirits do exist.

It would be hard to justify that Jesus was ignorant and didn’t know any better. For one thing, He did not attribute all the sicknesses to evil spirits. Further, He did not share the common ideas of where the evil spirits stayed.

Remember after the feeding of the five thousand, He ordered the disciples to gather up all the fragments. This negates the idea that He believed that evil spirits were lurking in the crumbs. He had no faith in ceremonial washing of hands which repels the notion that spirits rested on unwashed hands. He asked for a drink from the Samaritan woman at the well and afterwards entered the city, again negating the common beliefs. He retired to the desert and fasted in the wilderness, again rejecting the notion of where evil spirits lurked.

It seems quite clear that Jesus did not share the common beliefs in evil spirits and yet He treated many sick people as if they were possessed by them. So, is it really necessary to answer the question of whether demons actually exist to understand the parable?

Jesus told of an evil spirit who had been ejected from the personality of a man. The spirit wandered around seeking rest and then came back. He found the man’s personality swept and cleansed but empty. So he went and got seven spirits who were worse than himself and took over the empty personality again; and the last state of the man was far worse than the first.

Here Jesus is telling something very vivid to His audience because empty houses were suppose to be the abode of demons and no one would enter a house that had been vacant for a long time if it could be avoided. Such beliefs still exist today in a modern society such as ours.

What did Jesus mean by this Halloween story? He meant that it is no good cleansing a man of evil things without putting good things in its place. It is not possible to leave a man’s heart or mind empty. We must fill the void with good things or the evil things will come back with more force than ever.

Jesus was undoubtedly thinking of the Pharisees. All their religion was built on commandments which start “Thou shalt not…” It was a religion of not doing things. It tried to empty men of evil things but it did not tell them what the good things were. If I clean my back yard of the weeds and leave it there, what is going to happen? The yard will soon be covered with weeds again. I need to plant grass, flowers, so many that there won’t be any room for the weeds to come through. It is never enough to try to clean up our lives and merely hate evil; we must love goodness.

This has some very practical consequences. If we want to beat a bad habit the best way is to acquire a good one. Psychologists tell how our thoughts work. The substance of that part of the brain with which we think is soft. If we think a thought once, it leaves an infinitesimal scratch; if we think the thought twice, the scratch deepens; and if we go on thinking that thought, it literally runs in a groove and we cannot get it out. If we find a questionable interest getting too strong a grip of our minds and lives, the way to conquer it is to acquire another interest strong enough to drive it out.

Often when we think the wrong things, we say to ourselves, “I’ll not think about this.” The effect is usually our fixing our thoughts upon it. The real way to escape is to think on other things, to work in new activities, to gain other interests. We cannot simply drive out badness; we must eject what is bad by the power of what is good. There is only one fool proof way to do this. The Apostle Paul tells us, “For me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21); and “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). What Paul meant was that his love for Jesus has driven the lesser things out. When we find ourselves giving such love and loyalty to Jesus that He comes first, we shall find that evil things has lost their power.

Let me close with these words of Cherokee Wisdom.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

“One is EVIL. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

“The other is GOOD. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about this for a minute or so and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”